Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas
Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas http://www.mny.ca "is an artist who now lives on one of the Islands in the Salish Sea off Vancouver having spent almost fifty years living and working on social justice issues in his home islands of Haida Gwaii (aka QCI). MNY is a hybrid of Haida and Scot descent. His numerous roles whether as a haida singer, visual artist or forestry surveyor have all engaged him in a quest for social change. His artistic works are held in public and private collections in Canada and around the world, and he has produced numerous publications of his art work, typically around environmental and cultural justice issues. Greystone Books (Canada) published his 2008 title Flight of the Hummingbird which includes contributions by noble peace prize winners HH Dalai Lama and Wangari Maathii, and Douglas & McIntyre publishing house (Canada) is to publish his next graphic work, RED, in 2009. Furthermore in 2009 the University of British Columbia Book Press will publish an anthology including MNYs’ graphic exploration of Haida cosmology and a French film house will release a documentary animating this same work in 2010. As the creator of “Haida Manga” (working within what he calls the Haida “tradition of continual innovation”), MNY’s work is also used in Japan as a popular radio show narrative theme (Tokyo FM), a mark associated with the Japanese Slow movement, in the popular press (Kobunsha), and generally as a symbol by individuals committed to move from inaction into engagement in a variety of ecological issues. Michael was trained as a forester, and before leaving the world of industrial logging approached the CEO of one of the Provinces’ largest forestry corporations and negotiated establishment of the first forest archaeology programs in British Columbia, to recognize and protect historical and pre-contact canoe factories and Indigenous forestry management systems. He subsequently spent two decades in the struggle to conserve the temperate rain forests and associated marine environments of Haida Gwai in one of the most successful popular environmental struggles in North America that combined blockades and direct action with innovative legal, political and financial strategies that bridged indigenous and mainstream Canadian society. MNY has served as the elected chief of a Haida village and run wilderness experience cultural programs for Haida and settler youth. MNY is widely traveled and worked for many years on colonization issues affecting the South Pacific through serving as a Board member for the Pacific Concerns Resource Center, the administrative arm of the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific movement, bringing home some of the strategies he experienced there." [1]
- Trustee, Christensen Fund
