Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Journeys Map. Click to go to the site.
The Squamish and Lil’wat First Nations have jointly produced a really nice website which explores the cultural landscape of their traditional territories, which lie just north of Vancouver. Edit: it looks like their website now sells kitchen products – obviously they did not keep their registration up to date.
The interactive map has dozens of “clickable” elements, taking you to place name information, to the description of rock art motifs, and to landscape features imbued with stories from history and the supernatural. Some of these include simple but effective animations, and the overall site design is clean and harmonious.
It seems that seven highway pullouts have also been designed with this information: aboriginal cultural tourism out on the land is something I have long thought has enormous potential in B.C. Looking at a book or a website is one thing, but having the information available, provided by the First Nations, at the place where the story happened or the traditional use occurred, seems like it would be very effective, and popular, way of educating the public about the thousands of years of cultural history on either side of the Olympics.
Supernatural serpent emerging from Ts’zil (Mt. Currie). Screenshot from culturaljourney.ca
Northwest Coast Archaeology 