This presentation focuses on the image produced by Tsimshian photographer Benjamin Alfred Haldane (1874-1941). Known by a nickname composed of his first two-initials “B.A.,” he was born to Matthew and Ada Haldane on June 15, 1874, in Metlakatla, British Columbia. B.A. was of the Laxgyibuu (Wolf Clan) from the Ginadoiks tribe. At thirteen-years-old he participated in the mass movement of 823 Tsimshian people who, accompanied by lay missionary William Duncan, established the community of Metlakatla, Alaska in their quest for government-sanctioned land rights in 1887. Having opened a portrait studio there in 1899, B.A. is considered to be one of the first Indigenous people to become a professional photographer in North America. Using archival, community-based research, and Indigenous research methodologies, this presentation demonstrates the complex and subversive ways in which B.A.’s photography was utilized by First Nations people in Alaska and British Columbia as a means to resist colonial oppression of their cultural practices.

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Born and raised on the Annette Island Indian Reserve, Sm Łoodm ’Nüüsm (Dr. Mique’l Dangeli) is of the Tsimshian Nation of Metlakatla, Alaska. She is a dancer, choreographer, curator, educator, and activist. Her work focuses on Northwest Coast First Nations and Alaska Native visual and performing arts, art history, protocol, politics, sovereignty, cultural resurgence, language revitalization, and decolonization. For the past 14 years, she and her husband Mike Dangeli have shared the leadership of Git Hayetsk, an internationally renowned dance group specializing in ancient and newly created songs and mask dances. Dr. Dangeli is a K-12 Sm’algya̱x (Tsimshian language) teacher at the ‘Na Aksa Gila̱k’yoo School in Kitsumkalum and an Adjunct Professor of First Nations Studies at the University of Northern British Columbia.