Haida manga

Good morning! 

They say summer is a real news slowdown. Not me. December is when things really slow to a crawl, as everything begins to slow down in preparation for the holidays.

We’re working on some stories for the month, but if you have any leads, things that you feel ought to be covered in your neighbourhood, or an idea, reply to this email and let us know. We often find great story ideas from our readers.

Today we’ve got a great story about an art show at the Vancouver Art Gallery. While we do cover a lot of city hall, it’s good to take a step back and see what else is going on in the city.

Let’s dive in.

— Geoff Sharpe, Lookout managing editor and founder

PS - If you find this newsletter valuable, please consider forwarding it to your friends. New to the Lookout? Sign-up for free. 

WEATHER

Monday: 6 🌡️ 4 | 🌧️

Tuesday: 7 🌡️ 3 | 🌤️

Wednesday: 4 🌡️ 3 | ☁️

ART

Haida manga takes centre stage in Vancouver

Story by Julie Chadwick.

When Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas first got the call that his artwork had been selected to adorn a Canadian stamp, he was elated.

“I was like ‘Oh hey, I gotta tell everybody,’” he recalls. “I felt pretty good about it, because it is like cultural currency, a stamp.”

But he soon learned that the news was embargoed until it was officially released, so he would have to keep it to himself for a couple of years. On November 20, his stamp was finally unveiled by Canada Post, along with those of five other Canadian graphic artists.

Based on his 2009 graphic novel Red: A Haida Manga, which tells the story of two orphaned siblings, it references a classic Haida story from his family. The book actually started out as Red, a 6.5-square-metre mural that is now part of the permanent collection in Vancouver’s Museum of Anthropology. 

Both the stamp and book feature Yahgulanaas’s signature style, which blends together Haida storytelling with Asian brush techniques learned under the mentorship of Cantonese master Cai Ben Kwon. 

The stamp is the latest in several significant developments in Yahgulanaas’s artistic career. Clan Hat, a major mural piece commissioned by the Vancouver Art Gallery three years ago, is now on display for the first time in the gallery’s current exhibition, We who have known tides, which opened November 6. 

To get to the exhibit, visitors must move through the vivid stripes of artist Jim Lambie’s psychedelic installation in the gallery’s rotunda up the stairs to the second floor, where they’re greeted by Clan Hat as the show opener.

A massive four-by-two-metre mural made up of 108 watercolour and ink paintings on handmade Japanese mulberry paper, it takes up most of the wall. Like Red, the mural is done in a high-level manga style and tells the story of a community that lives in a clan hat-shaped structure on a pillar in the middle of the ocean that reaches to the middle of the sky.  

Instead of the typical white gutters seen in comic books, the panels in Yahgulanaas’s piece are separated by swirling black formline shapes that come together as a larger image when viewed from farther away.

“When you get close to it, you can see individual story elements, but when you're back, it's this wall of swirling shapes and you can see the black frame line, and you can sort of see something is going on. The idea behind that is the individual story that's locked inside a frame, just like in a comic book—the frame is connected to the entire story in a huge way. It’s about inclusivity,” he explains. “Things that seem to be happening separately from us, but they're actually connected anyways. There's sort of a Haida sense of cosmology there.”

When creating the murals, which takes years, Yahgulanaas starts with the frame line or what he calls “the black line” and then works the story into it.

“The scale is really difficult. I have a small studio, and if I want to look at the bigger picture, often I find myself having to go outside and peer through the window,” he says.

That large-scale part is like looking through a telescope. Each section is then made by looking at about 10 to 20 pages at a time, which he likens to using “binoculars,” and then painting each page is more like working through a microscope. “It's kind of this push-pull of perspective all the time,” he says. 

We who have known tides marks Curator Dr. Camille Georgeson-Usher’s first exhibition as Vancouver Art Gallery’s newly appointed Audain Senior Curatorial Advisor on Indigenous Art. She says Clan Hat was selected to open the show because she felt it could meet the intense energy of the installation in the staircase as viewers entered. 

“It’s so iconic, it just fits perfectly,” she says. “I love that his work, on face value, is this beautiful, fun energetic piece, but then he’s also speaking to how this adventurer is trying to sustain their community and how they are facing these external forces that don’t want them to be sustained. It’s a kind of metaphor for colonialism, the colonialists don’t want Indigenous communities to be strong and self-resilient.”

The show came together in just six months, and much of the nearly 40 works by Indigenous artists, which span the 1960s to today, draw on the gallery’s existing collection. Coincidentally, the theme of Clan Hat—finished just months before the show’s opening—fit precisely with the concept Georgeson-Usher already had for the show, which is a poetic reflection on the Pacific Ocean and what it means to be both inspired by and in relationship with it. 

“It just so happened to be the perfect storm that this incredible new work that Michael just made, we just had enough time to frame it and get it in the show,” she says. “The way that I curate, and the way that I write and how I create, is that I want all my work to be read from a joyful, feminist, queer lens that is very playful, yet political. His work is just so good, he’s very good at that.”

As a world-renowned artist with works on permanent display at The British Museum, the Humboldt Forum Foundation in Berlin (JAJ, another Haida manga mural) and at The Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac in Paris, which recently purchased nine works in Yahgulanaas’s Daalkaatlii Diaries series for their permanent collection, it’s remarkable Yahgulanaas became a full time artist later in his life.

Though his interest in visual art started early, he spent decades in politics as an environmental advocate, both as an elected Chief councillor and with the Council of the Haida Nation. He even makes a brief appearance as one of the organizers in the National Film Board’s documentary The Stand, about the Haida people’s blockade of a logging road in 1985. 

However, after years of doodling caricatures during meetings, he realized he couldn’t do political service for the rest of his life, because he didn’t want to end up “a really bitter old man.” So he decided to make art his profession.

In the end, his art has also become a space to explore politics, just in a different way. With a Haida grandfather and a Canadian grandfather of Norwegian descent, the concept of bridging cultures quickly emerged as a central theme within his work. 

“As I grew into adulthood, I realized I don't have to make a choice between, ‘Am I Indigenous or am I Canadian?’ I don't have to pick one good guy and make the other a bad guy. I can have both,” says Yahgulanaas, who divides his time between his home in Vancouver and in the village of Masset on the northern tip of Haida Gwaii. 

“That's really been the driving force behind Haida manga, was how to take the complexity — like the mural, how it speaks to different cosmologies and worldviews. It's, ‘How do I take that and share it across the cultural divide?’”

THE VANCOUVER NUMBER

15 years

That’s how long Symphonie Restaurant was open for 1140 W Pender St. #890, after it announced that it was closing. In restaurant years, that’s truly a lifetime! Read more. [Vancouver is Awesome]

THE AGENDA

⚽ In what has to be the biggest news of the weekend, the Whitecaps beat San Diego FC 3-1 on Saturday night to advance to the finals against (cue the foreboding music) Inter Miami CF and Lionel Messi. The game will take place on Dec. 6 in Florida.

🚶 I know I’m excited about the news that the Stanley Park Seawall is now back open after a two-week closure, for annual maintenance and to work on slope stabilization. Read more.  [CityNews]

📛The Lululemon Collisieum? The PNE McDonald's Agrodome? It’s probably neither of those, but the Pacific National Exhibition did announce they’re seeking proposals for naming both facilities. Read more. [Vancouver Sun]

🚘 If you drive around BC Place, prepare to find an alternate route during the 2026 FIFA World Cup. During matches, much of Pacific Boulevard and the streets near the area will be closed. Read more. [Urbanized]

🏒 It’s been a tough season for injuries for the Canucks. The team has lost Thatcher Demko and Filip Chytil, and now Conor Garland is out for Saturday’s game with an injury. The team lost 1-2 in overtime against the Kings, and is 10-13-3 and second to last in the Pacific Division. Read more. [Canucks Daily]

🛜 Lost your internet on Saturday night? It wasn’t just because you were streaming the latest season of Stranger Things — Rogers customers, including TV, internet and home phone, all lost service, though the company says it’s fixed for most people now. Read more. [Vancouver Sun]

👮 A 40-year-old man is dealing with life-threatening injuries after a hit and run on Thursday at Graveley Street and Slocan Avenue. Read more. [CTV]

EVENT GUIDE

Digital Media Youth Expo & Career Fair 2025 | Dec. 6th, 10 am-2 pm | Learn about educational and employment opportunities available in the Digital Media Industry. Meet representatives from Lower Mainland post-secondary schools | Free [Sponsored]

Sonder: Life in Lights | Yaletown route from Hamilton & Mainland to Marinaside Crescent | Now–Jan. 11, nightly from 5 pm | Outdoor light projections event | Free

A John Waters Christmas: Live! | Rio Theatre, 1660 East Broadway | Dec. 3–4, 7:30 pm | Irreverent solo holiday comedy show from the cult filmmaker with outrageous seasonal storytelling | Tickets $70+

Make It – Holiday Market | PNE Forum, 2901 East Hastings St. | Dec. 4–11 & Dec. 11–14, various times | Massive market with 100+ Canadian makers offering apparel, food, art, décor and unique gifts | Tickets $15

Gin Mill Ramblers @ WISE Lounge | The Wise Hall & Lounge, 1882 Adanac St. | Dec. 4, 8:30–11:30 pm | Irreverent jazz misfits return with hot jazz, dirty blues and eclectic instrumentals | Tickets

Toque Craft Fair | Western Front, 303 E 8th Ave. | Dec. 5, 5–9 pm; Dec. 6–7, 11 am–5 pm | Curated craft fair with textiles, ceramics, jewelry and homewares by BC artisans | Donation

Marine Gateway Holiday Market | 450 SW Marine Drive | Dec. 6, 12–6 pm | Outdoor holiday market featuring artist and artisan booths at Marine Gateway’s second annual market | Free

Riot Vancouver Sketch Comedy Holiday Spectacular | Dec. 7, 8–10 pm | A monthly live sketch show exploring local issues and events | Tickets $12

Winter Market at Vanier Park | Vanier Park, Vancouver | Dec. 7, 12 pm | Outdoor seaside market with artisans, cultural venues, entertainment and cozy holiday treats | Donation

Concord Christmas | 181 Roundhouse Mews, Vancouver | Dec. 7, 1–5 pm | Photos with Santa, live student music, crafts, cookie decorating and festive lighting at Roundhouse | Suggested donation $5+

“You Got Gold” – A Celebration of John Prine | VIFF, 777 Homer St. | Multiple Dec. dates | Film tribute to John Prine featuring performances by admired artists celebrating his life and music | Tickets $16+

Submit your event and it could appear here and reach 30,000+ Vancouver locals.

FROM THE ARCHIVE

The Park Theatre goes independent

By Nate Lewis. Originally published in October.

When Cineplex announced it was shutting down operations at the single-screen Park Theatre, there was real concern that the Cambie Village venue would shut down as a cinema — sixteen years shy of its hundredth birthday.  

But unbeknownst to most, the building’s landlord and Rio Theatre CEO Corrine Lea had been working behind the scenes since August to save the Park Theatre and its art deco facade from an uncertain fate. 

“It actually came out of nowhere,” Lea described to Vancity Lookout, explaining that she was interested right when a representative for the Park’s long-time landlord approached her a few months ago about taking over operations at the theatre, once Cineplex decided not to renew its lease. 

Read the story

NEW VANCOUVER JOBS

Discover your new dream job in Vancouver:

• Executive assistant to chief executive officer at Stalwart Insurance Group

• Account manager, public relations at Citizen Relations

• Senior strategy and economic policy specialist at BC Hydro

• Fair practices comissioner at WorkSafeBC

• Director of advancement at Simon Fraser University

GOOD NEWS MONDAY

It’s been a long time coming, but the new school in Coal Harbour is inching closer to reality, and it now has a fitting name: Seaside Elementary. It was also gifted two names from the local First Nations, cəw̓as by the Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh and Ch’elxwá7elch Skwuláw̓txw (Lost Lagoon) by the Squamish Nation. Read more. [Vancouver Sun]

COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHTS

• This lesser-known dim sum spot is as good as it gets in Vancouver

• There are lots of bad things you can find when you pick up an Evo. This is not one of them. [Reddit

• There’s a new cocktail crawl this winter with some of the best bars in the city. [Straight]

• Why some restaurants are splitting their spaces — and why it’s a real good thing for all of us

PHOTO OF THE DAY

I feel like we’re including too many history shots, but it’s hard not to when they look so cool. Though in this case the photo — Dunsmuir Street at Seymour Street in downtown Vancouver in the 1980s – doesn’t show as much of a difference as photos before the 80s that we’ve shared.

STORIES THIS WEEK