Lecture: The Coast Salish Woolly Dog

Event type: In-person
Location: Rotary Gallery of the Courtenay and District Museum
Speaker: researcher and writer on Coast Salish textiles Liz Hammond-Kaarremaa
Tickets: $5 for Historical Society members; $6 for general public. Advance tickets recommended. Tickets can be purchased over the phone by calling 250-334-0686 ext 2.

The Coast Salish Peoples bred a dog known as the Coast Salish Woolly Dog for its wool.  It started to disappear around the 1850s.  The only known pelt of a dog, named “Mutton,” was sent to the Smithsonian Institution in 1859 where he was forgotten in a drawer for 140 years. During that time doubt grew about the dog, the use of its wool in blankets and the demise of the breed that devalued the cultural context and ignored the impact of colonialism.

For the last three years, Liz Hammond-Kaarremaa has been a Research Associate working along with others at the Smithsonian and a group of Coast Salish people on a project finding out as much as possible about Mutton’s genetics. These findings have been combined with Oral History contributed by Elders, weavers and Knowledge Keepers, and have revealed careful husbandry of the dogs over thousands of years and how colonialism contributed to its extinction.

Reconstruction of Mutton by Karen Carr.

This research has resulted in a recently published book The Teachings of Mutton: A Coast Salish Woolly Dog written by Liz and a dozen Coast Salish collaborators. Copies of The Teachings of Mutton (Harbour Publishing) will be available for purchase ($36.95 plus tax) and signing after the talk.

This illustrated presentation will give a brief overview of Mutton’s story and what the research uncovered.

Liz holds a MA in Educational Technology and a Master Spinners Certificate. Now retired from Vancouver Island University where she held the position of Director of Research Services, she spends much of her time studying Coast Salish textiles. She is a Research Associate with the Smithsonian and with VIU’s Anthropology Department.

Photo by Manu Ronse

She has worked with various museums including: the British Museum, Pitt Rivers Museum, the RBCM, the Smithsonian Institution, MoA at UBC and the Burke Museum helping to identify yarns, fibres, tools and techniques used to create textiles. Liz was instrumental in identifying a rare blanket in the Burke Museum confirmed to be made of Woolly Dog hair.

Liz has given many presentations and workshops on the subject of Coast Salish spinning and textiles to Coast Salish spinners and weavers and has written articles on the subject for magazines such as Selvedge, Spin-Off, Ply, BC Studies and the latest one “The History of Coast Salish ‘Woolly Dogs’ Revealed by Ancient Genomics and Indigenous Knowledge” was published in Science. She also reviews books for The British Columbia Review.

Liz lives on Protection Island, BC, in Snuneymuxw territory.