“More than 3,000 years ago, Indigenous peoples of the coast of British Columbia (and adjacent areas of Washington State and southeastern Alaska) such as the Haida and Kwakiutl developed artistic traditions that are heralded throughout the world for their imaginative and stylistic qualities. Apart from their sophisticated design and refined craftsmanship, the masks and totem poles familiar from Northwest Coast Aboriginal art powerfully impacted the work of major American abstract artists such as Barnett Newman, gave rise to a revival of craftsmanship on the Northwest Coast over the past thirty years, and shaped the work of contemporary Aboriginal artists such as Brian Jungen who have largely worked within the mainstream western art world.”

Halpin, Marjorie M., “Northwest Coast Indigenous Art”. In The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada. Article published February 07, 2006; last modified August 02, 2017.

What Canadian Arctic Gallery is offering belongs to the Contemporary time period.

“In weaving, all of the techniques found elsewhere in North America were used, except true loom (heddle) weaving. The inland Tlingit excelled in false embroidery; the Haida in “self-designed” twined spruce-root hats; the Coast Salish in cherry-bark imbrication on coiled baskets; and the Nuu-cha-nulth(Nootka) or West coast women in twined cedar-bark hats with onion-shaped tops, overlaid with strands of beargrass woven in conventionalized whale-hunting scenes.

An exceptional formline weaving technique was developed in the north, becoming a specialty of the Chilkat Tlingit in the 19th century. Chilkat blankets are the highest-valued examples of the weaver’s art, worn by chiefs as far south as the Southern Kwakwaka’awakw (Kwakiutl). The warps are shredded cedar bark twisted with mountain goats’ wool; the wefts are pure wool.

The Coast Salish made twill-plaited blankets in geometric designs out of goat wool, cattail fluff and (reportedly) the hair of a small fluffy dog, extinct since early contact times. In the 1980s, women from the Musqueam community near Vancouver revived the art of making twill-plaited blankets. Basket making has also continued with some vitality among the Coast Salish and Nuu-cha-nulth women and is being revived among the Tsimshian and Haida. Woven blankets were replaced by Hudson’s Bay Co woolen blankets — both for dancing and as potlatch gifts. Crest designs were sewn on woolen blankets in buttons, shells and appliqué.”

Halpin, Marjorie M., “Northwest Coast Indigenous Art”. In The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada. Article published February 07, 2006; last modified August 02, 2017.