Anthropology, the ‘Indian industry’, white man’s guilt and Jared Diamond have been implicated as justification for Vancouver Olympic Committee Dick Pound’s comment that 400 years ago Canada was full of savages. In a Globe and Mail column, Margaret Wente writes: … North American native peoples had a neolithic culture based on subsistence living and small [...]
The Vancouver Sun reports today on aboriginal branding for the 2010 Vancouver-Whistler Olypmics. Native communities, not surprisingly, are turning to multimedia tools. There is a Facebook campaign and, at the website of the “four host first nations” ringtones and wallpaper are available. Says executive director Tewanee Joseph, of the Four Host First Nations: “Four is [...]
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
My very first blog post was about the inappropriate choice of the Inuit Inukshuk as logo of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Now, the Vancouver Olympic Committee (Vanoc) has unveiled the Olympic Mascots … and I am intrigued. The three mascots represent a variety of symbols of British Columbia — or in the words of the [...]
Monday, February 27, 2006
Vancouver radio is buzzing today with talk — mainly complaints — about the Vancouver Olympic Committee’s eight minute ‘show’ boosting Vancouver and Whistler in the closing ceremonies of the Torino Olympics. Like the initial questions about the appropriateness of an Inuit Inukshuk (and here) as the logo for the 2010 Olympics, talk radio hosts and [...]
For commentary on the Inukshuk olympic logo from aboriginal people see this story from Canada.com. The story offers opinions for and against the logo: Two B.C. native leaders say some First Nations people feel slighted by the new logo for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games and question why the emblem doesn’t have more West [...]
Thanks to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Committee ‘Inukshuk’ has become a household word (if it wasn’t already). Linguistic borrowing aside, the choice is a remarkable example of how a regional Inuit symbol instantly became a national symbol representing all of Canada. Still, if an aboriginal image is a suitable icon for the Olympics, I wonder [...]
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