Henry Hunt

For nearly 20 years, Hunt worked as a carver at the Royal British Columbia Museum’s Thunderbird Park (see Northwest Coast Aboriginal Art). He was the grandson of Kwakwaka'wakw ethnographer George Hunt and father of carvers Tony Hunt, Richard Hunt and Stanley Hunt.

Henry Hunt began his career as a fisherman and logger, but later moved to Victoria, BC, to assist his father-in-law and distinguished Kwakwaka’wakw artist, Mungo Martin, as a carver at Thunderbird Park. Martin and Arthur Shaughnessy, another well-known Kwakwaka'wakw carver, taught Hunt the art of carving. In association with the British Columbia Provincial Museum (now the Royal British Columbia Museum), Hunt helped to restore and preserve Aboriginal art in Thunderbird Park for nearly 20 years. After Martin’s death in 1962, Hunt became the Thunderbird Park master carver.

Henry Hunt, and the family of artists who surrounded him, helped to preserve and promote the traditional artwork, stories and artistic techniques of the Kwakwaka’wakw culture.