It was a typical day at Vancouver's Museum of Anthropology. Patrons gazed at the west coast totem poles, the painted masks and carved feast bowls. Bill Reid's depiction of the Haida creation story, with Raven perched atop a clam shell, the first people crawling out below was in the background, and artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas explained how he was about to turn things upside down.

"See this 27-foot canoe," he pointed at a boat carved in 1985 by Reid and others. "We're flipping it over and tying it to the top of an 11-foot Pontiac Firefly."