Island County Historical Society Museum is pleased to announce a lecture by Dr. George F. MacDonald, noted author, anthropologist and current director of the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture on Friday, April 30, at 7 p.m., in the Coupeville Recreation Hall. He will be lecturing on Ancestral Dreams: Painted Housefronts of the Northwest Coast and introducing the Historical Society’s upcoming temporary exhibit, Revelations: Painted Houses of the Pacific Northwest. This exhibit, on display April 2 through Aug. 30, is on loan from the Burke Museum in Seattle. Admission is $5 general, $3 seniors/students/military, $8 family, and free to all museum members and children under 5.

Born in Cambridge, Ontario, Dr. MacDonald received his B.A. from the University of Toronto and his Ph.D. in anthropology from Yale University. His early career, in archaeological and ethno-historic research, began in British Columbia and Alaska. From 1960 to 1982, he held the positions of Atlantic provinces archaeologist, West Coast archaeologist, and chief of the Archaeology Division at the National Museum of Man in Ottawa, Canada. He became director of the Archaeological Survey of Canada in 1972, and acting director of the National Museum of Man in 1983 when, under his leadership, it became the Canadian Museum of Civilization. MacDonald held the post of president/CEO of the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation until 1999; today he maintains the position of curator emeritus at this museum.

Dr. MacDonald came to the Burke in 2001 from Museum Victoria — a three-museum complex in Melbourne, Australia, where he has served as CEO. His ties to the Pacific Northwest are strong and varied. He was in residency at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia and has been a research fellow at the Museum of Anthropology at the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria. He has many academic and artistic colleagues in this region, including the Burke’s own curator of Native American Art, Robin Wright, and curator emeritus of Northwest Coast Art, Bill Holm. A vast majority of his research and writing has focused on the peoples of the coast of British Columbia and Southeast Alaska.

The author of more than 150 publications, Dr. MacDonald has written extensively about the Native cultures of the Pacific Northwest, the changing role of museums in a global context, and issues ranging from repatriation of Native artifacts to information technology in museums. His major works include “Chiefs of the Sea and Sky: Haida Heritage Sites of the Queen Charlotte Islands” (1989); “Haida Monumental Art: Villages of the Queen Charlotte Islands” (1983), and “Haida Art” (1996). He has also written “Raven’s Village: The Myths, Arts & Traditions of Native People from the Pacific Northwest Coast” (1996), and “Tsimshian Narratives 2: Trade and Worker” (1998). He co-wrote “A Museum for the Global Village” with Stephen Alford in 1988.

In his most recent research, conducted while he was living in Australia, yet also firmly rooted in his study of the Northwest Coast, Dr. MacDonald has looked at the role of art in the lives of indigenous peoples, juxtaposing the ways that Native Northwest Coast peoples create and display their artwork with the very different relationship that Australian Aboriginal peoples have with the art that they produce.

“I have always enjoyed working with Indian elders and artists, particularly among the Haida, Tlingit and Tsimshian peoples, many of whom live at least part of their time in the Seattle-Vancouver-Victoria triangle. I have a strong interest in seeing exhibits in museums that effectively change the public image of indigenous peoples.”

In addition to his publications, research, and extensive experience as a museum director, Dr. MacDonald boasts a distinguished teaching career, having held posts at Yale University, the University of British Columbia, Carleton University in Ottawa, and Simon Fraser University, among others. His appointment at the Burke Museum includes a professorship in the University of Washington’s Department of Anthropology.

For more information about Dr. McDonald’s lecture, call the 678-3310.