Talk:Canadian totem

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A fact from Canadian totem appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 21 June 2026 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that one of the original carvers of a totem pole (detail pictured) described efforts to restore it as akin to "sending a carpenter to repaint the Mona Lisa"?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Did you know archive/2026/June. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Canadian totem.

Did you know nomination

Latest comment: 2 months ago5 comments3 people in discussion

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. Track your hook after promotion. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Darth Stabro (talk) 12:00, 15 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

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Canadian totem pole

... that one of the original carvers of a totem pole (detail pictured) described efforts to restore it as akin to "sending a carpenter to repaint the Mona Lisa"?

Source: Smart, Amy (2014-04-06). "High anxiety: Totem angst, from Victoria to Mexico City". Times Colonist. Archived from the original on 2026-05-19. Retrieved 2026-05-19. “It’s total disrespect. Not just to me, but to my grandfather, who was one of the greatest artists of his time,” he said. “It’s like sending a carpenter to repaint the Mona Lisa.”

- ALT1: ... that the one of the last major projects carver Mungo Martin worked on before his death is in a Mexican park? Source: ibid,
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Sarah Fischer (soprano)
- Comment: ... okay, so I know in my heart that ALT1 fails WP:DYKINT for a general audience, but it's cool! Re:image, Mexico has freedom of panorama for works in public places. This totem pole is in a public park.

Moved to mainspace by GreenLipstickLesbian (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 16 past nominations.

GreenLipstickLesbian 💌🧸 06:13, 20 May 2026 (UTC).Reply

I can review this! :D (Spectacular name btw) Finnfrog99 (talk) 20:44, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
Freely licensed: Used in article: Clear at 100px:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Looks good to go! You should explain what Cedar Man is, but I wont hold this up over that. I do agree that ALT1 is uninteresting, only passing ALT0, sorry. Finnfrog99 (talk) 20:51, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

- - (Aww, thanks!!) No worries about Alt1, no need to apologize! Adding an explanation does seem a good idea. Kwakwakaʼwakw culture isn't my area especially, but Cedar Man is a spirit/personification of cedar trees that often appears in PNW coast art, though I think the exact significance varies from group to group... none of the sources go into that much detail about what Cedar Man meant for Martin, specifically. I add an efn though, I think, with Richard Hunt (artist), another relation of Martin's, explaining the meaning of the Cedar Man in his & Martin's other works, though. GreenLipstickLesbian 💌🧸 01:39, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply