Monthly Archives: February 2019

QUESNEL’s Totem

In July of 2018, I posted an item about the totem pole that was pilfered by the crew of the Flower Class corvette, HMCS QUESNEL, from Alert Bay, BC, in 1942 and has never been found.

Last week, I got a packet of pictures that had belonged to Leading Signalman Roy George Nixon of Dundas, who served in QUESNEL at the time. One shows the totem being repainted, likely by the ship’s cox’n, who is identified as J.M. McKeown.

Since the ship was scrapped in Hamilton in 1946, it is possible that the missing totem is still somewhere in the Hamilton area. It would be a great finish to the story to have it return home to Alert Bay.