Wilson Duff

Wilson Duff (Vancouver, March 23 1925 – August 8, 1976) was a Canadian archaeologist, cultural anthropologist, and museum curator.

He is remembered for his research on First Nations cultures of the Northwest Coast, notably the Tsimshian, Gitxsan, and Haida, and especially for his interest in their plastic arts, such as totem poles. Along with Bill Holm and Harry Hawthorn, he was one of a small coterie of academics in the 1950s and '60s who worked to bring Northwest Coast art to international prominence.

Duff obtained a B.A. from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 1949 and a master's in anthropology in 1951 from the University of Washington in Seattle, where he studied with Erna Gunther. His master's thesis was based on fieldwork with the Stó:lõ Salish people of the Fraser River in B.C. He collaborated with Charles E. Borden in 1952 to develop the Borden System for archeological site designations. He served as Curator of Anthropology at the British Columbia Provincial Museum (later known as the Royal British Columbia Museum or RBCM) in Victoria from 1950 to 1965, at which point he joined the faculty at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at UBC. He was a founding member of the British Columbia Museums Association, and in the 1950s worked to preserve the last remaining totem poles on Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands).

In 1958, Duff and his assistant curator Michael Kew brokered an agreement with the Gitksan community of Kitwancool (a.k.a. Gitanyow), arranging for some of the village's totem poles to be removed to the RBCM for preservation, in exchange for replicas and for the publication of the Kitwancool people's histories, territories, and laws. During this project, Duff and Kew worked through the part-Tlingit interpreter for the Gitksan, Constance Cox.

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