Anthropologists and Collectors The First Nations of the northwest coast of North America first came to the attention of tourists and academics in the mid-nineteenth century. Trips on boats north from Victoria were popular among upper-class people and brought them into contact with the First Nations of the coast and offering them the opportunity to acquire some mementos such as carvings or baskets. Generally speaking, objects from the northern First Nations such as the Kwakwaka'wakw, Tsimshian, and Haida were most popular because of the spectacular colours and their large scale. When collectors working for museums in Ottawa, Chicago, and New York, among other places, came looking for objects they considered "representative" of the First Nations of the coast they often acquired objects from these and other groups to the north of the Coast Salish First Nations. The consensus amongst the collectors and anthropologists who came to study the cultures from which the objects had come was that the Coast Salish First Nations had "lost" their Indigenous culture due to prolonged contact with Europeans, resulting in objects which were less desirable. However, there were still those who sought to study Coast Salish people and acquire Coast Salish objects. Most collectors hired local people to go into the villages and acquire the objects, though there is evidence that George Gustav Heye, the founder of the Museum of the American Indian and namesake of the Heye Foundation, actually visited Coast Salish villages to acquire objects. Anthropologists looking to study the Coast Salish peoples had no choice but to actually visit villages. Erna Gunther, a student of Franz Boas (the man commonly seen as the "father" of North American anthropology), undertook research that included working with weavers on the New Songhees reserve. Harlan I. Smith, an archaeologist and photographer employed by the National Museum of Man (now the Museum of Civilization) also did extensive work on the coast, including some on the Saanich Peninsula. See some pictures of field work Additional Information: Douglas Cole, Captured Heritage: The Scramble for Northwest Coast Artifacts (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1985).