When you look at all the symbols that define British Columbia, there may not be one with more meanings to different people over the last 200 years than the totem pole.

"They both symbolize, I think, what's the best and the worst of British Columbia history, all wrapped in that one symbol," said John Lutz, a University of Victoria historian who wrote the chapter on totem poles in the book, Symbols of Canada. 

From their origins in pre-colonial British Columbia as visual representations of family h…