Burnaby Mountain, Canada / Turtle Island
When visiting Burnaby in 1986, Kushiro-based Ainu carver Nuburi Toko decided to create a sculpture representing the relationship between Burnaby and Kushiro, which have been sister-cities since 1966.
The result is Kamui Mintara (Playground of the Gods), a landscape of carved wooden pillars on the western flank of Burnaby Mountain. Erected in 1990 for 25 years of Burnaby-Kushiro friendship, the park around it was officially renamed to Kushiro Park in 2015 in honour of 50 years of the Burnaby-Kushro relationship.
Kamui Mintara does not exactly represent traditional Ainu art. Just like his contemporary Bikky Sunzawa, who had visited British Columbia in 1983, the Tokos were inspired by the visual forms of the Indigenous Northwest Coast style. Kamui Mintara’s carved columns are modelled on totem poles, which are not a feature of Ainu culture. The sculpture’s title and placement on the relatively diminutive Burnaby Mountain are supposed to evoke Hokkaido’s Mount Daisetsu, which the Ainu call Kamui Mintara, playground of the Gods.