Quest for a stolen totem: Regina woman unravels Second World War mystery

Bev Lundahl has spent years trying to unravel the mystery she first glimpsed in a Second World War-era photo, which has its roots in a theft that goes back more than 75 years.   

The Regina woman's search for a thunderbird totem, seen in a photo taken by crew members of her father's ship, HMCS Quesnel, has inspired her to write a book called The Thunderbird, the Quesnel & the Sea.

"This story started out as, 'What happened to it? Where was the thunderbird?' The veterans didn't know, and so we started looking for it," she told CBC Saskatchewan's Morning Edition.

The quest to recover the totem and return it home began back in 2004, when Lundahl and her father were looking through a photo album on Remembrance Day. One picture showed her father's crew aboard the ship.

"Beside them, in full view, stood a thunderbird totem. How had I missed it?" Lundahl writes in her book, saying she gasped with shock when she spotted it.

She asked her father about the totem, but it was already being used by the crew as a sort of mascot by the time he joined them, and he was unable to answer her questions.

Photo begins coast-to-coast search

Lundahl's thirst to uncover the truth would lead her from one coast to another, and to Quesnel, the small town in B.C. that gave the ship its name. The woman who worked in the Quesnel museum was the first to tell Lundahl about how the crew had acquired the thunderbird.

"It may have been stolen," she told Lundahl.

"That was the first indication this story was not going in the direction I thought it was going in," Lundahl said. "I thought, 'This doesn't sound very good.'"

From there, her search led to a cultural centre in the B.C. village of Alert Bay, where the totem  had originated.

Photo of a missing grave marker

The cultural centre had found a picture of a grave marker for a man named Michael Dutch, who had died in the 1920s.

That weatherworn marker had been taken by the crew of the Quesnel in 1942, according to Lundahl.

"They put new wings on it, they painted it, and they put it up in the crow's nest of the ship. It became their mascot until the end of the war," said Lundahl, who tracked down the surviving members of her father's crew and spoke to them as part of her research.

But the veterans told her they didn't know what had happened to the totem after the war ended.

When they had taken the totem in 1942, they were young men serving in a war, at an uncertain and dangerous time, said Lundahl. Now, through the lens of time, they see that action differently and want to make reparations, she said.

"They wanted the thunderbird returned back to Alert Bay, but of course, that hasn't happened yet."

While the mystery of where the thunderbird has gone remains unsolved, Lundahl said the federal government has indicated it is looking into making a replica to return to Alert Bay, as a way to restore the stolen grave marker.   

It remains Lundahl's great hope to see the totem restored to its rightful home.

"It would be a wonderful ending to the story."

With files from Stefani Langenegger.