1884 SILVER DOLLAR VALUE

Eagle When She Flies

Dolly Parton's solo albums of the '80s and '90s are as spotty as a Dalmatian in a leopard-skin coat, as she moved from writing powerful ruminations on isolation and loss, to playing good ol' gals in the movies and dueting with hunks du jour to stay on the charts. With Eagle she manages to rid herself of the tacky production that marred many of her latter releases, only to lose ground to an age-old problem: Parton seems not to be able to weed out her worst work, witness "Dreams Do Come True," a musical romance novel in which she whispers the gooey line, "Like the morning sun, his love moved across every inch of my body." Once out of Janet Dailey mode, however, Parton shines on a host of understated songs, including "Rockin' Years," with Ricky Van. Although it would be years before she made another album equaling the brilliance of her early work, Eagle finds a spark of new promise. --Alanna Nash

Skye or the Isle of Skye (Scottish Gaelic: An t-Eilean Sgitheanach or Eilean a' Cheo) is the largest and most northerly island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The island's peninsulas radiate out from a mountainous centre dominated by the Cuillin hills. Although it has been suggested that the first of these Gaelic names describes a "winged" shape there is no definitive agreement as to the name's origins.

The island has been occupied since the mesolithic period and has a colourful history including a time of Norse rule and a long period of domination by Clan MacLeod and Clan Donald. The events of the 19th century had a devastating impact on the human population, which declined from over 20,000 to around 9,200 in the early 21st century. Nonetheless, in contrast to many other Scottish islands, this represents a 4 per cent increase from the census of 1991. The main industries are tourism, agriculture, fishing and whisky-distilling. The largest settlement is Portree, known for its picturesque harbour.

Skye is part of the Highland Council local government area and is now linked to the mainland by a road bridge. The island is renowned for its spectacular scenery, vibrant culture and heritage, and its abundant wildlife including the Golden Eagle, Red Deer and Atlantic Salmon.

Skye's history includes the influence of Gaelic, Norse and English speaking peoples and the relationships between their names for the island are not straightforward. The Gaelic name for the "Isle of Skye" is An t-Eilean Sgitheanach (or Sgiathanach, a more recent and less common spelling). The meaning of this name is not clear. Various etymologies have been proposed, such as the "winged isle" or "the notched isle" but no definitive solution has been found to date and the placename may be from a substratum language and simply opaque.

For example, writing in 1549, Donald Munro, High Dean of the Isles wrote: "This Ile is callit Ellan Skiannach in Irish, that is to say in Inglish the wyngit Ile, be reason it has mony wyngis and pointis lyand furth fra it, throw the dividing of thir foirsaid Lochis".

There were, however, earlier references to the Isle. Roman sources refer to the Scitis (see the Ravenna Cosmography) and Scetis can be found on a map by Ptolemy. A possible derivation from skitis, an early Celtic word for "winged", which may describe the island's peninsulas that radiate out from a mountainous centre, has also been suggested.

In the Norse sagas Skye is called Ski?, for example in the Hakonar saga Hakonarsonar saga and a skaldic poem in the Heimskringla from c. 1230 which contains a line that translates as "the hunger battle-birds were filled in Skye with blood of foemen killed". According to other authors, it was referred to in Norse as skuy (misty isle), skyey or skuyo (isle of cloud). It is not certain whether the Gaelic poetic name for the island, Eilean a' Cheo "isle of the mist" precedes or postdates the Norse name. Some legends also associate the isle with the mythic figure of Queen Scathach.

At 1,656 square kilometres (639 sq mi), Skye is the second-largest island in Scotland after Lewis and Harris. The coastline of Skye is a series of peninsulas and bays radiating out from a centre dominated by the Cuillin (Gaelic:An Cuiltheann) hills. The main peninsulas include Trotternish in the north, Waternish, Duirinish, Minginish and Strathaird to the west and Sleat in the south. Surrounding islands include Isay, Longay, Pabay, Raasay, Rona, Scalpay, Soay and Wiay. Malcolm Slesser suggested that its shape "sticks out of the west coast of northern Scotland like a lobster's claw ready to snap at the fish bone of Harris and Lewis" and W. H. Murray that "Skye is sixty miles long, but what might be its breadth is beyond the ingenuity of man to state".

Martin Martin visited the island and reported on it at length in a 1703 publication. His geological observations included a note that:

There are marcasites black and white, resembling silver ore, near the village Sartle: there are likewise in the same place several stones, which in bigness, shape, &c., resemble nutmegs, and many rivulets here afford variegated stones of all colours. The Applesglen near Loch-Fallart has agate growing in it of different sizes and colours; some are green on the outside, some are of a pale sky colour, and they all strike fire as well as flint: I have one of them by me, which for shape and bigness is proper for a sword handle. Stones of a purple colour flow down the rivulets here after great rains.

The Black Cuillin, which are mainly composed of basalt and gabbro, include 12 Munros and provide some of the most dramatic and challenging mountain terrain in Scotland. The ascent of Sgurr a' Ghreadaidh is one of the longest rock climbs in Britain and the Inaccessible Pinnacle is the only peak in Scotland that requires technical climbing skills to reach the sum

The Spirit of Haida Gwaii
Bill Reid

Canadian Embassy
501 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC

Something on the order of a million Canadians can trace their ancestry in whole or in part to the First Nations — people living in North America before the days of Leif Ericson, Christopher Columbus or Jacques Cartier. But intellectually, spiritually and materially, all Canadians are indebted to Canada's aboriginal peoples and cultures.

Those cultures include, among many others, the Inuit whalers and fishermen of the Arctic; the Ottawa and Iroquois agriculturalists of the Great Lakes; the Cree and Chipewyan hunters of the northern forests; and the many communities of settled villagers fishing, hunting and trading on the Northwest Coast.

The Haida are one of Canada's First Nations. Their ancestral territory — shown on current maps as the Queen Charlotte Islands, off the coast of British Columbia — is known to most of those who live there now as the Islands of the People, Haida Gwaii.

For centuries before Europeans arrived on the west coast of North America, the Haida built beachfront villages of large, square wooden houses fronted by totem poles. As islanders, fishermen and active traders, they were also skilled in the making and handling of large, seagoing dugout canoes.

Haida artist Bill Reid, who was born in 1920 and died in 1998, made several of these traditional dugout canoes, carved some of the finest twentieth-century totem poles, and built several traditional Haida houses as well.

Throughout his career, Reid also worked in gold, silver, boxwood and other media using European tools and techniques. His work traverses cultural boundaries just as it spans the range from diminutive to monumental scale. The Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C., is proud to be the home of Reid's largest and most complex work of sculpture: a Haida canoe carrying thirteen figures, cast in bronze. This massive piece of architectural jewelry is 6 m (20 ft) long, nearly 4 m (13 ft) high and weighs close to 5000 kg (11, 000 lb). Five years in the making, it was completed and installed in 1991. The title Reid gave it is The Spirit of Haida Gwaii.

Haida mythology is rich and complex, like the mythologies of ancient Greece and ancient Mexico. It is the subject of many books and has been the lifetime pursuit of a number of scholars. But as Bill Reid's sculpture proves, it is not confined to books or to cultural history alone. A living web of stories clings to the creatures in this canoe.

Perched at the stem, holding the steering oar, is the Raven, who is the trickster of the Northwest Coast and the principal figure in countless Haida stories. Crouched under his tail is the Mouse Woman, the traditional guide and advisor of those who travel from the human world to the nonhuman realms of Haida myth.

In the bow of the boat, facing astern, is the Grizzly Bear. Near him, facing forward and paddling on the port side, is his human wife, the Bear Mother. Stories of the Woman Who Married the Bear, like stories of the Raven, are told not only in Haida Gwaii but in almost every native community in the Canadian subarctic and along the Northwest Coast. Between the Bear and his human wife are two other characters important in these stories: their children, the Two Cubs. Reid calls them Good Bear and Bad Bear, alluding not to Haida myth but to a children's poem by A.A. Milne. (They are easily distinguished: Bad Bear's ears point back and Good Bear's forward.)

Behind the Bear Mother is the Beaver. He is one of Canada's national symbols now, but in Haida mythology he is one of the Raven's uncles, who in the early days of the world lived on the floor of the sea hoarding all the fresh water and fish in the world. Behind him is the Dogfish Woman, a shape-changing creature who is part human and part shark.

Across from the Bear Mother, on the starboard side, is the Eagle. Beneath him, perched on the gunwale, is the Frog. Arched across the centre of things is the Wolf, with his claws in the Beaver's back and his teeth in the Eagle's wing. Behind the shoulders of the Wolf and beneath the Raven's massive head is a human paddler whom Reid calls the Ancient Reluctant Conscript. And at the centre of this menagerie stands another human being: the shaman, the chief, whose title in Haida is Kilstlaai. The robe he wears and the staff in his hand — a sculpture-within-a-sculpture, portraying the Seabear, the Raven and the Killer Whale — allude to further stories central to the Haida view of the world. Apart from their importance in Haida mythology, many of these figures are crucial to Haida heraldry as well. Raven and Eagle, for instance, are emblems of the two halves or sides of the Haida social order. And the Wolf is a crest of Reid's own family or clan, the Qqaadasghu Qiighawaai of the Raven side.

The figures carved on Haida totem poles are often chosen for mythological reasons, often for heraldic ones. On some poles, the figures function in both terms at once.