The Way Home

Crafted from memories, legends, and art, this powerful memoir tells the uplifting story of an Indigenous man’s struggle to reconnect with his culture and walk in the footsteps of his father and the generations of Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw artists that came before him.

David A. Neel, carver, jeweller, painter, printmaker, writer, and photographer, comes from a family of traditional Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw artists, including Dave Neel Sr., Ellen Neel, Mungo Martin, and Charlie James. In addition to apprenticing with carvers in Alert Bay, he received training in writing and photography from the University of Kansas and Mount Royal College in Alberta. He is the author of Our Chiefs and Elders: Words and Photographs of Native Leaders (1992) and The Great Canoes: Reviving a Northwest Coast Tradition (1995). He is dedicated to the promotion and preservation of Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw traditional art and culture.

"A spellbinding memoir with universal reach … beautifully told and illustrated … Neel's memoir is written with the same calm mastery he brings to all his art. This is a wise, eloquent, and deeply moving book." — 2020 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction jury (Helen Knott, Sandra Martin, and Ronald Wright)

Latash-Maurice Nahanee:
The Way Home is filled with portrait photography that conveys stories that cannot be told by words alone. In this image-filled memoir we are also invited into Neel’s creative journey through his descriptions and photos of his own carved masks and his precious metal jewelry.