Potlatch: A Tsimshian Celebration is a colourful photo-essay about a 13-year-old Tsimshian boy and his father's home community, Metlakatla, Alaska as they participate in a Potlatch. David Boxley spends the summer with his father in the community where his father grew up. A brief history of the Tsimshian of the Northwest Coast explains their geographic location and culture. An important ceremony known as the Potlatch commemorates important events such as the death of a chief and the inheritance of the replacement chief. Witnesses of the memorial ceremony receive a variety of gifts from traditional food such as ooligan to modern-day gifts of blankets and fruit from the hosts' clan family. Missionaries and government officials in Canada worked to stop the ceremony and what they believed to be an extravagant waste. They actually passed a law preventing the Potlatch. They did not understand its importance to the Northwest Coast First Nations. After years of going underground with the event, the community of Metlakatla revived the Potlatch. David's father helped to organize the first Potlatch in the community when David was a little boy. Now the youth is participating in the preparations, the ceremony and the give-away. In fact his artistic father helped David with a special piece of artwork known as silkscreen prints that would be given to the witnesses of the Potlatch. The four day ceremony is explained by David as he is in charge of a special totem pole raising in the community. Special family and clan dances, feasting, and the give-away are other important parts of the ceremony. Throughout the book the warmth and caring of this small Tsimshian are shown in the images and text. A glossary, maps and index are included in this excellent resource for elementary students who want to learn about the contemporary Tsimshian of Alaska and British Columbia through the eyes of a Tsimshian youth.