On a clear day at Vancouver's Granville Island, the grey cement pillars that hold up the Granville Street Bridge, which runs above the island (in actual fact, a small manmade peninsula), are interrupted by a jolt of colour. Vibrant red and yellow shapes catch the sunlight on two pillars that face each other. Ovoids and boomerangs, and what looks like a lightning strike, crawl up the east face of one, while an enormous red-and-white fish beckons from the second. The striking mural, by Musqueam weaver and artist Debra Sparrow, is just one of several public-art installations across the city that testify to the rich and ongoing history of its original inhabitants.

The land now known as Vancouver sits on an inlet fed by the Salish Sea, a body of water once integral to the lives of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. Today, this land remains the ancestral and unceded territory of these three First Nations. Over the past decade, to acknowledge this reality and to celebrate Indigenous creativity and artistry, the City of Vancouver and several local non-profits have commissioned over 30 temporary and permanent murals by local Indigenous artists.

Here are two murals by First Nations artists - the second being a multi-artist collaboration - to check out around Vancouver.

Self-taught artist and master weaver Debra Sparrow grew up on the Musqueam Reserve and has played a vital role in the preservation of Coast Salish art and culture. Her first mural for the series “Blanketing the City,” which includes five murals across the Lower Mainland, was commissioned by the Vancouver Mural Festival (VMF), a now-defunct non-profit that supported a rich public-art project in the city from 2016 to 2024. The 13-metre-high work underneath the Granville Street Bridge incorporates elements of traditional Coast Salish textile design, and shapes and colours adapted from existing weavings by Sparrow.

In an interview about the piece for the VMF, Sparrow said, “For me, [it's] the foundation of our people rising up through these pillars. All of these beautiful designs are significant of a history that's been silenced for over 200 years. It represents all of the Salish people, not just Musqueam or Tsleil-Waututh or Squamish. We had a village site here. [The pillars] are holding up the bridge but holding up history as well.”

In the heart of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside neighbourhood stands a mural with particularly poignant significance. Cree artist Jerry Whitehead was commissioned by the Portland Hotel Society (along with several other local social-service non-profits), the City of Vancouver and the VMF to create a mural in commemoration of community members lost to the toxic-drug crisis. In collaboration with Anishinaabe artist Sharifah Marsden and Cree/Gitxan/Haida artist Corey Larocque, Whitehead designed a thunderbird and a star blanket that cover the entire western façade of 20 West Hastings Street. “[We] initiated this project as a way to uplift the community,” said Dalannah Gail Bowen of the Downtown Eastside Centre for the Arts

The mural includes a quote from local poet Bud Osborn that reads: “There is no one to care if you do not care.” At the bottom of the mural, community members have added names of loved ones lost to overdose.

Read more about 3 other inspiring murals around Vancouver in our print edition of driver magazine.

This story has been edited and condensed for clarity. Read the original version in the Spring/Summer 2025 edition of driver magazine.

Pick up your copy from an OpenRoad Group location in BC, or subscribe to receive our next issue.