A sacred totem pole belonging to an indigenous tribe in northern British Columbia returned home after 77 years in a Swedish museum.

The 19th century G'psgolox totem pole, named after the chief who commissioned the carving after the death of his wife and kids, arrived in Vancouver by ship Wednesday.

It was unveiled to the Haisla First Nation on Wednesday evening at the University of British Columbia's Museum of Anthropology.

It will be temporarily housed at the museum before it will eventually be returned to its rightful place in the village of Kitamaat in northern B.C.

The pole is a significant cultural treasure for the Haisla, who erected the nine-metre carving in 1872 to honour a forest spirit for saving them from a smallpox epidemic that devastated their community.

According to the Haisla Totem Pole Repatriation Project, a Swedish consul stationed in Prince Rupert, B.C. negotiated taking the totem pole back to Sweden in the late 1920s, which had been a dream of his.

The pole was taken from the mouth of the Kitlope Valley, the world's largest unlogged temperate coastal rainforest, and shipped to Stockholm in 1929 and donated to the national museum.

A recent Canadian documentary, however, concludes the pole was cut down and stolen, with the tribe discovering the theft after returning from a fishing trip.

"They took it under what some people describe as dubious conditions, and brought it over to Sweden," Gerald Amos, chairman of the Haisla Totem Pole Committee, told CTV Vancouver.

"They're never supposed to be moved, these totem poles. In our culture, when they fall, they go back to mother earth where they came from."

The Haisla began a worldwide search for the prized treasure, and finally located it in Sweden's National Museum of Ethnography in 1990.

The museum displayed the pole in 1980 after it had been in storage for almost 50 years. Today it is one of the most popular attractions.

Haisla elder Louisa Smith, a descendant of Chief G'psgolox, was able to see the pole in 1991 when she traveled to the Sweden museum.

The Haisla demanded the heirloom be returned to its rightful home, saying it had been taken without their consent at a difficult time when their people were ravaged by disease.

Discussions to return the pole began in 1991, and went on for years with little progress. In 1994, the Swedish government mandated the pole be returned, but the repatriation was stalled because museum officials demanded it be placed in an expensive, climate-controlled facility upon return, which the tribe couldn't afford.

Haisla elders recently allowed Ecotrust Canada, a Vancouver-based non-profit group, to step in to help their cause and work with Canada's federal government, the B.C. government and the Swedish government.

The Haisla, who will erect the G'psgolox pole in their village of Kitamaat, near Kitimat, created a replica and gave it to the Swedish museum as a gift. One of the three carvers of the replica is the grandson of the original carver.

Amos said the pole's official ceremonial handover will occur June 19 at the opening of the Urban World Forum in Vancouver.

The pole will then make its way to Kitamaat at the end of June before a celebration by the Haisla First Nation on July 1.

A second pole is to be erected by the Haisla in Misk'usa, where the original pole stood.

According to the Haisla Totem Pole Repatriation Project, it was common long ago for missionaries and explorers to take artifacts from B.C.'s remote communities.