Mungo Martin was a highly influential and well-respected Kwakwaka’wakw carver from the Kwagu’ł community. He was born in Tsaxis (Fort Rupert), British Columbia in 1879.

Though Martin was most known for his carvings, he was also a painter, singer, songwriter, and teacher. He taught many carvers during his residency at the University of British Columbia where he worked on replications of historic totem poles. These carvers include his son Henry Hunt, grandsons Richard Hunt and Tony Hunt, and Bill Reid. Richard Hunt eventually took over the residency at the university in 1984. Martin started a family dynasty of revered carvers, furthering his legacy as a master carver.

Martin also worked with the University of British Columbia and the Royal British Columbia Museum to record approximately 400 traditional Kwakwaka’wakw songs and oral histories. He was an advocate for the preservation of Kwakwaka’wakw culture, even continuing to carve during the Potlatch ban in 1885. In 1953, Martin completed a Big House called Wawadit'la (also known as the Mungo Martin house), performing the first legal public Potlatch since the ban ended. He also created a larger scale model of this house at the Royal British Columbia Museum. Martin made a totem pole for the Mungo Martin house which is meant to represent the Kwakwaka’wakw nation. Though it would have been customary for this pole to represent his family crest, he also included several other Kwakwaka’wakw crests such as the Thunderbird, Grizzly Bear, Beaver, and Dzunuḱwa (wild woman of the woods) to represent the entire community.

A pole was raised in his memory in 1970 in Tsaxis (Fort Rupert) after his death in 1962.