Leonard Alfred was born in 1952 Alert Bay. At the Northeast Coast of Vancouver Island, Alert Bay is part of the Kwakwaka'wakw territory that reaches the adjacent mainland and covers the many Islands in between. The Kwakwaka'wakw - "speakers of Kwakwala" - or Kwakiutl nations are masters of art and drama. They traditionally spent half their year living with family clans, and half the year within secret societies that performed masked dances in winter ceremonies, which overshadowed the pageantry and spectacle of all the other potlatching nations of the pacific coast. In fact, the seclusion of the Kwakiutl's many inlets and island communities allowed Leonard's people to continue potlatching in secret during Canada's oppressive ban of the potlatch from 1885 until 1951.

Leonard inherited Sun and Eagle as crests from a family with a great artistic tradition, and gained most other Kwakiutl crests through marriage. He is descended from the 'Namgis band of the Kwakiutl whose traditional home was the valley of the Nimpkish River that meets the sea neat Alert Bay. They call the river Gwa'ni honouring the supernatural origins of both the river and their ancestors. The story goes that an ancestral chief named Gwa'nalalis was changed by K'anikilakw, the Transformer, into a river, "full of salmon so that your descendants may never starve."

The Kwakwaka'wakw - "speakers of Kwakwala" - or Kwakiutl nations are masters of art and drama. They traditionally spent half their year living with family clans, and half the year within the secret societies that performed masked dances in winter ceremonies, which overshadowed the pageantry and spectacle of all the other potlatching nations of the pacific coast.

Growing up surrounded by 'Namgis woodcarvers, Bruce and Wayne Alfred were Leonard's first teachers and then Joe Wilson. Leonard also had the opportunity to study under the master Kwakiutl carver Beau Dick, who taught art at the Alert Bay High School. Today he carves many large cedar plaques and the masks of the many characters of the winter dance ceremonies.