 He was a founding member of the British Columbia Museums Association, and in the 1950s worked to preserve the last remaining totem poles on Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands).In 1958, Duff and his assistant curator Michael Kew brokered an agreement with the Gitksan community of Kitwancool (a.k.a.Gitanyow), arranging for some of the village's totem poles to be removed to the RBCM for preservation, in exchange for replicas and for the publication of the Kitwancool people's histories, territories, and laws.