Haida Gwaii
Haida Gwaii, previously known as the Queen Charlotte Islands, is an archipelago located between off the northern Pacific coast in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The islands are separated from the mainland to the east by the shallow Hecate Strait. Queen Charlotte Sound lies to the south, with Vancouver Island beyond. To the north, the disputed Dixon Entrance separates Haida Gwaii from the Alexander Archipelago in the U.S. state of Alaska.
Haida Gwaii consists of two main islands: Graham Island in the north and Moresby Island in the south, along with approximately 400 smaller islands with a total landmass of. Other major islands include Anthony Island, Burnaby Island, Langara Island, Lyell Island, Louise Island, , Alder Island and Kunghit Island.
On June 3, 2010, the Haida Gwaii Reconciliation Act formally renamed the archipelago to Haida Gwaii as part of the Kunst'aa guu – Kunst'aayah Reconciliation Protocol between British Columbia and the Haida people.
The previous official name Queen Charlotte Islands was given by British explorer George Dixon in 1787 and the islands are known colloquially as "the Charlottes".
The islands, upon which people have lived for 13,000 years, form the heartland of the Haida Nation. Members of the Haida Nation currently make up approximately half of the islands' population. The Council of the Haida Nation was established in 1974 to "strive for full independence, sovereignty and self-sufficiency of the Haida Nation". As recently as 2015, the Haida Nation hosted First Nations delegations such as the potlatch and subsequent treaty signing between the Haida and Heiltsuk Nation. A small number of Kaigani Haida also live on the traditionally Tlingit Prince of Wales Island in Alaska. In a deal negotiated between the government and the Haida nation over the preceding decades, British Columbia in 2024 transferred the title over more than 200 islands off Canada's west coast to the Haida people, recognizing the nation's aboriginal land title throughout Haida Gwaii.
Some of the islands are protected under federal legislation as the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site, which includes the southernmost part of Moresby Island and several adjoining islands and islets. Coastal temperate rain forest at the shore, the preserve also includes the San Cristoval Mountains, so named by the first European explorer, Juan José Pérez Hernández, and the oldest surviving European place name on the BC coast. Facilities are minimal, and access is via boat or seaplane. Also protected, but under provincial jurisdiction, are several provincial parks, the largest of which is Naikoon Provincial Park on northeastern Graham Island. The islands are home to an abundance of wildlife, including a large subspecies of black bear, and the smallest subspecies of ermine, the Haida ermine, both endemic to the islands. Black-tailed deer, elk, beaver, muskrat, two species of rats, and raccoon are introduced species of mammals that have become abundant, imparting many ecological changes to the ecosystem.
Transportation
There is no public transportation on Haida Gwaii. Taxis and car rentals are available, and shuttles can be arranged.The primary transportation links between the Islands and mainland British Columbia are through the Sandspit Airport, the Masset Airport and the BC Ferries terminal at Skidegate.
The westernmost leg of Highway 16 connects Masset and Skidegate on Graham Island, and Skidegate with Prince Rupert on the mainland via regular BC Ferries service by the MV Northern Adventure. Reservations are strongly recommended for the ferry.
There is also regular BC Ferries service between Skidegate and Alliford Bay on Moresby Island. Floatplane services connect to facilities such as the Alliford Bay Water Aerodrome and Masset Water Aerodrome.
There are of highway on Graham Island. On Moresby, only of paved road line the coast.
Economy
The economy is mixed, including art and natural resources, primarily logging and commercial fishing. Furthermore, service industries and government jobs provide about one-third of the jobs, and tourism has become a more prominent part of the economy in recent years, especially for fishing and tour guides, cycling, camping, and adventure tourism. Indigenous culture tourism has been enhanced with the establishment of the Haida Heritage Centre at Kaay Ilnygaay.Education
Public education is provided through School District 50 Haida Gwaii, which operates elementary and secondary schools in Masset, Port Clements, Daajing Giids, Sandspit, and Skidegate. The Old Masset Village Council operates Chief Matthews School, a K/4 through grade 5 school. Higher education programs are offered at the Haida Heritage Centre in partnership with the University of Northern British Columbia, and with the Haida Gwaii Higher Education Society.Health care
Publicly funded health services are provided by Northern Health, the regional health authority responsible for the northern half of the province.Haida Gwaii is served by two hospitals: The Northern Haida Gwaii Hospital and Health Centre opened in 2008, and serves the northern communities of Masset, Old Massett, Port Clements and Tow Hill. The Haida Gwaii Hospital and Health Centre which first opened to patients in November 2016, is located in Daajing Giids and serves patients in the southern communities of Daajing Giids, Skidegate, Sandspit and Tlell.
Haida Gwaii has four British Columbia Ambulance stations. They are staffed by approximately 36 casual emergency medical responders, and one part-time community paramedic based in Masset.
Population
At the time of European contact in 1774, the population was roughly 30,000 people, residing in several towns and including slave populations drawn from other clans of Haida as well as from other nations. It is estimated that ninety percent of the population died during the 1800s from smallpox alone; other diseases arrived as well, including typhoid, measles, and syphilis, affecting many more inhabitants. The 1862 Pacific Northwest smallpox epidemic alone killed over 70% of the Haida people.By 1915, only 600 people remained. Towns were abandoned as people left their homes for the towns of Skidegate and Masset, for cannery towns on the mainland, or for Vancouver Island. Today, around 4,500 people live on the islands. About 70% of the Indigenous people live in two communities at Skidegate and Old Massett, with a population of about 700 each. In total, the Haida make up 45% of the population of the islands.
Anthony Island and the Ninstints Haida village site were made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2006; in the decision, the decline in population wrought by disease was referenced when citing the "vanished civilization" of the Haida.
History
Haida Gwaii is considered by archaeologists as an option for a Pacific coastal route taken by the first humans migrating to the Americas from the Bering Strait. At this time, Haida Gwaii was likely not an island; instead, it was connected to Vancouver Island and the mainland via the now-submerged continental shelf.It is unclear how people arrived on Haida Gwaii; however, archaeological sites have established human habitation on the islands as far back as 13,000 years ago. Populations that formerly inhabited Beringia expanded into northern North America after the Last Glacial Maximum, and gave rise to Eskimo-Aleuts and Na-Dené Indians.
Although unsubstantiated, an oral tradition told by the Haida Chief, Albert Edward Edenshaw, says that the Haida came from northern Alaska and travelled to Haida Gwaii in search of new territory.
Underwater archaeologists from the University of Victoria are seeking to confirm that stone structures discovered in 2014 on the seabed of Hecate Strait may date back 13,700 or more years ago and be the earliest known signs of human habitation in Canada. Coastal sites of this era are now deep underwater.
Pre-colonial era
The coastal migration hypothesis of the settlement of the Americas suggests that the first North Americans may have been here as the oldest human remains known from Alaska or Canada are from On Your Knees Cave. Anthropologists have found striking parallels between the myths, rituals, and dwelling types of the Koryaks—inhabitants of the Kamchatka Peninsula—and those of the native peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. At this time the island was twice as large as today. There is strong genetic evidence for these early people having an origin there. The Koryaks were a matrilineal seafaring people hunting whales and other marine mammals. Kujkynnjaku, the Raven, is their primary deity. Most of the Raven myths are similar to those of the Koryak.The group of people inhabiting these Islands developed a culture made rich by the abundance of the land and sea. These people became the Haida. The Haida are a linguistically-distinct group, and they have a complex class and rank system consisting of two main clans, the Eagles and Ravens.
Links and diversity within the Haida Nation were gained through a cross lineal marriage system between the clans. This system was also important for the transfer of wealth within the Nation, with each clan reliant on the other for the building of longhouses, the carving of totem poles and other items of cultural importance.
Noted seafarers, the Haida occupied more than 100 villages throughout the Islands. The Haida were skilled traders, with established trade links with their neighbouring First Nations on the mainland to California.
The Haida people regularly took slaves from their wars with other peoples around them.
Colonial era
The archipelago was first sighted by Europeans in 1774 by Juan Pérez, at Langara Island, in 1778 by James Cook and in 1786 by Lapérouse. In 1794, the Haida captured and sank two American maritime fur trade vessels seeking to acquire sea otter pelts, Ino, under captain Simon Metcalfe, which was captured in Houston Stewart Channel near Ninstints, and Resolution, captured near Cumshewa Inlet. In both cases only one crewmember survived. In 1851, the Haida captured the Georgiana, a ship carrying gold prospectors, and held its crew for ransom for nearly two months.The islands played an important role during the maritime fur trade era of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. During most of that era the trade in the islands was dominated by Americans. The Oregon Treaty of 1846 put an end to American claims to the islands. Following the discovery of gold in the 1850s the British made efforts to exclude whatever American territorial claims might remain.
The Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands was a British colony created by the Colonial Office in response to the increase in American marine trading activity resulting from the gold rush on Moresby Island in 1851. No separate administration or capital for the colony was ever established, as its only officer or appointee was James Douglas, who was simultaneously Governor of Vancouver Island. In essence, the colony was merged with the Vancouver Island colony for administrative purposes from the 1850s to 1866 when the Colony of Vancouver Island was merged with the mainland, which until that point was the separate Colony of British Columbia.