Haida Gwaii Feature

"For many thousands of years the lands and waters of Haida Gwaii have been home to the Haida. Plants of Haida Gwaii, written with the cooperation and collaboration of Haida knowledge holders and botanical experts, is a detailed and insightful record of the traditional uses of over 150 species of native plants. Moreover, it explains the systems of knowledge and understanding that enabled the Haida to use the resources of their islands sustainably from one generation to the next over millennia. The Haida names of these plants indicate their importance, as do the many narratives featuring them. From the ts'uu--massive western red-cedars--of the forests which provide wood used for canoes, house posts, poles and boxes, and bark carefully harvested for weaving mats, baskets and hats, to the ngaal--tough, resilient fronds of giant kelp--used to harvest herring eggs, the botanical species used by the Haida are found from the ocean to the mountain tops, and are as important today as ever before. With over 250 photographs and illustrations, this book is both beautiful and informative."-- Provided by publisher

262 pages : illustrations (some colour), colour maps, portraits (some colour) ; 24 cm

Native artist Bill Reid once called Haida Gwaii, home to the Haida people, the "Shining Islands." This revised edition in Raincoast's popular Journeys series shows why. Known also as "Canada’s Galápagos," these islands are a natural marvel, featuring awesome vistas and a rich ecosystem. The islands also offer more than 400 cultural sites, including the UNESCO World Heritage village of Ninstints. Ian Gill's lively text and David Nunuk's dramatic photographs celebrate this unique, still relatively unspoiled place.

vii, 149 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), map ; 26 cm

"The Haida of the Queen Charlotte Islands in British Columbia constructed some of the most magnificent houses and erected some of the most beautifully carved totem poles on the Northwest Coast. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, images of the Haida's immense cedar houses and soaring totem poles were captured, first on glass plates and later on film, by photographers who travelled to then-remote villages such as Masset and Skidegate to marvel at, and record, what they saw there." "Haida Monumental Art ... includes a large number of these remarkable photographs, selected from a collection of over 10,000 original prints and photographic plates. They depict the Haida villages at the height of their glory and record their tragic deterioration only a few decades later. ... By combining archaeology and ethnohistory, George MacDonald presents an integrated framework for understanding the physical structure of a Haida village. He explains how the houses and poles are part of a fascinating web of myth, family history, and Haida cosmology, which provides a unique insight into Haida culture."--Back cover

218 pages : illustrations (some color), maps ; 31 cm

Kathleen E. Dalzell’s The Queen Charlotte Islands, Volume 1: 1774–1966 serves as a foundational spatial and documentary chronicle of Haida Gwaii, tracing the archipelago’s turbulent transition from an autonomous Indigenous maritime stronghold into a resource-extraction frontier. Drawing heavily on archival logs, pioneer journals, and oral testimonies, Dalzell details how European maritime fur traders, gold seekers, and homesteaders entered a densely organized geography long governed by the Haida nation, whose village sites, cedar reserves, and open-ocean canoe routes spanned the treacherous waters of Hecate Strait and Dixon Entrance. The text documents the systematic superimposition of colonial infrastructure—ranging from early mineral outposts and Anglican mission stations to commercial fish canneries, timber leases, and coastal steamer docks—directly over ancestral Haida town sites such as Masset (Kayung/Atewaas) and Skidegate (Hlgagilda). Dalzell underscores the profound physical isolation of the archipelago, illustrating how early non-Indigenous survival was wholly contingent on interdependent alliances, wage labor, and critical logistical aid from Haida mariners, who provided essential open-water canoe transport, coastal piloting, and food provisions. Ultimately, the history captures the enduring tension between expanding industrial enterprises and an unceded Indigenous marine domain, revealing how twentieth-century logging camps and civic settlements remained physically grounded upon the ancient geographic networks of the islands.

340 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.

Kathleen E. Dalzell’s The Queen Charlotte Islands, Volume 2: Places and Names serves as an exhaustive toponymic gazetteer and spatial record, documenting the linguistic and cartographic superimposition of Euro-American settlement across Haida Gwaii. Functioning as a granular geographical ledger, the volume systematically traces how eighteenth-century naval charts, colonial surveys, and pioneer mining and timber claims assigned British, Spanish, and settler monikers over ancient Haida village sites, hereditary fishing stations, and ancestral canoe passages. Dalzell details the logistics of frontier navigation, illustrating how remote infrastructure—such as isolated lighthouses, steamship landings, copper prospects, and coastal canneries—was anchored to specific sheltered inlets and treacherous tidal passages long mastered by Haida mariners. By cataloging the origins of every inlet, reef, and headland, the work reveals the geographic friction between an imposed imperial cartography and an enduring Indigenous maritime domain, demonstrating that the archipelago’s modern civic map remains an indelible palimpsest built directly upon ancestral Haida geography.

472 pages : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 23 cm