Gwaii Haanas

Gwaii Haanas covers the southern third of Haida Gwaii and is unusual in being protected continuously from the sea floor to the mountain tops, and in being co-managed as equals by the Haida Nation and the government of Canada after the Haida stood in the road to stop logging in 1985. There are no roads, no lodges and no services: visitors arrive by chartered boat or float plane and travel by kayak or sailboat between old village sites, hot springs and inlets. Watchmen from Haida communities live at five of those sites through the summer. The forest is thick with Sitka spruce and cedar, black bears here are the largest of their subspecies, and the waters hold humpbacks and orcas.

History

The Haida trace their ancestry in these islands back 8,000 to 14,000 years, and their oral histories say they lived in Gwaii Haanas when the first trees arrived at the Bolkus Islands as the glaciers retreated; pollen shows trees arriving 14,500 years ago. Plans to extend logging to Burnaby Island in the 1970s led the Haida Nation to declare the Haida Heritage Site over the southern third of the archipelago in 1985; logging ended in 1987, the South Moresby National Park Reserve followed a year later, and the 1993 Gwaii Haanas Agreement gave it its present name and a management board with equal numbers from the Haida Nation and Canada (Wikipedia, Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site).

The landscape

• Hotspring Island - natural pools above the shore, restored after an earthquake.
• Watchmen sites - Haida guardians at five old village locations.
• Sea kayaking - the classic way to travel between inlets and islands.
• The Legacy Pole - raised in 2013, the first in the park in over a century.

When to go

June to September is the season, when Watchmen are in place and charters run; July and August have the most settled weather. Every visitor must complete an orientation before entering. Independent trips need experience, a permit and reservations that open months ahead.

Before you go

This is expensive and logistically demanding: flights to Haida Gwaii, then a charter, with costs that put a week here well beyond a normal park trip. Weather cancels crossings and float plane pickups routinely, so build in spare days. Independent kayaking is for experienced expedition paddlers only. Numbers at each site are capped.

Nearby

Skidegate and the Haida Heritage Centre are the staging point; SGang Gwaay is within the reserve.

Key facts