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The Queen Charlotte Islands:
from coastal rainforests to Haida villages

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The Queen Charlotte Islands, by virtue of
their remote location on the edge of the
continental shelf off British Columbia's

northwest coast, and their wildness and
rugged beauty, have long held a mystique
for many people, a feeling intensified
through the images of ghostly silver
totem poles seen against backdrops of
invading salal and spruce, the remnants of
once thriving Haida villages.

The presence of plant species found nowhere else
has long suggested that this isolated group of
islands, unlike the rest of the province, escaped
total glaciation during the last great ice age, a
concept which helps add to the general sense of
mystery with which these islands are regarded.

Consisting of about 150 individual islands grouped
as a rather narrow triangle, the Charlottes are
dominated by Graham Island in the north and
Moresby in the south. Graham Island, which is
wider, flatter, and more heavily populated shows
abundant effects of human influence, while
mountainous Moresby Island is still scarcely
touched by man.

Indeed, Moresby and its associated islands, such
as Kunghit, Lyell, and Louise, constitute one of
the least disturbed and most beautiful unspoiled

areas of wilderness anywhere.

A region of high rainfall and mists, the
Charlottes are probably best known to naturalists
for their magnificent temperate rainforests and
endemic plants on the one hand, and the rich

diversity of their marine life on the other,

while to anthropologists the Haida art and
culture, past and present, offers a rich source
of interest.

The material for my illustrated lecture was
gathered over several years' participation as
Botanist on the University of British Columbia's
annual field study cruise to the Charlottes under
the auspices of the Centre for Continuing
Education. This annual cruise stresses three areas
of study: Haida art and culture, Marine Biology,
and Botany. Each of these areas is covered by a
different specialist in the field on the cruise,
but all three have been integrated for the
purposes of this lecture.

As does the real life cruise, the slide lecture
takes the audience north past Vancouver Island
and across Hecate Strait to Cape Saint James off
the southern tipof the Charlottes, and from there
gradually north through the South Moresby complex

to Graham Island. The abandoned Haida villages of
Ninstints, Tanu, and Skedans are visited along
with sites of great botanical and zoological
interest such as Flamingo and Louscoone Inlets,
Dolomite Narrows, the Copper Islands, De la
Bechne Inlet, and the Limestone Islands. North on
Graham Island the extensive beaches and dunes at
Tlell, the muskegs around beautiful Mayer Lake,
and the famous Golden Spruce near Port Clements
are highlights, along with the great Bill Reid
totem pole at Skidgate.

Bird life in these islands is equally rich and
varied, from the albatrosses, shearwaters, and
puffins seen during the crossing of Hecate Strait
to the Peregrine Falcons, Sandhill Cranes, and
the many Bald Eagles which frequent the islands
themselves.

The lecture will cover all these various aspects
in a look at a fascinating corner of Canada.

by Keith Wade

Skedans

excerpt from Klee Wyck by Emily Carr

Skedans Beach was wide. Sea-drift was scattered
over it. Behind the logs the ground sloped up a
little to the old village site. It was smothered
now under a green tangle, just one grey roof still
squatted there among the bushes, and a battered
row of totem poles circled the bay; many of them
were mortuary poles, high with square fronts on
top. The fronts were carved with totem designs of
birds and beasts. The tops of the poles behind
these carved fronts were hollowed out and the
coffins stood, each in its hole on its end, the
square front hiding it. Some of the old mortuary
poles were broken and you saw skulls peeping out
through the cracks.

-.-. I went out to sketch the poles.

They were in a long straggling row the entire
length of the bay and pointed this way and that;
but no matter how drunken their tilt, the Haida
poles never lost their dignity. They looked
sadder, perhaps, when they bowed forward and more
stern when they tipped back. They were bleached to
a pinkish silver colour and cracked by the sun,
but nothing could make them mean or poor, because
the Indians had put strong thought into them and
had believed sincerely in what they were trying to
express.

The twisted trees and high tossed driftwood hinted
that Skedans could be as thoroughly fierce as she
was calm. She was downright about everything.

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