Culture

Haida Gwaii Renaissance

By Masa Takei

In the Haida Gwaii archipelago, new opportunities to experience ancient traditions await those willing to make the trek.

Outside, waves lap onto the pebbly shores near Skidegate, where seagoing Haida canoes have launched and ground ashore for time immemorial. A stone’s throw away, inside the freshly built Haida Heritage Centre, rests Loo Taas ("Wave Eater"), the 50-foot Haida war canoe carved by famed Haida artist Bill Reid. Next door, in Ga Taa Naay – the Heritage Centre’s Eating House – my travel companions and I join in honouring the return of Haida ancestors. This involves diving into heaping plates of kaaw (herring roe on kelp), naaw (octopus balls), Dungeness crab, fried bread, clam fritters, fresh salmon and halibut. Afterward, Haida men and women draped in black-and-red-button blankets, topped with woven cedar bark hats, drum out traditional songs and perform masked dances.

Thanks to the Skidegate Repatriation & Cultural Committee, a multitude of ancestral remains, grave materials and Haida cultural artifacts have returned to Haida Gwaii from museums and private collections around the world. The same dedication has made the $26 million Haida Heritage Centre a reality after many years of planning. Under the massive spruce beams of this modern structure – a design based on traditional longhouses – is a concentrated wealth of Haida art found nowhere else in the world.

Haida Gwaii, or Islands of the People, were originally called Xhaaidlagha Gwaayaai by the Haida, meaning "islands on the edge of the world". Balanced on the edge of the continental shelf, the archipelago is poised like a massive war club off the B.C. coast, under the Alaska panhandle. This westernmost part of Canada faces open water, with nothing but the wide Pacific until landfall in Japan.

Disregarding the native Haida’s preferences, these islands were renamed by British explorer Captain George Dixon. He chose the name of his ship and that of a woman who would never set foot here: Sophie Charlotte von Mecklenburg-Strelitz, a.k.a. Queen Charlotte. The natural bounty that gave Haida the leisure time to develop their art and sophisticated culture attracted plundering newcomers to the Queen Charlotte Islands. But now the allure of once-abundant natural resources – primarily fish and trees – is gradually giving way to the draw of Haida Gwaii’s natural beauty and cultural. Gwaii Haanas, the protected southern islands, has such a diversity of flora and fauna that it’s often referred to as the Galapagos of the North. Its abundance of standing mortuary and memorial poles has earned one of its many ancient Haida village sites – SGang Gwaay – a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation.

The next day, we drive an hour north to the village of Old Massett, where many of the artists open their workshops to visitors. We book an appointment for an audience with master artist Christian White in his longhouse and carving shed. Again we’re surrounded by the extraordinary richness of Haida creative traditions: finished canoes and a totem in progress, masks and rattles, paddles and prints. We stand among fragrant fresh cedar shavings and witness the formation of not only new pieces of art but the rise of the next generation of artists. Also putting chisel to wood are young apprentices to whom White is passing on his skills and knowledge. We come away with new knowledge ourselves and original pieces from future master artists.

Through the efforts of those such as the Skidegate Repatriation & Cultural Committee and Christian White, Haida culture is being preserved and regenerated. As visitors to Haida Gwaii today, we have perhaps even greater opportunities to appreciate the art (and food) of this coastal society than those who came before us. And we have the unique chance to learn and understand, to give back and not just take, all of which helps to ensure that Haida canoes continue to ply these waters.

(Masa Takei is a freelance writer based in Vancouver whose work on outdoor adventure, travel and culture appears in Canadian Geographic, Vancouver Magazine and The Globe and Mail.)

Useful information
Haida Gwaii Tourism, haidagwaiitourism.ca
Northern BC Tourism, northernbctourism.com
Tourism BC, hellobc.com

TOP IMAGE: CANADIAN TOURISM COMMISSION
CARVING: CANADIAN TOURISM COMMISSION
FOOD: ROLF BETTNER / HAIDA HERITAGE CENTRE
TOTEM: TOURISM BRITISH COLUMBIA / M. DORIGO