What is Haida Gwaii?

Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands) is an archipelago off the northern British Columbia coast about 80 kilometres west of the mainland and about 50 kilometres south of the Alaska Panhandle. The archipelago consists of about 150 islands covering 10,180 square kilometres. The two largest islands are Graham Island in the north (where the principal settlements are located) and Moresby Island in the south (mostly wilderness). The population is about 4,500, with about 45 per cent identifying as Haida.

The archipelago was renamed Haida Gwaii (meaning 'Islands of the Haida People') by the British Columbia government on June 17, 2010 under the Kunst'aa Guu-Kunst'aayah Reconciliation Protocol with the Haida Nation. The previous name (Queen Charlotte Islands) had honoured Queen Charlotte (wife of King George III). The renaming was the first geographic name change in Canada to restore an Indigenous name to a major feature. The Council of the Haida Nation maintains an active assertion of inherent Haida sovereignty and has not signed a numbered treaty or modern treaty with Canada.

Haida Gwaii is geologically and ecologically distinctive. The archipelago's isolation from the mainland during the Pleistocene ice ages allowed it to serve as a glacial refugium where unique plant and animal subspecies survived. The Haida Gwaii black bear (Ursus americanus carlottae), the largest black bear subspecies in North America, evolved here. The archipelago's endemic mosses, ferns, and several species of birds and small mammals are found nowhere else. The Queen Charlotte Mountains rise to 1,123 metres at Mount La Touche on Moresby Island.

Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve, National Marine Conservation Area Reserve, and Haida Heritage Site protect the southern third of the archipelago (1,495 square kilometres of land plus 3,500 square kilometres of marine area) under unique cooperative management with the Haida Nation. The 1993 Gwaii Haanas Agreement between the federal government and the Council of the Haida Nation established a co-management approach that has become a model for Indigenous-Crown protected area management. The SGang Gwaay Llnagaay (Anthony Island) ancestral Haida village, with its well-preserved totem poles, was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981. Modern Haida art including totem poles, button blankets, argillite carvings, and prints by Robert Davidson and Bill Reid have shaped the international perception of Northwest Coast Indigenous art.