G'waii not?
I also finally got to Haida G’waii!!
Right after I moved from my 4-bedroom house with my roommates into a tiny inner-city loft apartment with Luke! We moved in very quickly, and then he promptly left to hike the Nootka trail, and a couple days later, I left for Haida G’waii.
Our little place with all my plants
Now, I had been wanting to visit Haida G’waii ever since reading the book, The Golden Spruce. The book itself doesn’t necessarily focus on the beauties of Haida G’waii, but I ended up doing research and met someone who lives there, and it only made me want to visit more.
If you don’t know it, Haida G’waii is a cluster of islands off the coast of Vancouver, sort of between Vancouver Island and Alaska. It used to be called Queen Charlotte Islands. It’s the one on the left (to the West) on the map.
It is absolutely covered in vegetation, and it’s mostly Haida people that live there. There’s barely any phone service and people generally live off the land. Just my kind of place!
I met my mom and my sister, who got out there two days before me (work kept me in town). They picked me up from the airport, and we stayed in a lovely Airbnb for the 4 nights we were there. The Airbnb was in Skidegate and is owned by a lovely woman, who was such an amazing host! She even brought us some fish one night. Honestly, that was the norm, though. Everyone we met in Haida G’waii was so friendly and welcoming.
The first day was fairly low key. My flight was pretty delayed, so I got in quite late. We really just got settled, had dinner, played some cards and went to bed.
The next day, we hiked the Sleeping Beauty (Tarundl) trail. It was so beautiful. I really loved it. We had a car that we rented, but it was up a really terrible logging road, so we ended up calling a guy that rents trucks. He didn’t have any, but he rented us his personal truck for $55 for the day. And the hike was definitely worth it.
We had dinner that night at the Airbnb, and played some more cards.
The next day, we did a couple smaller hikes. We did the Lookout trail to get a spanning view of the island, and then took the connector trail over to Spirit Lake. We snuck some chokecherries along the way. A couple salal berries, too. We didn’t want to take too many from the bears, though. They’ve got to fatten themselves up for winter!
We also visited the Haida G’waii Museum in the afternoon. It was very cool to read all about the Haida history. There are some amazing traditions that are so steeped into the culture, and having places like that museum are so important so they can keep those traditions alive. There have also been some monstrosities committed against the Haida people by Europeans, and it is important that we keep working towards a place of reconciliation. Because no, we’re definitely not there yet.
A beautiful hand-carved totem pole outside of the Museum.
That night, we went to a showing of the first movie filmed all in Haida! It’s called SGaawaay K’uuna (Edge of the Knife). They showed it in the community centre in Queen Charlotte, and the place was packed. It was really fun to see, because everyone knew the actors and directors, and they were stoked to see them on screen. A lot of the actors had never acted, nor spoken Haida before the film. Here’s a little CBC focus piece that was done about it in 2017 before it was made. It was also shown at TIFF and CIFF.
The next day, we got up early and did a lot of driving to go all the way to the north end of Haida G’waii. We made it all the way to mile 0 of the Yellowhead (Trans Canada) Highway! On our way up, we stopped at the Pesuta Shipwreck. It’s an easy 10km hike, you just have to make sure you get there when the tide is low.
After that, we kept heading north. We did the Golden Spruce trail. That was strangely cathartic, considering that was what brought me to Haida G’waii, and it is no longer there. We also stopped to look at the new one that they have started growing from the one that was cut down. It is protected, in a church yard. It also doesn’t really look like a tree.
We then got to Naikoon Provincial Park. We hiked the Tow Hill and Blow Hole hikes. Tow Hill had a great view (and part of it was accessible!) and Blow Hole was very cool. The way the rocks are formed, the sea hits and shoots up, just like a blowhole. There is a wonderful Haida story about it.
We then spent about an hour looking for agates on Agate beach. It was great. We found some grub in Masset and then drove back.
The next morning, we didn’t really have a plan, so we tried to rent some kayaks. When that didn’t work out, we grabbed our swimsuits and waded over (at low tide) to one of the smaller islands. It’s all residential, and I briefly spoke to a man who lived there. He said it’s great, but a ton of work. Makes sense.
That night, we packed pretty much everything up. The next morning, we returned the rental car and took a (very long) ferry over to Prince Rupert. Why would we do that, you might ask? Well, the bad thing about using flight attendant passes to fly standby, is sometimes you can’t get on. So you have to take an 8 hour ferry to another city.
Before we caught the ferry, I was able to catch a gorgeous sunrise at the balancing rock.
The ferry ride was okay. We watched shows and played crib. We had found a cute little hostel to stay in that night, so we checked in when we got there, and then walked around Prince Rupert for a bit and ended up going out for dinner. I slept well (I always do), and in the morning, we took our luggage and went for breakfast at a hotel before taking the bus to the airport. And then we came home! There was a bit of stress about getting on the second flight from Vancouver to Calgary, but we did!
Look at my precious sis and momma!!
The one regret I have is not making it to the G’waii Haanas on the south part of the islands. But, next time! For now, I am satiated. Haida G’waii is gorgeous.
I will leave this one with a Haida farewell: meaning I’ll see you again. There are two dialects, so I’ll post them both:
Asing dang hll King Gas ga. (Xaayda Kil)
Hawsan dang hl kingsang. (Xaad Kil)
I’ll see you again!
