Haida Gwaii — the "Islands of the People" — is an archipelago of about 150 islands off the northern coast of British Columbia, separated from the mainland by the stormy Hecate Strait. Until 2010 the islands were known by the colonial name Queen Charlotte Islands; the renaming reflected the growing authority of the Haida Nation, whose traditional territory this has been for at least 14,000 years. The Haida are one of the most sophisticated Indigenous cultures of the Pacific Northwest, renowned for their totem poles, monumental architecture, ocean-going canoes, and the dense imagery of their visual art tradition — a tradition very much alive today.
The landscape is extraordinary. Ancient temperate rainforest of Sitka spruce, western red cedar, and hemlock covers the mountains, interrupted by muskeg and river valleys that support record-sized black bears, the now-extinct dwarf woolly mammoth, and the world's largest subspecies of black-tailed deer. The marine environment is equally rich: abundant halibut, salmon, Dungeness crab, and the wildlife of the outer islands — sea lions, Steller sea eagles, and whale species that pass through on their migrations. The islands have been called the "Galapagos of the North" for their combination of isolation, endemism, and natural diversity.
The southern third of the archipelago is protected as Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site, a joint Canada–Haida Nation management arrangement that is itself a landmark in Indigenous land governance. The park is accessible only by boat or floatplane; visitor numbers are strictly limited and all trips require pre-registration. The village of SGang Gwaay (Ninstints), a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has the largest collection of standing totem poles in their original location anywhere on earth.
The main communities on Haida Gwaii are Queen Charlotte (Daajing Giids) on Graham Island, the northern island, and Sandspit on Moresby Island to the south, where the airport is located. The islands have a small but passionate community of artists, fishermen, and outdoors people, and a visitor industry that is deliberately sized to match the remote character of the place. Come for old-growth forests, Haida culture, exceptional fishing, and the sense of being somewhere that has not been franchised.