Long before the national park existed, the Haida Nation noticed visitation to these quiet islands creeping upward, and instituted its now-famous Watchmen Program, sending friendly but vigilant caretakers to spend the summer at remote heritage sites. Yet it took a single, pivotal moment, 26 years ago, to change forever the course of Gwaii Haanas: the Haida blockade on Lyell Island.
Fed up with the relentless logging of their homeland, and fed up with years of committee meetings, negotiations and court cases that led nowhere, the Haida made a stand. For two emotional weeks, they united before heavy logging equipment, driven in some cases by friends and neighbours. Seventy-two were arrested, and it was the images of elders, in full regalia, being shackled and led away, that changed the mood of a nation.
The blockade led directly to the establishment of Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site. Perhaps most notably, from the ashes of this divisive blockade grew a uniquely co-operative management structure. Parks Canada and the Council of Haida Nations share jurisdiction over Gwaii Haanas, and all decisions are reached by consensus.
Recently, a National Marine Conservation Area Reserve was added to Gwaii Haanas. Extending roughly 10 kilometres offshore, the Marine Reserve covers 3,500 square kilometres of ocean, and marks the only place in the world that an entire landscape – right from mountaintop to ocean seabed – is protected. Fisheries and Oceans Canada now sits as an equal partner at the management table.
In 1985, when elders defiantly took their place at the front of the blockade – they said they had no choice but to protect Gwaii Haanas for their unborn grandchildren. Those grandchildren are here now, and in an act highly symbolic of all that has been achieved in a quarter-century, native students from schools across Haida Gwaii gathered on Lyell again last week, part of a Parks Canada rehabilitation program. Their goal: restoration of salmon habitat devastated by logging during the 1970s and 1980s. (Imagine, only decades ago, logs were routinely skidded through salmon-bearing streambeds; we have come so far.)
Many of the children had never before seen the land their parents and grandparents fought for, yet they came with salmon fry, carefully incubated in their classrooms over winter. Fisheries and Oceans officials (who had captured the brood stock from a nearby healthy creek the previous fall) were on hand for the release. So was Guujaaw, the revered president of the Haida Nation, along with his young daughter. Ernie Gladstone was there too, Parks Canada's first Haida superintendent, who, without hesitation, said: “I don't think there is anyone on these islands [Haida Gwaii] who has not been impacted in a positive way by the national park.”
One of the wildest places on the coast is now growing wilder, giving Canadians – young and old, guides or not – the chance to wander cathedral-like forests, drift and bob on the edge of eternity, glimpse the Haida war canoes, experience this realm of magic.
READY TO EXPLORE GWAII HAANAS?
Getting there: Air Canada has daily flights from Vancouver to Sandspit, Haida Gwaii. Or take B.C. Ferries from Prince Rupert.
Explore: Since 1988, Moresby Explorers in Sandspit has been the first stop for visitors to Gwaii Haanas. Moresby operates Zodiac tours, kayak rentals, expedition support and boat shuttles to every corner of the park (moresbyexplorers.com).
Sail through Gwaii Haanas with Blue Water Adventures on a 70-foot sailing ship (bluewateradventures.ca), with on-board naturalists, researchers and guides.
Explorers' Corner runs kayaking expeditions that traverse the entire length of Gwaii Haanas (explorerscorner.com)
Stay: Stay in one of two guest houses at Rose Harbour Guest House, at an abandoned whaling station near the national park's southern tip (roseharbour.com; $120, includes three meals a day). The food – from an organic garden and caught from the sea – is fantastic.
For more information: pc.gc.ca/eng/pn-np/bc/gwaiihaanas/index.aspx.
Special to The Globe and Mail
