Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site and Gwaii Haanas Marine Conservation Area and Haida Heritage Site.

The name really is that long. And calling it "The Park" is a major, major faux pas in some circles. We mostly just refer to it as Gwaii Haanas to save time and to try and not cause irreparable damage of our reputations. Gwaii Haanas is difficult, and expensive, to get to but it's an incredible chunk of land and sea. It's the only area in Canada that's protected from the top of the mountain peak to the bottom of the seabed, which is doubly impressive when you think of everyone who had to get on board for that to happen (the Council of the Haida Nation, Forest Service, DFO and the province, just to name a few). We had the amazing opportunity to go down to Gwaii Haanas on an overnight trip about a month ago with Moresby Explorers (an AWESOME group of people if anyone who reads this ends up needing to go to Gwaii Haanas).

The view from Moresby Explorers Camp on Moresby Island. Our starting point.

We went out on Zodiacs, so layers of warm, plastic-y waterproofness were key. They also made us look a bit like tired penguins.

Off we go!

After a good long, bumpy, awesome ride in the Zodiacs we got to Arrow Camp, and abandoned logging and mining community full of neat old machinery.

And also full of graves of the people who once lived here.

From there we went to Skedans, one of the many old Haida village sites in Gwaii Haanas. A really amazing place with a lot of old poles, homes and history.

I tried to get this photo and the next one beside each other but that seems to be more than Blogspot can handle. The horizontal piece of wood at the base of this tree is actually the small, horizontal pole shown in the photo below. Now it's serving as a nutrient source for the new trees and vegetation.

There is an interesting an ongoing debate about preservation of Haida village sites. Traditionally, poles and other wooden items were allowed to degrade over time and eventually become part of the natural environment again. The Haida have chosen to continue this practice with their old villages in Gwaii Haanas. It's hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of just letting things 'die' like this but at the same time, scrambling to plasticize or fibreglass them doesn't make sense to me either.

The roof beams of a long house, lying over the dugout part of the house at Tanu, another village site we visited on our first day (the walls and other roof pieces have collapsed and disintegrated over time).

The lovely floating Moresby Explorers camp where we stayed overnight and had a fantastic meal, all cooked by the two gents on the porch!

And of course we had a music session on the porch that night.

Such a beautiful spot.

On our second day we started by visiting Athli Gwaii (Lyell Island) where the blockade of logging by the Haida went down in 1985. We visited the bay where the blockaders lived and hung out. It was definitely the most incredible part of the trip for me.

If you ever get a chance to see video footage of the blockade itself (which I highly recommend you do), this is the very road the Elders and young men stood and sat on to prevent the loggers from getting to their cutblock.

We ended the second day by going to Hotsprings Island, which as you can guess has a some natural hotsprings that were really beautiful but my camera died. Oh technology.

The trip was really incredible, and also an awesome break from the raaaatther stressful end of our final two classes. Getting down to Gwaii Haanas can be an expensive and difficult and having the chance to go there with the 19 other students I have come to love and respect so much was an incredible honour. Many of the people who actually live on Haida Gwaii don't have that opportunity (and we also received some financial support from Gwaii Trust, which was amazing as they usual reserve funding opportunities for on-islanders). In summary, come to Haida Gwaii and see how incredible this place is!