Haida Gwaii

July 27th

When we got off the ferry, we made our way to the campground in Masset which is about 130km away. Once we were settled, we wasted no time and visited the northern tip of Haida Gwaii. We went exploring at North Beach and there were many dead crabs on the beach – that got us thinking about crabbing… We also did a couple of easy hikes to Rose Spit and the Tow Hill viewpoint trail.

The next day we took a ferry to Sandspit to pick up Ashleigh from the airport. Before that we visited Jeff’s cousin Robert in Queen Charlotte City. Robert is a Haida artist and knows a lot about Haida history, culture and also medicinal properties of plants. We made plans to go on a couple of hikes with him and his wife Gabi. We enjoyed our time with Robert as we learned a lot about Haida Gwaii.

One of our highlights in Haida Gwaii was crabbing. All you need is a crab license, a dip net and courage – courage to wade in knee deep water without waders. Marcus caught the most crabs but we only kept the male crabs that met the minimum size requirement. After 2 hours of wading we had 3 crabs to feast on. We returned to the campsite and prepared our crab lunch. The crabs were yummy BUT we figured out too late that we should really scrub the crabs first… Oh well, that was our learning moment…

Another highlight of Haida Gwaii was visiting Skedans, or K’uuna Llnagaay in the Haida language. Skedans is a historic Haida village that is about 90 minutes away by boat on the northeast corner of Louise Island. Enroute to the island we saw seals, sea lions, eagles and a Peregrine falcon. We also saw Orcas, humpback and minke whales – that was quite the treat to see so many different whales.

When we arrived at Skedans we were greeted by a Haida watchman. The Haida watchman for Skedans so happened to be a direct descendent of a Haida chief from a few generations back. The Haida watchmen are people who live on the historic villages to protect them from vandalism. The tour was very interesting, we learned a lot about the Haida culture and history.

While we were in Skedans, Harry spent the day with Robert and Gabi. He had a great time relaxing and going for walks. We are so grateful that they are able to care for Harry that day otherwise we’ll probably be missing more carpet… yeah, for some odd reason he was pulling out tufts of carpet.

We left Haida Gwaii on the 26^th on the 10am ferry. As the water was very calm, we made it to Prince Rupert at 4pm. We spent the night at Prince Rupert and now we are back at Fraser Lake. The weather here is nice and warm – we took the opportunity to get dry. We will be making our way back home now..