Queen Charlotte Islands

Queen Charlotte Islands (53˚00'00" 132˚00'00" Separated from northern BC mainland by Hecate Str and Dixon Entrance). This offshore archipelago, the traditional home of the Haida First Nation, is the largest on the BC coast—9,596 sq km in area. It consists of hundreds of islands, including Graham and Moresby, the largest in BC after Vancouver I. Spanish naval officer Juan Pérez was the first European to sight the QCI, in 1774, but did not land. The name was applied in 1787 by early British fur trader George Dixon after his vessel, the Queen Charlotte, which, in turn, commemorated the wife of England’s King George III. Dixon and Nathaniel Portlock, of the King George, spent 1786–87 in the PNW, sponsored by the King George’s Sd Co of London. Dixon was the first European to trade extensively with the Haida. He sailed the length of the W coast of the QCI in 1787, then rounded Cape St James and cruised partway up the E side of the archipelago. The French explorer Lapérouse, in the area in 1786, had suspected the insularity of the QCI; Dixon was sure of it. Neither made a circumnavigation, however, nor did Charles Duncan, in the Princess Royal, the following year, though he sailed farther N in Hecate Str. The US fur trader Robert Gray, in 1789, called the archipelago Washington’s I. The Haida people know their homeland as Haida Gwaii (“islands of the people”), and this name is becoming increasingly popular. As BC premier Gordon Campbell said in 2007, “I hear people talk far more about Haida Gwaii today than the QCI.” An older Haida name is Xaadala Gwayee (Xhaaydla Gwaayaay), meaning “islands on the boundary between worlds”—the worlds being those of forest, sea and sky. Another name in popular usage is “Galapagos of the North,” referring to the unique ecology of the QCI, which partly escaped recent glaciation. The village of Queen Charlotte (53˚15'15" 132˚05'00" N side of Skidegate Channel, S side of Graham I), which is often referred to locally as Queen Charlotte City, takes its name from the QCI, as do the Queen Charlotte Mtns. D E W