By Toni Dabbs

The Queen Charlotte Islands comprise 1,884 mountainous islands and islets off the west coast of Canada. 640 kilometers north of Vancouver, British Columbia. The islands have a population of about 6,000, a third of which are Haida, a nation that has inhabited the region for 10,000 years.

The Haida name for the Queen Charlottes is "Haida Gwaii," which translates as "place of wonder."

The most important Haida village was on SGaang Gwaii, known to Europeans as Anthony Island, a tiny island off the southern end of Moresby Island in the Queen Charlotte archipelago. Tucked into a sheltered bay on the east side of SGaang Gwaii, the village was called Nan Sdins after a chief in the 19th century, but the name was corrupted to Ninstints by fur traders of the time.

Historically, the Haidas were renowned for their canoe crafting and seamanship and for their domination in battle. They frequently raided villages along the coast, capturing men for slaves and women for wives.

At Nan Sdins, Haida life centered on the giant western red cedar trees in the rain forest that covered SGaang Gwaii. Bark from the trees was used to weave clothing, such as hats and capes, and the wood was used for houses and canoes. The forest also provided food, such as ferns and berries, while the ocean offered seafood.

In this rich environment, the Haidas found life relatively easy, leaving them time to develop cultural pursuits. They carved and/or painted virtually everything they owned, including fish hooks, paddles and their large ocean-going canoes.

They constructed permanent houses of solid cedar and adorned them with carved and painted memorial poles depicting the genealogy of a family. When a chief or other important person died, his remains were entombed in a small box and placed in a cavity atop a mortuary pole.

Each pole was raised at a ceremony called a potlatch, where the family presented gifts to everyone attending. A family would have to accumulate great wealth in order to hold a potlatch.

The Haidas lived on SGaang Gwaii for thousands of years (as evidenced by two-meter-thick refuse heaps of shells) before contact with Europeans was first recorded in 1787, with the arrival of the trading ship Queen Charlotte. The fur traders wanted sea otter pelts. In exchange, they gave the Haidas knives and metals with which to improve their art.

It was an arrangement that pleased both sides for a time. Then in 1862, Francis Poole, a miner from Skincuttle Inlet just north of SGaang Gwaii, reported the following:

"We had compassionately taken a European on board as a passenger via Queen Charlotte to Victoria. As ill luck would have it, what should he do but fall sick of small pox some days before we arrived at the copper mines.

"I entered a vehement protest against him being put on shore, knowing all too well the certain consequences. The little skipper insisted, however, and then weighed anchor without him.

"Scarce had the sick man landed when the Indians again caught it, and in a very short space of time, some of our best friends of the Ninstints had disappeared forever."

Within the space of 20 years, the thriving community of 300 was reduced to about 30. The survivors eventually went to live with their former rivals in Masset and Skidegate, leaving Nan Sdins a ghost town.

Between 1897 and 1903, anthropologist Charles Newcombe visited and photographed the abandoned village. His pictures record the magnitude of what has since been lost. Carvings on the poles were still sharp, and many houses were still standing in his time.

During the 1930s and the 1950s, in an effort to save some samples of the culture’s art and heritage, salvage teams removed 15 poles and installed them in museums in Vancouver and Victoria. What remained was preserved within Anthony Island Provincial Park, established in 1958.

In 1981, the unique character if Nan Sdins and its decaying remains was recognized internationally, when UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site.

Today, the only way to visit Ninstints is still by small boat. Those who make the trip, either privately or as part of a tour, find 10 weathered and fragmented house frames and 32 tilted and fallen memorial and mortuary poles, all slowly being overtaken by indigenous vegetation.

More than a century of exposure to sun, wind and rain has softened their features and removed their paint, but carved faces and animal images can still be recognized, attesting to the craftsmanship and enduring spirit of the Haida people.