Yakhoun Lake Cabin

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NOTAM: Set Weather and Time from Misty's Place, also go to the Map Room to see a rough flight plan of this flight.

The Queen Charlotte Islands: We are flying between to of the largest islands in the Aueen Charoltte Island group. Wild. Quiet. Mysterious. Primordial. The Queen Charlotte Islands spread like a large upside-down triangle approximately 100 km off the northwest coast of mainland British Columbia, 48 km south of Alaska. Of the chain's 150 mountainous and densely forested islands and islets, the main ones are Graham Island to the north and Moresby Island to the south, separated by narrow Skidegate Channel. The islands stretch 290 km (180 miles) from north to south and up to 85 km (53 miles) across at the widest spot. Running down the west side of the islands are the rugged Queen Charlotte and San Christoval ranges, which effectively protect the east side from Pacific battering. Nevertheless, the east coast, where most of the population lives, still receives over 1,000 millimeters (40 inches) of rain annually.

Life on the islands is very different from elsewhere in the province. Isolated from the mainland by stormy Hecate Strait, the 4,500 residents share an island camaraderie and laid-back, away-from-it-all temperament. Visitors can expect a friendly reception and adequate services. Motel-style accommodations are available in each town, but bed and breakfasts provide a closer glimpse of the island lifestyle. Groceries are also available, though choices can be limited. Gasoline is slightly more expensive than on the mainland, and raging nightlife is nonexistent.

The Haida People have lived on the Queen Charlottes since time immemorial. Fearless warriors, expert hunters and fishermen, and skilled woodcarvers, they owned slaves and threw lavish potlatches. They had no written language, but they carved records of their tribal history, legends, and important events on totem poles ranging from three to 104 meters high. Living in villages scattered throughout the islands, they hunted sea otters for their luxuriant furs, fished for halibut and Pacific salmon, and collected chitons, clams, and seaweed from tidepools.

The first contact the Haida had with Europeans occurred in 1774, when Spanish explorer Juan Perez discovered the Charlottes. The islands weren't given a European name until 1787, when British captain George Dixon arrived and began trading with the Haida. He named the islands after his queen, the wife of George III. The whites gave the Haida goods, liquor, tools, blankets, and firearms in exchange for sea otter furs; over a 40-year period the otters were hunted almost to extinction. In addition, the white traders brought European diseases that ravaged the Haida population.

At the turn of the 19th century, white settlers from the mainland began moving over to the Charlottes to live along the low-lying east coast and the protected shores of Masset Inlet. By the 1830s the traditional lifestyle of the Haida was coming to an end. The governments on the mainland prohibited the Haida from owning slaves and throwing potlatches, an important social and economic part of their culture, and forced all Haida children to attend missionary schools. The Haida abandoned their village sites and moved onto reserves at Skidegate and Masset on Graham Island.

Today totem poles are rising once again on the Queen Charlottes, as a renewed interest in Haida art and culture is compelling skilled elders to pass their knowledge on to younger generations. The first totem pole to be erected in 90 years was put up in 1969 in Masset, followed by one in 1978 at Skidegate. In 1986 a 50-foot dugout canoe, created out of a single huge cedar log, was commissioned for Vancouver's Expo86, and a second canoe was launched in Old Massett.