Vikings of the Pacific Northwest.

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In the second week of May, we left the safety of the Inside Passage for 80 nautical miles of open ocean in the company of tail slapping whales to reach Haida Gwaii, the Islands of The People. “The People” being the Haida. They used to be Viking-like fierce warriors and slave-traders, skilled seafarers, woodcarving & argillite chiseling artists and spiritual animists. The smallpox epidemic of 1862-63 – according to the museum we visited “a purposefully introduced disease and therefore an attempt at genocide” – nearly wiped them out. But they are on the rebound now. 

Instead of clubbing sea-otters (oh no, they are so cute!) to near extinction to swap the exquisite pelts for European goodies, such as guns & booze, the Haida nowadays protect the “kuu” or sea-otter with even greater enthusiasm.(We saw a couple of sea otters drifting on their back with their funny feet up in the air on our way up North and they are absolutely adorable. Too far away for a good iPhone pic, though)

Also, the Haida are no longer freaking out the mainland villagers with their Viking-style raids of the coasts from Alaska to California. They have now joined forces under one totem pole with the Heiltsuk for instance, their neighbors across the Hecate strait who they used to rampage in the days of old. Actually, the Haida-Heiltsuk peace treaty was officially signed as recently as 2017. North Pacific Viking blood needs time to cool, I guess. “Peace is more productive than conflict” , thus the wise words of Haida Chief Gidansda Guujaaw, aka Gary Edenshaw, artist, shaman , political activist, leader and still going strong at 70 .

Haida Watchmen are now taking visitors on a magical mystery tour through the 200-year-old moss covered village of SGang Gwaay of which the progressive decay and ephemeral vibe is exactly what makes the place so enchanting. When we arrived, the National Geographic ship “Sea Bird” monopolized all the Watchmen who added their stories and myth to the views. But Taaw ,who was still learning how to be an official Watchman and who was not supposed to interact with the tourists, interacted with us anyway. He told us about the Haida Eagle and Raven “moiety” and that marriages cannot take place within the same moiety or group. So, as a good Raven boy he gave it his very best to find an Eagle girl. But he fell in love with a white girl, instead.

In between our Haida Gwaii island hopping, this pair of Belgian Vikings also had to sit out 3 days of 4-meter waves, 40 knot wind gusts and enough rain to get you drowned the moment you stepped outside. But My Captain had it all figured out beforehand. With O2 securely tucked inside Bag Harbor – which is nothing more than another anchorage in the middle of nowhere really- we listened to the rain and the rattling anchor chain, while occasionally checking the Windy app just for the pleasurable confirmation that we were cozy inside while things were getting pretty wild out there. 

But we love wild. During our Haida Gwaii trip, we have spotted dozens of black tailed Sitka deer and raccoons (both considered as invasive pests), Disney-like puffins, bald eagles and whales, waterfowl galore, two MASSIVE Haida Gwaii black bears (a bigger species than the mainland bears), grazing on shore during low tide, seals, weird looking geese and a light colored underwater rock that appeared out of nowhere and that we were about to crash into until the rock came gliding alongside O2 and took on the form of a +6-meter shark.

We have now reached the Village of Daajing Giids, from 1891 to 2022 known as Queen Charlotte City. And Alaska is slowly coming into view.