Haida people

The Haida are an Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast whose traditional territory spans Haida Gwaii off British Columbia and the southern half of Prince of Wales Island in Alaska. Speaking Haida, a linguistic isolate, they are among the oldest continuous coastal societies in the Americas: archaeology places habitation back 13,100 years, and after red cedar arrived some 7,500 years ago their culture centred on the tree of life, raising massive carved monuments and cedar big houses. Masters of the ocean-going canoe, the Haida traded, raided and held potlatch law along the coast from Alaska to Washington, working sea-otter pelts, copper, argillite carvings and woven spruce-root hats into far-reaching exchange. In the early 18th century the Kaigani Haida crossed to Alaska; first European contact followed in 1774 with the Spaniard Juan Perez. The maritime fur trade brought wealth, then smallpox that emptied villages in the 19th century. Today the Council of the Haida Nation, Alaskan tribal councils and a renaissance of language, carving and ocean canoe journeys carry Haida law and art forward.