The Queen Charlottes Gold Rush was a gold rush in southern Haida Gwaii of what is now the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada, in 1851.
The rush was touched off in March 1851 when a Haida man sold a 27-troy-ounce (30 oz; 840 g) nugget in Fort Victoria for 1,500 blankets.
The crew of the Hudson's Bay Company vessel Una were the first to mine, discovering a vein 6.5 inches (170 mm) wide, 80 feet (24 m) long at 25% gold content. As the crew began blasting, Haida would rush into the blast site to gather gold, competing with the crew. The Haida, according to the ship's logbook, grabbed crewmen by the legs to prevent them from reaching the gold. Half the gold found was abandoned, along with the mine, to avoid bloodshed between the two parties, but each had taken in roughly $1,500 in gold ($60,000 in modern dollars) as the yield from three blasts. On her return voyage, Una was wrecked off Neah Bay and her gold lost. The Hudson's Bay Company, having no other ship available, did not attempt to mine in the Charlottes again.
Of several American ships to visit the Charlottes during the rush, the first, Georgiana, was wrecked on the east coast of the Charlottes and her crew taken captive by Haida. Her crew's freedom was bartered back by the next vessel to come northwards, which had put in at Mitchell Harbour but returned south to Olympia to refit for the return trip to rescue the Georgiana's crew (the Haida burned Georgiana herself).
In 1852, ten American ships came to the Charlottes in search of gold, but hostility from Haida throughout the islands made mining and prospecting difficult, and most actual mining was prevented. Among these ten vessels was the Susan Sturgis , which traded along the coast and at Skidegate was befriended by Chief Edenshaw, who joined the crew as guide and interpreter, bringing along with him some of his own men. Pulling into Masset Inlet to trade, the vessel was suddenly mass-boarded by the Masset Haida, who fought with Edenshaw and his few men who were trying to protect the crew. Word reached Chief Trader John Work at Fort Simpson in ten days and Work arrived to negotiate the release of Susan Sturgis's crew at the rate of $250 each for captain and mate, and $30 for each of the men (i.e. at the dollar equivalent in blankets). The vessel could not be saved because the Masset looted and destroyed her.
The total value of gold recovered from the wreck was reckoned to be in the range of three hundred dollars.
The rush was complicated by the fact that in 1851, the Queen Charlotte archipelago, though recognized by treaty as British, was as yet unincorporated as a formal possession or colony. With American ships converging on Mitchell Harbour (Mitchell Inlet) on Moresby Island, which was the main port for rush activity, the islands came to the attention of the British Colonial Office, which in 1853, appointed Vancouver Island Governor James Douglas as governor of a new Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands. Colonial status arrived, however, long after the rush was over. The Queen Charlotte Colony, which effectively existed on paper only since the governor's power was barely exercised in the archipelago, was quietly absorbed into the Colony of British Columbia in 1858. [1]
William Ronald Reid Jr. was a Haida artist whose works include jewelry, sculpture, screen-printing, and paintings. Producing over one thousand original works during his fifty-year career, Reid is regarded as one of the most significant Northwest Coast artists of the late twentieth century.
The Haida are an Indigenous group who have traditionally occupied Haida Gwaii, an archipelago just off the coast of British Columbia, Canada, for at least 12,500 years.
Haida Gwaii, also known as the Queen Charlotte Islands, is an archipelago located between 55–125 km (34–78 mi) off the northern Pacific coast of Canada. The islands are separated from the mainland to the east by the shallow Hecate Strait. Queen Charlotte Sound lies to the south, with Vancouver Island beyond. To the north, the disputed Dixon Entrance separates Haida Gwaii from the Alexander Archipelago in the U.S. state of Alaska.
Graham Island is the largest island in the Haida Gwaii archipelago, lying off the mainland coast of British Columbia, Canada. It is separated by the narrow Skidegate Channel from the other principal island of the group to the south, Moresby Island. It has a population of 3,858, an area of 6,361 km2 (2,456 sq mi), and is the 101st largest island in the world and Canada's 22nd largest island.
Hecate Strait is a wide but shallow strait between Haida Gwaii and the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It merges with Queen Charlotte Sound to the south and Dixon Entrance to the north. About 140 kilometres (87 mi) wide at its southern end, Hecate Strait narrows in the north to about 48 kilometres (30 mi). It is about 260 kilometres (160 mi) in length.
Robert Charles Davidson LL. D. D.F.A., is a Canadian artist of Haida heritage. Davidson's Haida name is G̲uud San Glans, which means "Eagle of the Dawn". He is a leading figure in the renaissance of Haida art and culture. He lives in White Rock, British Columbia.
Florence Edenshaw Davidson (1896–1993) was a Canadian First Nations artist from Haida Gwaii. She created basketry and button-blankets and was a respected elder in her village of Masset, Haida Gwaii, British Columbia.
Charles Edenshaw was a Haida artist from Haida Gwaii, British Columbia. He is known for his woodcarving, argillite carving, jewellery, and painting. His style was known for its originality and innovative narrative forms, created while adhering to the principles of formline art characteristic of Haida art. In 1902, the ethnographer and collector Charles F. Newcombe called Edenshaw “the best carver in wood and stone now living.”
The Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands was a British colony constituting the archipelago of the same name from 1853 to 1858, when it was amalgamated into the Colony of British Columbia. In 2010, the archipelago was renamed Haida Gwaii.
Gold Harbour was a historic gold and silver mine in Haida Gwaii, on the north coast of British Columbia, Canada. It is notable as the location of the first lode mine worked in what is now British Columbia.
SG̱ang Gwaay Llnagaay, commonly known by its English name Ninstints, is a village site of the Haida people and part of the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site on Haida Gwaii on the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada.
The 2012 Haida Gwaii earthquake occurred just after 8:04 p.m. PDT on October 27. The shock had a moment magnitude of 7.8 and a maximum Mercalli Intensity of V (Moderate). The earthquake's epicentre was on Moresby Island of the Haida Gwaii archipelago. This was the second largest Canadian earthquake ever recorded by a seismometer, after the 1949 Queen Charlotte Islands earthquake, about 135 kilometres (84 mi) away. One person died due to a car crash related to the tsunami in Oahu, Hawaii.
Old Massett, named G̱aw in X̱aad kíl, is an Indigenous Canadian village on Graham Island in Haida Gwaii, British Columbia. It lies on the east side of Masset Sound close to the town of Masset; the area of land it is on is legally designated Masset Indian Reserve No. 1, or Masset 1. The original name of the settlement was Uttewas, meaning "white-slope village" in the Haida language. It is populated by Haida people of both Ḵuustak, the Eagle matrilineage, and Ḵayx̱al, the Raven matrilineage. The town is administered by the Old Massett Village Council. Its population has fluctuated over the last one hundred and fifty years; smallpox, especially the 1862 Pacific Northwest smallpox epidemic, drastically reduced its numbers in the late 1800s, but in 1968, it had over 1,000 people and was the largest village in Haida Gwaii. In 2009, the Village Council counted 2,698 band members in the area; the 2016 census counted 555 living at the Old Massett townsite.
Hiellen, anglicized from the Haida name Tlielang, and also spelled in various ways such as Hliiyalang (Bringhurst) and Łi'elᴀñ (Swanton), was a historic Haida village located on the northern shore of Graham Island, at the mouth of the Hiellen River, across the river from Taaw Tldáaw, in Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, Canada.
James Hart is a Canadian and Haida artist and a chief of the Haida Nation.
Kiusta located on Haida Gwaii is the oldest Northern Haida village: and the site of first recorded contact between the Haida and Europeans in 1774. Haida lived in this village for thousands of years, due to the sheltered nature of its location it was used for boats offloading, especially in rough waters. Kiusta is one of the oldest archeological sites of human use in British Columbia, and continues to be a site for cultural revitalisation.
Edge of the Knife is a 2018 Canadian drama film co-directed by Gwaai Edenshaw and Helen Haig-Brown. It is the first feature film spoken only in the Haida language. Set in 19th-century Haida Gwaii, it tells the classic Haida story of a traumatized and stranded man transformed into Gaagiixiid, the wildman.
The Council of the Haida Nation is the elected government of the Haida Nation. The council consists of a president and vice-president elected by popular vote, twelve regional representatives from four electoral regions, and one appointed representative from each of the Old Massett Village Council and Skidegate Band Council.
Various Imperial and colonial actions against Haida Gwaii Authorities have been undertaken since the 19th century. The indigenous peoples of Haida Gwaii often reacted violently to European and American ships which trespassed in their waters and lands. From the 18th to 19th centuries, various skirmishes took place between Haida authorities and European and American merchantmen and warships. Canadian settlers did not arrive on Haida Gwaii islands until 1900, and many Canadian colonial police actions attempted to assault the Haida Gwaii authorities and citizens. The indigenous Haida population was decimated by diseases such as smallpox which were introduced accidentally by way of Fort Victoria. The presence of foreign diseases, to which the Haida had no immunity, along with some colonial hostility, meant that the numbers of Haida citizens was reduced from tens of thousands to 588 by 1915. This erosion of Haida cultural institutions was essential to open the way for subsequent British and Canadian incursions and jurisdictional claims.
The 1862 Pacific Northwest smallpox epidemic was a smallpox outbreak that started in Victoria on Vancouver Island and spread among the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast and into the indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau, killing a large portion of natives from the Puget Sound region to Southeast Alaska. Two-thirds of British Columbia natives died—around 20,000 people. The death rate was highest in southeast Alaska and Haida Gwaii—over 70% among the Haida and 60% among the Tlingit. Almost all native nations along the coast, and many in the interior, were devastated, with a death rate of over 50% for the entire coast from Puget Sound to Sitka, Alaska, part of Russian America at the time. In some areas the native population fell by as much as 90%. The disease was controlled among colonists in 1862 but it continued to spread among natives through 1863.