Haida Gwaii Seascapes

I was in Gwaii Haanas twice this past summer looking for and recording archaeological sites in areas that potentially had not been examined carefully enough by previous researchers. As it happens, for most of the areas looked at I was that previous researcher, in the early 1990s. Twenty years ago there were certain kinds of sites we were not aware of, especially in the intertidal zone, and we were otherwise often in areas without good tides as we had to work pretty fixed hours every day so you took the tides that were offered up. This was especially true on the west coast where access is very difficult and anchorages are few.

So, I went back to the tidal areas and inland up creeks to look for things like fish traps, modified beaches for improving intertidal productivity (better clam habitat in particular) and the remnants of ancient camp sites dating to a time of rising sea level 10,700 years ago.

Gwaii Haanas is co-managed by the Haida Nation and Parks Canada and is located in southern Haida Gwaii (formerly/temporarily known as the Queen Charlotte Islands). It has no road access so everything is done by boat. On the first trip this summer we were on the west coast based out of a large vessel that was anchored in various bays and inlets. We were run to shore in a rigid hull zodiac during the days, and picked up to moved around cliffs and rocky headlands as necessary. We spend a couple of days on the east side when the weather blew up too hard to ensure a safe trip out from the west shores. We finished up the east side work on the second trip in September when there was another good daytime tide window. These photos are all from the first trip in June/July. I have chosen the seascapes for this post while much of the rest of the roll of film is on my blog called Albatross and Humpback that can be found here.

A year or so ago I did a post about the west coast of Haida Gwaii. It was a retrospective brought about by the imminent threat of a disabled freighter that was washing towards shore. Fortunately it was rescued in time, but that post has a lot of photographs from my work out there over the years, including many shot on film. If interested in the area you can find that post here.

I will be in Haida Gwaii (the north end this time) next week through next weekend and thus it is highly unlikely I will be posting here for a bit more than a week. I still have a roll or two from my backlog to post, and then it will be on to more current stuff. Thanks for your patience with my hogging of bandwidth around these parts for the past couple of weeks. Better now than in December when I expect there will be a rush to catch up!

 

 

To see an enlarged version of any image in the gallery below, click on it and then navigate to others with the arrows or with swiping.

Darwin Sound sunrise

Gowgaia Bay sunrise

Gowgaia Bay, sunset

South Darwin Sound – Dawn

Looking towards Japan

West side looking towards Tasu Sound

Darwin Sound sunrise

 

My last roll of film had two or three pictures from this trip on it that I have included in the companion post to this one at my blog (link above).

Roll 37: Canon Elan 7N; various lenses; Fuji Superia X-TRA 400, commercially developed and scanned.

.

.

 

.