Haida Build Longhouse to Protect, See article, Last Stand on Lyell Island
Last Stand on Lyell
Ignoring warnings from provincial government officials that their activities were illegal, the Haida Nation constructed a longhouse in Windy Bay last November. While digging the corner posts into the ground, one of the workers found a carved stone hammer. Not surprising. Not so long ago, and for thousands of years, a Haida village thrived on the very same estuary site.
The 24-square foot all-cedar post, plank and beam house, built in the traditional style, is part of the Haida's long term, islands-wide re- inhabitation program. Contrary to what the history books say, Windy Bay village was not abandoned. According to a Haida spokeswoman, their ancestors were forced to leave. In one year, small pox, a "white man's disease", killed over 75 percent of all the Haida living on the Queen Charlotte Islands. It wiped out the Windy Bay villagers.
Now the new longhouse, evidence of continuing use and occupancy of the land, is a shelter for Haida who go there to gather food. It is open to others who come to see what is reputed to be the "most spectacular temperate rainforest left unlogged in the world."
Windy Bay continues to have everything nature provides: the best salmon streaming the South Moresby region, a good landing beach and prince cedar for canoes, longhouses and totem poles. One hundred years ago, Windy Bay was the site of the biggest village on Lyell Island - a reflection of the watershed's plentitude.
Longhouse erected by the Haida Nation on the Windy Bay traditional village site, November 1986.
In 1985, the Haida took a stand against further logging on Lyell Island. The reason? The very essence of their heritage was threatened. Today, after 72 arrests of Haida for peaceably blocking roads, several court cases and many convictions, progressive logging of Lyell Island continues without reduction or modification. The only result of the Haida's action was that the provincial government of the day conducted yet another study. Reflecting its biased pro- industry make up, the appointed Wilderness Advisory Committee recommended sacrificing Lyell Island, including 90 percent of the Windy Bay watershed in order to preserve, as a National Park, the rest of the South Moresby Wilderness area.
Consideration of native interest in the matter was "not within the mandate of the Committee". The Committee's report, which was rushed to completion in three months, has since gathered dust for nine.
Some ask what good is a longhouse in a leave-strip in front of a logged out valley along another silted up stream? "The Haida position will be upheld," asserts Haida Nation President Miles Richardson.
How they are going to stop logging in Windy Bay and the rest of South Moresby remains their secret.
