Once with a large population, the Haida have ~4,500 members today, ½ on Haida Gwaii (formerly Queen Charlotte Islands) with significant groups in Vancouver and Prince George. Starting with a population of perhaps 100,000 in 1492, many may have died of Smallpox, Malaria, and other European diseases before Juan Perez’ (Spanish) sighting in 1774 (population then estimated at 30,000). Pilchuck Tree Farm John Hauberg’s autobiography tells of visiting Haida villages still standing, abandoned and decaying in the 1950s. Their language family is an “isolate” not related to any other. While the History Farm, behind a visible fence, celebrates the Pioneers of 120 years ago and the Explorers of 240 years ago … the Haida may celebrate 8,000 years on Haida Gwaii surrounded by a Pacific Ocean fence. Haida were once bused from Canada to the Living History Farm to pick strawberries. That transportation was arranged by the large 7,000-acre farm immediately to our East. The latter farm extended to the North along the railroad grade through the Pilchuck Glass School; a large barn’s footings can still be seen. Goats were raised and abounded everywhere. The Haida summer village was across from the Ridgeway/Nurmi house (now the Norse cabin at the Farm’s SW corner); this village was at the very entry to the Pilchuck Glass School (2 miles NE) on a flat area of ground, now the site of Tatoosh’s million-gallon water tank. Haida boys’ summer entertainment was to throw stones to break car windows,
as this writer’s Dad and Uncle often reminisced. In the 1940s, one could cross the US/Canada border easily. Canada and the US were on the same side in 2 World Wars, but a time traveler might not know it. At Belgium and France borders, countries who fought Germany 2 times with millions of men killed, one barely slows down to 55 when you drive through abandoned entry gates (or no gates at all) between those once warring cultures. Strawberry pickers! A far cry from the Haida who regularly raided the Salish Sound for slaves, whose awareness of the tactics of war saw them placing captured cannon in the bows of their war canoes. If not decimated by European viruses and bacteria, it might have been a different result about who picked strawberries! If the Indigenous had been able to keep their foot soldiers alive … not to mention joining forces with the Quinault, the Quileute, and Tlingit’s mindsets. Real history has but one outcome, fiction has many, but foot soldiers most often decide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haida_Gwaii
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area
http://www.plc215.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Haida-or-Tlingit.pdf
https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/aborig/haida/haaat01e.html
https://www.amazon.com/Recollections-Civic-Errand-Boy-Autobiography/dp/0295983647
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/the-surprising-beauty-in-europes-abandoned-border-checkpoints
Which one of the languages below is an “isolate” with no know relationship to other languages?
Tlingit
Haida
Quinault (Salish)
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