We spent Monday night and all day Tuesday and Wednesday in tranquil Thurston Harbour, where we were blessed with this sunset.
On the morning of Thursday, June 16, we motored to Tanu Island, anchored Braesail near the site’s gravelly dinghy access beach,
and enjoyed meeting the Watchman (a young Haida woman) and her uncle. We viewed and learned about the remains of several Longhouses that were part of the old village, their poles and log beams, and the large dug-out areas that formed the houses’ interiors. We waked slowly among the moss-enshrouded remains with our guide, and visited the cabin in which the site’s Watchmen stay during the summer tourist season.
On Thursday afternoon, we motored to the grassy site of the village of K’uuna Llnagaay (Skedans), and were guided around it by the Watchmen, a Haida woman and her husband. We learned about the history of the village (abandoned as the population succumbed to smallpox), the arrangement and construction of the Longhouses, and the remains of the ancient, intricately carved poles (some decorated the fronts of the Haida homes, some served as memorials to the deceased, and at the tops of others, the remains of the dead were interred), all of which the forest is slowly reclaiming.
Our guides invited us into their delightful cabin, with its outstanding views over the sea in two directions, and we very much enjoyed visiting with them!
We returned to Thurston Harbour at the end of a chilly, cloudy, thought-provoking Thursday and again enjoyed its peaceful hospitality. We didn’t see foraging raccoons at the margins of the bay on this occasion, as we had on previous mornings, but sunlight flooded the harbor and bade us farewell as we concluded the Moresby Island portion of our time in Haida Gwaii.
Braesail - A grand yacht in the Salish Sea 