People uprooted from Queen Charlotte Islands (1)

The Queen Charlotte Islands (now Haida Gwaii), is an archipelago made up of 135 islands and the traditional territory of the Haida First Nation. The archipelago consists of two main islands, Graham and Moresby; smaller islands include Anthony, Burnaby, Langara, Lyell, Louise, Alder, and Kunghit.

In 1833, a shipwreck off the coast of the archipelago led to the Hudson’s Bay Company taking two Japanese survivors to England. Later shipwrecks led some Japanese sailors to settle in local Indigenous communities. Non-Indigenous settlers established a colony in 1851 during a gold rush on Moresby Island. Mining, logging, and fishing were the primary economic activities, with Japanese Canadians often working seasonally across these industries. The First World War created a demand for the Sitka spruce that was abundant on the Queen Charlotte Islands, increasing logging operations on the islands.