Many of you are asking where the book is. Good question.  You supported it and it should be on your bedside table. Here are some reasons why it’s not:

The book is written and edited. It now goes into production, a notoriously slow and frustrating process with any book publisher. The next step is copy editing, then proof reading, then design. 

Design will be slower than usual with this book because it is illustrated. That’s always true of illustrated books. Print is easy, art’s a bear. Moreover, I am working side-by-side with a Haida artist on the islands. Her stunning serigraphs will be slow to arrive but worth the wait. I wish I could show you just one of them.

And while all this is under way on the Haida Gwaii Lesson, Inkshares is doing the same with dozens of other books. And, as they do so, they are researching the unique and challenging market for our book.

So all I can ask for is your patience, and hope that you’ll find the wait worthwhile.

You’re probably beginning to wonder where your book is. It’s in rewrite. My brilliant editor has asked for some fairly dramatic changes. And since I agree with most of her ideas I making them. I expect to get the manuscript back to her before the end of this month. Hopefully she will love it and send it on to it’s designer, copy editor, proofreader and libel lawyer. I can’t tell you how long they will take, but I’ve always been surprised at how slow they are. So all I can ask you for is the patience of the Haida, who have waited about ten thousand years for someone to tell this part of their amazing story.

Some of you have asked me why there aren't any proper names of Haida leaders and heroes in the updates I've been sending. Here is a short passage from my Preface which explains why that is.

       "You will notice as you read along that I have used very few proper names. That will seem strange to many readers, particularly those who enjoy reading about colorful personalities or have read enough Haida history to know that there were definite heroes, bold and sacrificing men and women, in their long battle for freedom and self-determination. But I have minimized using names and profiling heroes because the Haida are a profoundly anti-narcissistic culture, and it’s their story that they want the indigenous world to know, not celebrity biopics and colorful anecdotes about colorful elders, warriors and hereditary chiefs. This does not mean that they’re aren’t creative, selfless, tireless Haida leaders, who have served faithfully in key positions of power. In fact in Haida Gwaii I found some of the most remarkable people I have ever met. 

        But one of the characteristics that stood out for me about Haida leaders, men and women alike, is that they do not strive for fame or name recognition. What they do, they do for their community, not just for themselves, their immediate family or historical recognition. Nor do they take well to having their leaders receive hero status either in the community or in mass media. As one former Haida Council President observes: “Focusing on the individual is not the Haida way.” OK, I’ll tell you his name. It’s Guujaaw, who is an affable, mischievous, humorous and brilliant man, and a talented artist, who inspired and lead many of the decisive Haida battles of the past half century. Forgive me Guujaaw. I won’t do it again. 

        Of course the Haida are acutely aware of what Guujaaw and other leaders have accomplished, and those men and women are held in high esteem on Haida Gwaii. But fame is not their goal, which is, in a word, independence, which they know is something that is never won by one or even a handful of people. It is won by a nation, as the story in this book attests."

The huge, often violent struggle over land and land rights throughout the world has often come down to a simple one syllable word. Here's a paragraph from The Haida Gwaii Lesson that describes the conflict.

       "It has always been rather difficult for the European colonial mind to understand native peoples’ relationship to land, or grasp the difference between living on and living with the land. In all their struggles, communications and litigations with government and extractive industry, that tiny one-word difference has been the hardest message for the Haida to get across. That is why they felt compelled in 2004 to draft and issue a Land Use Vision, which is merely a statement of their land values and a description of a land tenure system they believe will work for them and the government. For them living with the land is not only right living, it is in the end the only way to survive. Living on the land is seeing it as a platform, a substrate upon which life and economics proceed without much concern about what’s underfoot. Living with land is the aboriginal way. And individual ownership of it is to most aboriginal communities of the world a mistake. In the aboriginal worldview land does not belong to people, people belong to the land."   

 For full text of the Haida Land Use Vision go to :

 http://www.haidanation.ca/Pages/documents/pdfs/land/HLUV.lo_rez.pdf 

A nice lady walked up to me last week and said: "Our book club is reading your book." "Which one? "  I asked (I've written seven). "The one you're writing," she said. So this update is for her and her club.

Many of you still refer to Haida Gwaii as "The Queen Charlotte Islands" or "The Charlottes." You really have to stop doing that. This short paragraph from the last chapter explains why.

        On June 17, 2010 the Haida invited the Premier of British Columbia to visit their islands for a sacred ceremony. He agreed to come and arrived to find a large gathering of the most powerful and respected members of the Haida Nation, all dressed in full ceremonial garb. They had invited him there, they said, to give him something … well to give something back. It was the name “Queen Charlotte Islands” which a British colony had bestowed upon the islands 150 years ago. The name for the entire archipelago would once again be “Haida Gwaii.” And the Haida wanted the Premier to know that they were not renaming the islands or “taking back a name. We’ve always known this place to be Haida Gwaii. We’re giving you back a name given to us by the Crown.” Before the Premier could express his gratitude the President of the Haida Nation added this: “What we are really doing here is unwinding colonialism.”

                                          THE ANNUAL HAIDA GWAII BEAR HUNT 

       Between 1983 and 2013, approximately 1200 Black bears were shot on Haida Gwaii by trophy hunters from around the world. The Haida had always opposed the annual hunt, but the Province of British Columbia, which simply claimed sovereignty over the islands, ignored their protests for thirty years and issued licenses to kill the bears. 

 Most of the hunters were guided to the docile and fearless bears by two outfitters approved by the Province. One permit was held by the owners of the Tlell River Lodge on Graham Island. The other by Pacific Bear Outfitters (PBO). Despite widespread public revulsion for trophy hunting, and research indicating growth opportunities in eco-tourism activities — such as bear viewing in their natural habitat — license owners continued to offer provincially approved “recreational bear hunting,” aka. “trophy hunting” tags. 

 No words were minced on licensee websites. Bear hunters traveling to Haida Gwaii, one site assured, “have a 100% opportunity with about 90% success at taking home a trophy bear.” 

 “It’s a world class animal,” another boasted, “you get a chance of killing a real exceptional old animal.” 

 PBO’s fee for the first bear shot was $9850 (an additional bear could be taken for $4250). But the site stipulated that "trophy fees are paid on all animals shot— whether killed or wounded." 

 All the bears killed or wounded on Haida Gwaii were a rare subspecies (ursus americanus Carlottae), found nowhere else in the world. They are also the largest Black Bear on the planet. UA Carlottae is considered a "keystone species" on the islands because the bears transport salmon remains into surrounding forests of Haida Gwaii, where they fertilize the trees. 

 In 1995, the Council of the Haida Nation passed a resolution at their Annual House of Assembly calling for an end to bear hunting on the Islands. The Province ignored it. Then in February 2004, at a Community Land Planning Forum, sponsored by the Haida Nation and the Province, the President of the Haida Nation restated the Nation’s position:

 “A just-completed economic study on grizzly bear hunting on the central coast shows that guide/outfitters could make more money viewing bears than they can shooting them. The Tlell River Lodge is in a good position to move from hunting to viewing. We ask you to please support the owners of the bear licenses on the Islands in making a transition from recreational hunting to sustainable tourism. Please join our initiative to protect the Haida Gwaii Black bear by sharing your feelings on recreational bear hunting. Send an email from the list below asking the Tlell River Lodge to explore sustainable and locally supported activities.” 

 Thousands of letters and signatures poured into the Lodge and the Province. On September 9, 2013 the British Columbia Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations closed the black bear hunting season on Haida Gwaii … forever. 

 The former Tlell River Hunting Lodge, now owned and operated by the Haida Nation and renamed Haida House, is the most popular eco-tourism resort on the islands. The Haida do not regard their purchase of the Lodge as a commercial venture. 

“We’re investing in life,” was their stated motive.           

Hi,

Still crankin' away. But I thought you might be interested in some insight into how power works for the Haida people, who seem to have found a unique and creative way to organize and express it in their day to day lives. 

Surface power, the power that governments have to deal with, the power that media covers, and lawyers interpret, resides in the Council of the Haida Nation (their federal government). But true power in the Haida Nation is covert. It derives from deep guidance transmitted by spiritual ancestors through small, select committees (one behind each powerful man) of living elder women, described to me by one of them, April Churchill, as "women past their moon.”  Before a chief or other patriarch steps out of the community to broker power, he spends time with his five or six member committee of elder women, who counsel him on how to deal with external powers. This method of power transmission may seem excessively spiritual, even a little "woo-woo" to the modern western mind. But it has some material support. 

A central purpose of all indigenous oral traditions is to keep wisdom alive. In most aboriginal languages there is a word for the people who store and transmit the wisdom of ancestors that was given to them orally by their elders. Wisdom Keepers are selected by their community  to be keepers of wisdom because the people who interact with them every day regard them as wise enough to sort out ancestral advice that still makes sense, still works. Pass that wisdom on as guidance and toss anything that turned out to be bad judgment into the dustbin of history. The selection of Wisdom Keepers differs from community to community. The women-past-their-moon model is not uniquely Haida, but it’s rare.  

 The system seems to work in Haida Gwaii because Haida men in power truly believe that it is only through elder women, women who they’ve known all their life, women past their moon, derided in most cultures as "crones" or woman past their prime, that wisdom that truly works can be objectively selected and accurately transmitted. 

What I describe in the rest of this book attests to the strong possibility that Haida men are right about that. Something is certainly working for the Haida, whose methods and expression of power in Canada and British Columbia is paying big dividends for them. 

I'm beginning to realize why the Haida are so exceptional, and why they are winning their struggle for sovereignty. It's not their carving (which is world famous) or their weaving, or fishing, or forestry, or their art, all of which they excell at. It's their philosophy; and it's so simple.

They know that they come from the sea, so they respect it in ways that few other cultures do. And they know that the land has to be cared for as well as their children if they are to survive. So the essence of their agenda is care of the land and the sea. 

"It's that simple, and our agenda hasn't changed for ten thousand years," a wise matriarch told me yesterday. And it's why they will never surrender title -- "Haida Title" -- to their islands or the sea  around them, where they have thrived for millennia. And it's why they are gradually winning back a homeland lost to the Crown a mere 200 years ago.

Greetings from Haida Gwaii. 

If you ever get a chance to travel here, do so. There really is nowhere in the world quite like it. I wish I could attach photos to these updates, but alas I am reduced to a word: FANTASTIC .... to describe this mountainous archipelago that rises out of the turbulent seas of the north Pacific. Amazing that people ever found and settled the place (the Haida truly believe they origninated here ...the truest of "aboriginals"). 

There is ample archiological proof that they were here at least 13,000 years ago, surviving the ice age and watching the first tree appear on the islands, a cedar. Imagine that, people before trees. And when the trees finally came they carved them into giant canoes that eventually carried them across the Pacific. In spirit they remain as rugged and resilient as the giant spruce and cedars from which they still carve their boats.

Haa Wa (thank you in Haida) for sending me here. You'll see the result of your generosity in less than a year.

Mark

Hi. 

This is a pre-departure postcard from edge of the world, setting for The Haida Gwaii Lesson, the Inkshares book you are supporting, and to where I am headed tomorrow. 

I will stay on the islands (there are 158 of them) indefinitely; for as long as it takes to gather what I need from the amazing and exceptional Haida people about their long, determined and successful struggle for land title and sovereignty. 

Their homeland is remote and communications uncertain, so you may not hear from me again until I’m home, probably some time before summer ends, hopefully full of insight and inspiration which I will share with you then.

Thanks again for your support.

Mark Dowie