The Great Canadian Bucket List

September 10, 2025 by


Where in the heck is Haida Gwaii…and why do Canadians not know where it is? 

Haida Gwaii is as exotic as it sounds, Canadian-style.

Mention that you’re going to Haida Gwaii and you either you get a blank stare or that knowing look you get from someone with a shared secret. And no one makes it there by accident.

Anyone worth their hiking boots will have this place on their spiritual bucket list. It’s one of the most unique, mystical and spectacular destinations in Canada. And not a single traffic light, shopping mall or a Starbucks in sight. 

The Haida people call it “The Edge of the World”, also known as the “Canadian Galápagos” because of its endemic wildlife. Six of the ten native land mammals in the islands are subspecies that can’t be found anywhere else on the planet. That includes the pine marten, dusky shrew, shermine, the Haida Gwaii black bear with its giant jaws perfectly adapted to cracking open shellfish, and the ubiquitous Sitka black-tailed deer. 

I saw eight, one patiently waiting for the ferry. 

Haida Gwaii is as exotic as it sounds, Canadian-style.

Mention that you’re going to Haida Gwaii and you either you get a blank stare or that knowing look you get from someone with a shared secret. And no one makes it there by accident.

Anyone worth their hiking boots will have this place on their spiritual bucket list. It’s one of the most unique, mystical and spectacular destinations in Canada. And not a single traffic light, shopping mall or a Starbucks in sight. 

The Haida people call it “The Edge of the World”, also known as the “Canadian Galápagos” because of its endemic wildlife. Six of the ten native land mammals in the islands are subspecies that can’t be found anywhere else on the planet. That includes the pine marten, dusky shrew, shermine, the Haida Gwaii black bear with its giant jaws perfectly adapted to cracking open shellfish, and the ubiquitous Sitka black-tailed deer. 

I saw eight, one patiently waiting for the ferry. 

“Everything depends on everything else.”  —Haida saying 

Reaching Haida Gwaii is an adventure in itself, requiring lots of organization and advance bookings.  Nursing a malady that responds well to salt sea air and migratory by nature, I chose to drive. All told, close to 5000 kms. 

I was off grid for the most part, connecting with this small part on the planet, not having to worry about small engine maintenance or the brevity of tight denim shorts.

Yes, it’s remote, with limited medical resources and complicated transportation. and tightly regulated with only 2000 visitors allowed each year. 

Made up of more than 150 islands, with only two developed, the Haida Nation forms about half of the islands’ population of around 5,000. 

Previously known as The Queen Charlotte Islands, it reverted back to Haida Gwaii in 2010 as part of an agreement recognizing Haida sovereignty and cultural heritage. In February of 2025, the Big Tide Haida Title Lands Agreement formally recognized the Haida Nation’s title over the archipelago, marking a significant step toward being stewards of their lands with Indigenous governance and self-determination.

There’s not much wilderness left in the world.

It a wild but sacred place by nature, a mystical place of legends with unquiet spirits and spectres. 

Rugged, primal, spirited, fierce, and mythic.  It’s a different paradigm—difficult to absorb it all. Unspoiled with expanses of rugged beaches, an endless ocean, and the Haida blood relatives of deep forests. It is raw natural beauty, teeming with wildlife. 

It’s a place of awe and wonder. A place that commands respect, for looking deeply, closely, to recognize its abundance. To move slowly with a gentle step. It is too beautiful. 

No sign of humans. I am deliciously alone. 

I walk among the watchful eyes of the cathedral of triumphant moss-draped Sitka spruce, hemlocks and Redcedars, trees that have stood in place, some for over a millennia. The statuesque power and regality of this lumpy forest-scape with its infinite greens of hanging bogs, curtains of ancient branches, and countless ferns is truly breathtaking. The velvety moss is springy and thick underfoot. The wind whispers secrets. 

There’s a prehistoric feel, something ancient. Maybe it’s the isolation. Or the mist. 
This silence within the forest, the silence—sometimes—spreading to the ocean. 

When the tide is out, the table is set. 

I soon reach the sea. It is unparalleled beauty. I feel the mixture of sun and breeze settle over me. I listen as the gin-coloured ocean moves with a lapping promise, an ocean that over centuries has taken great chunks out of the shoreline. Waves crest in broken lines relentlessly washing over the old worn out rocks. The embryonic sun lights the water. 

The long expanse of the windswept beach is cluttered with debris the sea has rejected and strewn. Sun-bleached logs are piled high, some insect-filled and crusted with salt. 

I hear wings overhead. The bald eagles—the majesty of their impossibly wide wings catching pockets of air, gracefully gliding without a single flap. I hear the call of a raven echoing through the trees.  

Here skies are clearer and deeper. The afternoon lingers long, but eventually the sun will sink off the end of the island. The spruce will deepen its shadows to black, and the cream-sickle sky, unaccepting of more light, will turn to what Richard Wagamese described as “the ink of a northern night”—a delicious black cape. 

The sliver of a new fuzzed moon will give the trees a cool grey cast, a moon shadow of sorts, the sky stabbed through with pinpoints of stars. 

Darkness will take away the distraction of sight, leaving only the sound of the sea’s faithful unerring rhythm. It is good. 

There may be fog tonight. A heavy, salt-loop laced fog. Or turn into a soft rain.

I wake to a morning moved by the quality of silence. It is a grey, misty day. I drive the only main road where the ditches are ripe with goldenrod and fireweed in search of more totem poles.
  
Standing on ragged grass surrounded by dense forest, I am alone again. I look up  to the weathering artistry of the poles. I simultaneously feel a haunting chill and reverent awe, for these totems are compelling powers of unblinking intent, with memories of grief, celebration, and death.                 There is a such a connectivity between the people and the poles. 

There are around seven principal types of totem poles: lineage, markers, mortuary, commemorative, ridicule, memorial, and house frontal poles. Some are weathered to a dull grey, some have fallen, most are faded, showing traces of the once-elaborate carvings. 

There’s no word for art in the Haida language. It’s just something they do. It’s a way of life: masks, silver and argillite jewelry, cedar hats taking months to weave, canoes, button blankets and wood carvings featuring the bold ovoid designs of bears, ravens and thunderbirds —techniques passed down for generations. 

“An indulgent god could have provided nothing better.” —Haida master carver and canoe maker Bill Reid                 

 This is Haida Gwaii. The irresistible magnet and intoxication of beauty and quiet majesty. 
This place does something to you, not only capturing your heart, but your soul. It holds your spirit hostage.        

 Is it good to fall in love with a place that you must leave? But it had to end, leaving an imprint that will never fade, the backdrop of my life changed.             

 A place every Canadian needs to visit.        
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