Council of the Haida Nation

The Council of the Haida Nation is the Aboriginal Sovereign Authority and Government of the Haida Nation within Canada. The Haida Nation are the Indigenous people of British Columbia's Queen Charlotte Islands, called Haida Gwaii in the Haida language, but which does not include Prince of Wales Island in Alaska, another Haida homeland. The Kaigani Haida, who are the Alaskan group, are not part of the same government and are constituted separately within the Central Council Tlingit Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. There are two subgovernments of the Haida Nation within Canada, the Old Massett Village Council and the Skidegate Band Council.

The archipelago is one of the richest marine and terrestrial environments on earth. The Haida culture comes from the land with a distinct language and distinctive and renowned material culture. Formed in 1973, it has been involved in many conflicts over the fate of its territories, which have been claimed by Canada since 1871, and by the Colony of British Columbia and the Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands prior to that. No treaties between the Crown and the governments of the Haida were ever signed, as in most of the rest of the current Canadian province of British Columbia.

The Council of the Haida Nation has a Constitution of a Nation, and has come to unique solutions in dealing with colonialism.^{[citation needed]}

All Haida territories were in the past also claimed by Russia and Spain as well as the United States. Once Russian and Spanish claims to the Queen Charlotte Islands were given up in treaties with Britain and the United States, the islands continued to be claimed by the United States until the British claim to them was formalized by the creation of the Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands in 1853. Russian claims to Kaigani Haida territory were sold to the United States in 1867 with the Alaska Purchase.

External links

• Haida Nation website
• Skidegate Band Council website
• Council of the Haida Nation page on Skidegate Band Council website
• Council of the Haida Nation - Forest Guardians
• British Columbia Treaty Commission

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