Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/207624
leading to dozens of landslides and extensive damage to infrastructure, while it shifted the entire southern portion of the archipelago up to 50 centimetres to the southwest. Curiosity quickly becomes anticipation when the resident Haida Watchman informs us that the springs are now slowly returning to the island. promised southeaster finally arrives. We take our leave of Hotspring Island and paddle out into challenging conditions, dragging our paddles in breaking waves around Murchison Island. The tidal current is moving quickly now, steepening the waves, and we decide to wait it out. Several beach-bound hours and granola bars later, the tide and waves relax slightly, and we paddle out around the east side of Lyell Island, heading for Windy Bay. Our eyes are drawn, as if to a car wreck, to the 30-year-old devastation of Lyell Island's Gate Creek. While an army of young trees is returning, huge swaths of land remain either bare, or choked with alder from the extensive landslides that result when old-growth p22-27_Haida_Gwaii_Pole.indd 26 rainforest is clear-cut from steep, unstable ground. This will not be a healthy rainforest again for many generations, and it becomes easier to understand why people here took a stand against the forestry company. Today, there's a markedly different mood in the region. During months of anticipation, the entire coast hummed with excitement as Edenshaw and his assistants worked a 13-metre-long red cedar log, cut from a 500-year-old tree on Graham Island, into a majestic piece of cultural art. Finally, the pole was ready to be raised. While in homes and community centres up and down the coast, thousands tuned in via live-stream broadcast, a small armada of sailboats, zodiacs, Coast Guard vessels and a 100-passenger catamaran from Prince Rupert anchored themselves off Windy Bay. More than 400 spectators, including federal politician Justin Trudeau and family, braved bumpy seas to reach remote Windy Bay for the raising ceremony. For Trudeau, the trip held special meaning. "The last time I visited Haida Gwaii was in 1976," explains the national Liberal Party leader, obviously moved by the day's events, "when my father opened the Haida Heritage Museum in Skidegate. I will definitely not wait another 37 years before I come back." During that earlier visit, a five-year-old Trudeau and a young Ernie Gladstone played on the beach while the adults took care of David Quinn The Justin Trudeau and Ernie Gladstone share a moment of celebration once the pole is in place. 13-10-25 10:19 AM