Haida Heritage Centre at Ḵay Llnagaay

First lesson learned of the Haida language: when a "K" is underlined it is pronounced like a glottal stop, like saying a hard "k" sound with your tongue placed at the back of your throat instead of touching the middle of the roof of your mouth.

Second lesson: Ḵay Llnagaay means "Town of Sea Lions".

Which is only relevant if you want to know that the marvelous Haida Cultural Centre is located on an ancient village site of that name, which was presumably so called because it shared space with members of the Otariidae family, but more about sea lions another time.  I promise.  

The Centre was opened in 2008, and designed to model (with modern architectural elements) a traditional Haida village.  A series of long houses, also called great houses, is placed on the curve of a beach, with a carving shed at one end and a modern exhibition space at the other.  the bay itself is lovely, protected by a picturesque island and facing out to Hecate strait, just a few hundred metres from the current village Skidegate and within sight of Sandspit across the channel.

Six long houses each have a pole placed out front, which represent one of six ancient villages in Haida Gwaii: Skidegate, Cumshewa, Taanu, S'gang Gwaii, Skedans and Ts'aahl.  Six master carvers and their apprentices each took on a pole (James Hart (Skedans), Norman Price (Skidegate), Garner Moody (Ts'aahl), Tim Boyko (S'gang Gwaii), Guujaw (Cumshewa) and Giitsxaa (i.e., Ronald Wilson: Taanu))

The Centre is also home to the Loo Taas, a wonderful canoe carved by Bill Reid for Vancouver's Expo in 1986 and then paddled all the way up here to the beach.  When I expressed interest in why such a valuable canoe is just parked out in the open to all the elements I was told a little sheepishly that the one I was looking at was a fibreglass version (called Loo Plex) and the original is getting some repair after someone tried to clean it with something that started to take the paint off.  Major ooops.

Mind you, the guy who told me that was a black basketball player who also told me Alert Bay was located on Vancouver Island, so who knows if that is really true?