Bikepacking to Haida Gwaii: The Archipelago of Time

In September I quit my job as a dishwasher and set out on one of my longest and most remote bike camping trips yet: a multi week journey to one of British Columbia’s largest and most remote archipelagos: Haida Gwaii. Haida Gwaii is the name for the series of islands off the northern coast of British Columbia, a hundred plus kilometers from the nearest largest town of Prince Rupert. The Haida Nation and its peoples have lived on these lands for more than 7,000 years and have endured unspeakable atrocities at the hands of white colonial power. Despite this, they remain resilient, with forms of resistance and strength in various aspects and temporalities. It is as a white settler, a beneficiary of colonialism, that I graciously visited their lands. The trip involved a ferry from horseshoe bay, cycling up the north eastern coast of Vancouver Island (camping two nights along the way), a privately operated bus from Campbell River to Port Hardy, another night of camping, then a 15 hour-long BC Ferr