EZTrip.com International Destination Guide and Hotel Listings

It would be hard to imagine anywhere less like a city than the island's second-largest settlement, QUEEN CHARLOTTE CITY (pop. 924), a picturesque fishing village and frontier administrative centre about 5km west of the Skidegate ferry terminal . The village takes its name from the ship of Captain George Dixon, the British explorer who sailed to the Haida Gwaii in 1787, thirteen years after first European contact was probably made by the Spaniard Juan Perez. Most of its residents squeeze a living from the McMillan Bloedel timber giant, whose felling exploits have cleared most of the hills around the port, and who control access to many of the island's 2000km of backcountry logging roads. For a fine overview of the place, try the stroll to the top of Sleeping Beauty Mountain , which is reached by a rough track from Crown Forest Road near Honna Road. The village dump south of the houses rates as another sight for the black bears and bald and golden eagles that often gather there at dusk. Further afield you may be able to watch salmon and other wildlife at the Skidegate Band Salmon Project on the Honna Forest Service Road 3km west of town: contact the Band Council for information (tel 559-4496). Further away still, you can drive to Rennell Sound , a west-coast inlet with shingle beaches accessed by a logging road: take the main logging road north from the town for 22km and then turn left and follow the steep gravel road for 14km, but contact the infocentre before setting out . At the Sound, the Rennell Sound Recreation Site offers paths through stands of primal rainforest to isolated sandy beaches and a couple of campsites with a total of ten beachfront wilderness pitches (free).

Otherwise the town is the major place to sign up for any number of outdoor activities; contact the infocentre , 3220 Wharf St (daily: mid-May to early Sept 10am-7pm; early May & late Sept 10am-2pm; closed Oct-April; tel 559-8316, www.qcinfo.com ). The staff are incredibly knowledgeable, and there's a good selection of detailed guides and maps to the area: be sure to pick up the invaluable Guide to the Queen Charlotte Islands ($3.95). The centre is also the place to pick up brochures and organize tours of the island, with some forty or more fishing, sailing, sightseeing, canoeing and other operators being based in Queen Charlotte City. There's also a Canadian Parks Service office for information on Moresby Island's Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site , west of town along Hwy 33 (Mon-Fri 8am-noon & 1-4.30pm; tel 559-8818). The Ministry of Forests , in the obvious blue building on 3rd Avenue (tel 559-8447), has information on the free primitive campsites run by the Forest Service on Graham and Moresby islands. If you're planning to drive logging roads, you must call Weyherhauser (tel 557-6810) - which controls most of these roads on Graham Island - for latest access details. Enquire, too, about their regular forestry tours (they depart Port Clements museum, currently Tues and Thurs at 9am: call the above number to book a place).