Talk:Haida Gwaii

Move/Rename this page Haida Gwaii (2008-2011)
change the name of article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.34.157.197 (talk) 04:33, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

This page should be renamed/moved to Haida Gwaii. The term Haida Gwaii has been in use for thousands of years. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Iankeir (talk • contribs) 02:50, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Disagree: Uh, no, it hasn't. I think there's even a citation as to the date of its modern-era coinage....as likewise with terms like Nuu-chah-nulth and Kwakwaka'wakw and Sto:lo - modern-era political inventions; and there's evidence Tsimshian people lived there not so long ago, and the fact there was no "Haida state", rather a bunch of warring kingdoms, more allies than a nation/place.  The thing with you knee-jerk P.C. types is you believe all the baffle that's thrown at you, and yet manage to overlook the evidence taht's presented to you at t he same time if it's inconvenient.  Teh issue in Wiki anyway is citability and officiality; the official name remains the QCI - and officially "Haida Gwaii", as I already noted (and you choose to ignore), includes Prince of Wales Island in Alaska, i.e. QCI is NOT synonymous with Haida Gwaii.  That's why you were overruled, above adn beyond your high-handed attempt to remake the world in your own political/cultural viewpoint's self-image...that was jujst bad Wikprocedure; it was also arrogant, but p.c.ism is inherently arrogant - "only we're right and no one else has the right to speak", as I heard one p.c.-oid put it....and the logic "evil in return for evil" is all over the resulting coduct/behaviour/attitudes...the QCI are a geographic entity, Haida Gwaii a cultural and political one; they're not the same, so give it up.  You can belive whatever you want; just don't expect anyone else to..Skookum1 (talk) 03:01, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Disagree: the official name should be used as the article title. If the official name changes to Haida Gwaii, then the move should be considered—however this doesn't appear to be likely at this point in time. Also, my source indicates that Haida Gwaii has been in use since the early to mid 1970s, whereas the name "Queen Charlotte Islands" was given in July 1787. The name "Xhaaidlagha Gwaayaai" is the oldest name for the region—but no one appears to use it anymore. + m  t  03:33, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * None of the above: Sorry, but i have to say first, Mr. Skookum, your overwrought rant about the "arrogance" of "p.c. types" neither strengthens your position nor contributes anything of value, and it strikes me as very out of line with the spirit of WP:GOODFAITH after all isn't "political correctness" (whether one likes it or not) characterized accurately as a good faith commitment to avoiding offensiveness? Given that most of British Columbia, including the archipelago in question, remains unceded territory subject to ongoing title litigation and treaty negotiations, i think we should all aspire to a pretty high level of decorum when addressing such sensitive matters as what place names are most appropriate. For my part, i think that this represents an unusual situation: there is a popular (not used only by the Haida), widely-recognized indigenous alternative to an official, colonial name. Having consulted Naming_conventions, i'm inclined to say Haida Gwaii should be included in the page title. Simply replacing QCI would create a number of problems of course, so that can't be seriously considred. I suggest changing the page name in this case to include both common place names. Ramurf (talk) 04:57, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If the proponents of Haida Gwaii as a name also weren't intent on removing all mention of BC or Canada from related articles, and pretending as though QCI is some kind of racist abomination, that'd be fine, but that's not the way things are. Wikipedia standard is the official name, and Haida Gwaii isn't as well-known as its prononents want it to be, especially not in the context they're wanting to use it in, which is to say as a replacement for QCI, a "wiping away of the colonialist legacy" etc etc.  Haida Gwaii is also presented as "an ancient name", but the ancient name is Xhaaidlagha Gwaayaai.  Using Haida Gwaii presupposes the Charlottes are now fully independent, and once again proponents of that name have a habit of writing/suplpanting any mention of the QCI being part of Canada.  I suppose perhaps it would have been better, then, if the British hadn't created thet Colony of the QCI and let the Americans have it to run their way (with some nice name like "Jefferson Archipelago" to get rid of the monarchist taint surrounding evil ol' Queen Charlotte).  Yes, I have very strong opionions on the p.c.-overwrite of the BC map, I've seen too much bullshit attached to the campaigns to have any respect for their agenda, which is just as racist and bigoted as anything they complain about from the white men's side of things.  POV/political agendas/prejudices attached to Haida Gwaii aside, it all boils down, here, to the simple fact that Haida Gwaii is not a widespread name, and Wikipedia should not be used to "sell" it; the official name, which is all that can be legitimately used for a title, is what t he title has to be; how the hell can a title like Queen Charlotte Islands or Haida Gwaii be acceptable?  And of course the Haida Gwaii folks will want it to be Haida Gwaii (formerly Queen Charlotte Islands) or Haida Gwaii (called by colonialists the Queen Charlotte Islands.  Haida Gwaii is a political concept; Queen Charlotte Islands is a geographic name, i.e. the name of an archipelago - Haida Gwaii is the name of an incipient (but not established or internationally recognized( country......it's all fine and dandy to invoke the unceded territory argument but it doesn't really apply to Wikipedia naming standards; I happen to support native autnoomy, and actually large-scale devolution of local control in Canada, not just for native peoples, but I don't agree or sympathize with propagandistic behaviour and prejudicial rhetoric, or the desire to wipe away existing history and replace it with a politically-contrived one; that's what the suggestion that somehow the unceded claims issue predicates that we should respect efforts to revise history on political grounds, whether it's in this case or much less legitimate name-change issues like Salish Sea.  That this name-change was proposed by someone who asserted the falsehood that the name Haida Gwaii "has been in use for thousands of year" when it's known for a fact to have been coined in the 1960s or so is what I'm talking about; the presentation of false history as if it were fact is just NOT acceptable.Skookum1 (talk) 14:43, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

haida gwaii only refers to the islands. hence "gwaii". Inforlife (talk) 20:04, 5 December 2008 (UTC) another way of referring to haida gwaii in the old days was inland country (sorry don't have the haida on hand). i would like to add that 'haida gwaii'  appears to be just an Anglicization of the old name. for instance haida would be variously xaadagaa or xaadee, probably more conjugations. though there are variations that are indeed different there were also, at least, as many dialects as there were villages. as i said it "appears to be an Anglicization....  but that being said, i have been told that it isn't.  dealing with translations, means also dealing with interpretations, and dealing with scholars often means dealing with interpretations of previously made translations.   according to Enrico,  i believe his translation of the old name was "out of concealment islands" ( please let me check the wording).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Inforlife (talk • contribs) 20:42, 5 December 2008 (UTC) under the heading 'european explorations' the assertion that xaadala gwayee could some how orthographically be attributed to islands on the boundary between worlds, is something that i have a real hard time getting my head around.   honestly it sounds like poetic license (and that would confirmed if the source of this were to turn out to be bringhurst). the definition is consistent with the haida world view, haida gwaii resting, as it were, between the sky and sea worlds... but the words just don't add up....Inforlife (talk) 21:01, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I've heard the "in and out of concelament" thing, too, adn it seems teh "more correct" and you're right, the others are "poetic extrapolations", quasi-mystical stuff; the "edge fo the world" thing has of course been borrowed by enthusiastic non-natives on the Islands e.g. the Edge of the Wordl Festival, but apparently that's not quite what "Xhaaidlagha Gwaayaai" means; it's more like "in and out of concealment" as in "sometimes you seem them, sometimes you ono't" because of  the fog and heavyy rain/clodu and the difficulty of the currents getting there (similarly the Isle of Man was veiled in elf-mist and hidden from mortals, according to Sybil Leek.  touchy-feely latter-day pseudo-mysticism needs to elevate native culture in  a "romanticizing" way, which suits modern Haida just fine, and is common throughout BC for other peoples also.  Ramurf would like this article to reflect that romanticism, it seems, based on the unceded claims arguemnt; which really has nothign to do with eographic toponymy; while I am a supporter of a fairly radical settlement of land claims - extensive decnetralized autonomy throughout BC, anot just for FNs... - I don't agree with false history, and suplanting one name for another on political grounds, especially if those politics are biult up on false history ("has been the name for thousands of years"); as if the Haida peoples werent' all mutually hostile and were one unified nation, which just wasn't the case; it's not like "Haida Gwaii" was a nation-name, even if it was ancient.  And as you note there aere different potential spellings, as also with Skungwai/SG ang Gwaii etc.  An article on Haida Gwaii as an incipient nation might be all well adn good; but pretending taht it's the "correct" name for an archipelago which has an already-official name is just fabrication, and posturing basd on a POV agenda.  Also for many non-Haida who live or did live on the islands, they never called them by this name adn taht's another reason yet....Skookum1 (talk) 00:22, 6 December 2008 (UTC).

skookum,  can't say that I'm comfortable with you characterizing my statements as coming out with you against ramurf. honestly i find your remarks inflammatory and not really conducive to a good discussion on the matter. i can see the importance of maintaining the standards of wikipedia and following the correct proceedures, but i don't see where sweeping statements an d the type of heavy handed tactics we see on this pagecould be anything like opening lines of communication. as for not believing in supplanting one name for another for political reasons... that's one i think you should think on. you do seem to be an authority on how Haida feel about their romantic characterization, and how non-haida refer to the islands. that is a statement. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Inforlife (talk • contribs) 10:51, 6 December 2008 (UTC) that said i agree that native cultures need to be wary as outsiders come and try to reinvent them according to their values and assumptions. mythology would be a case in point. where many of the (abridged) modern retellings lose the character of the original stories, and supplant it with some pat little lesson, or hammer it into the shape of some familiar fable (not to deny instances of genuine similarity). the sad part comes when young haidas turn to books to learn about their culture and they don't come with a key as to what is real and what is fancy (heaven forbid they should turn to barbeau as source). and of course a by-product of all of this is the notion of the "nobel savage". which as dubious as it may be, has the virtue of holding up the notion of nobility as a standard..............? as for haidas being all mutually hostile. i'm not going to speak to that except to note that there is a record of battles between clans, and why wouldn't those stories stick around. they're good. but they were all Haida. i would venture- a nation of haida.Inforlife (talk) 11:16, 6 December 2008 (UTC)


 * There's a bunch of misunderstandings of my role here, and also what Wikipedia is and what its guidelines are; POV/political treatment of content is strictly outside-the-bounds, and nobody, not even the Haida themselves, can control article content about themselves or about the geographic space they occupy (for starters see WP:COI and WP:AUTO). This is not an article about the Haida, but about the islands.  Politically-flavoured content is not appropriate in any article, least of all a geographic one, nor are politically-derived titles; and Wikipedia policies on titles are that official names are what are to be used, and for the moment at least the name of the archipelago is the Queen Charlotte Islands.  There may be a "spreading usage" but it's by no means all that widely current (except on websites which have been influenced by the Haida POV.  I'm not trying to "reinvent" them, but I'm also not fond of people who want to reinvent other people/languages either, which is partly what's going on here; and if you went through my contributions especially in thousands of edits to articles in NorthAmNative and beyond (e.g. in geography and non-native history articles) you'd find that I'm always trying to make sure the native account/terminology/perspective is represented, or noting when it should be (if I don't have it to provide e.g.).  Wikipedia is Not a soapbox and renaming this article Haida Gwaii would be a soapboxing title; Wikipedia shoudl not be used to promote a point of view or something like a geographic-renaming-agenda.  It can report and recount such desires/points of view, but it shoudl presume to take them.  As noted above, Haida Gwaii is a political concept, Queen Charlotte Islands is a geographic name; insisting that it be treated as a "colonialist name" is a POV treatment and "not allowed".  This isn't my doing, so don't shoot the messenger; I happen to be the one around here that's trying to do a lot to improve this article and prevent spurious content like the specious comparison to the Japanese and Mongol Empires' war-tactics on the Haida article, and largely I've stayed away from the (to me) POV content of the main body there - I'm the one who added the list of Haida villages, by the way.  As for the Haida warring with each other, whiel it may have been clan-based it's a historical fact that Cumehewa and Skidegate were long-time enemies; political alliances were cross-tribal i.e. Cumehewa and I think the Kunghit-Haida were allies with Kitkatla (I think, or Gitga'ata) and the Heiltsuk, Skidegate had other Tsimshian allies who were enemies of the allies of Cumshewa and Skidegate; and similar cross-tribal alliances existed with the Tlingit, who likewise warred amongst themselves; the Kaigani Haida moved to Prince of Wales Island to get away from being constantly attacked by other Haida ,in fact.  There were twenty or more "nations" in the Charlottes, not one, in other words, if you're wanting "nation' to have any kind of political meaning, as opposed to a simply-ethnographic one . The same is true of Kwakwaka'wakw and Nuu-chah-nulth historically, and elsewhere throughout the region (which is why the Nlaka'pamux still don't have a single political organization, i.e. ancient animosities that haven't gone away).  Other material that can go in this article, and in the Haida article, are specific of many actual historical events, not just modern-politics fables about hand-holding, matriarchal/benevolent society-with-rich-culture; the Charlottes have more than just a First Natiohs history, .e.g the Tasoo Gold mine/town and others like it - and it won't be within Wiki guideliens to "denoucned the removal of haida resources" etc. - as politically flavoured language/content, again, is not what Wikiepdia is for.  The article can say such extractive settlements are viewed by modern Haida as unjust or whatever, but it can't say directly that that's the case.  Supplanting English names with Haida names (and ignoring or denouncing/denigrating the English names in the process) is just not acceptable in terms of Wikipedia guidelines, nor is insisting that the aritcle be written from a Haida-only viewpoint because of "unceded claims".  I actually know quite a bit about unceded claims but have avoided writing up an article, or adding to that article, because of WP:OR and WP:synthesis, which perhaps you shouydl read, as well as WP:MOS.  Ther's more to this, but don't paint me as being "high-handed" for my actions iwth this or other articles; I'm not trhying to "reinvent the Haida", but I am trying to make sure the Haida don't reinvent reality by pushing everybody else's aside (User:Guujaaw for example has consistently made politically-oriented edits, those few he's made that is...).  Adn while your sentiments about focussing on the "noble" part of "noble savage" are all fine and earnest, it's not as if nobility among hte Haida wasn't accompanied by the institution of slavery and brutal warfare, no more than all the fine works of art of Rome and Greece should be talked about without being aware of those same institutions/problems in those cultures; too much BC First Nations "modern mythology" is all touchy-feely goody-goody but not addressing the full scope of their culture is just as much a disservice to them as a people as it is for anyone else, i.e. "handling them with kid gloves" is a form of racism in and of itself (as anyoen familiar with African-Aemrican sociocultural issues/perceptions could tell you).  You may venture that there is a "Haida nation" (small or large n/N) but you venturing it is WP:Synthesis; there is certainly now a Council of the Haida Nation but 200 years ago, when war between Cumshewa and Skidegate continued, such a concept would have been "only a dream", if anybody even thought about such an eventuality, which is unlikely.  Greek cities also warred with each other, but there was no "Greek Nation" at the time; though there were Greeks.  So please don't insist on this article reflecting on what you would like to be teh case, or would like to have BEEN the case, the article must reflect what is/was teh case, and that only.  I'm habitually lengthy in my repiles and not meaning to lecture or scold, just inform you as to why I'ved made the edits I have here; I want anything but "owning" this page; I just wish it didn't have to be patrolled for political interference, i.e. edits which are insensitive to non-Haida realities/perecptions/sources every bit as much as I'd take issue with content which was derisive towards teh Haida.  Teh Haida want the islands' name officially-changed; but this hans'st taken place as yet, and so long as the archipelago is still part of Canada, the Canadian/English name for teh archipelago still applies.  There's lots of proper content yet that could still be added here -demographics, history, geology/geography/botany/fauna etc - that is normal in geographic articles; having them be soapboxes for ethno-political agendas is not what they're for; and I do the same to corporate/promotional articles, environemntal articles, national political articles etc.  Not because I'm "high-handed" but because I want them to be good articles, and I respect Wikipedia's guidelines, which have been evoled over time and attempt to be as fair as possible; I do not make edits irrespective of those guideliens, or of wiki-culture...I encourage you to "learn the ropes" and ahve aloook around the links I've provided and also read WP:What Wikipedia is not.  If the Haida want their children to read the truth about their past, that truth is not served by enforcing a skewed version of that history which ignores other people, other sources, other viewpoints.  And raids like those described in Adam Grant Horne or Port Gamble, Washington] or [[Isaac N. Ebey are as much a part of teh Haida story as "haida were great warriors and artists"...and in non-historical areas I've been trying to find a way to cite populpation figures, historical and modern for the island, which properly break down natives and non-natives and, historically, Haida from their slave-populations (roughly half of any figure cited).Skookum1 (talk) 17:41, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

i haven't made any edits yet. as you've noted i'm still learning the ropes. the difficulty is in chasing down sources. knowing that i read something somewhere, is a whole different animal than knowing where the heck i read it. for instance i have read that the population estimate was between 10000 and 40000 (opposed to 10 and 60),  but i cannot remember where the heck i read it. so i haven't fixed it. i think that the popular guess keeps it down around the 10000 mark. which jives with various correspondences i have had. i have restricted my contribution so far to the discussion page. and actually haven't ventured much outside of this one. my earlier comments were made to be framed in the context of a discussion'.
 * am i able to see what edits have been made, and by whom?  is there a history of edits?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Inforlife (talk • contribs) 05:35, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Note the use of colons at the start of lines to make indents, for one thing; if you leave blank space it un-wraps the paragraph into one big horizontal string in a grey box...not sure why it does that (if you use a semi-colon it will bold the lin). But to get at histories, look on the tabs at teh top of the page, or also for this discussion page the tab to teh right of new section; this is a perma-link to the history of the article, though you won'ty need it.  Please note there's a style to the opening of location articles, "locations statement" and certain basic infos; it helps to look around other geography articles for the same kind of geography, e.g. although not all are consistent or properly done..  All alternate names get included, wherever they turn up and citations /refs can b used ro all of them, or should be ultimately (as with everything..in any article, ideally..  If you hav furher questions or want to peck around for comparisons and guideance and ideas, use the WikiProejct links at the top of this page and go to the discussion boards there as well; in this case the main relevant one would be WP:Canada or its geography subproject; ethnographic material and political FN content style issues can be found throughthe indigenous peoples project...comaprisons to other world geography articles/items in WP:Geography.  The population estimates I've seen up to 60,000 including in older histories (19th Centu7ry, early 20th) btu the official line is 10k but that's to jibe with an official figure of 60k before the msllpox epidemic that began in '62 BC-wide. The most recent authoritative estimates - which are very high - are in a book by Cole Harris called The Resettlement of British Columbia, which is in most uni libraries in Candada and not a few bookstores... Skookum1 (talk) 06:17, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Also GoogelBooks has a lot of stuff, older and newer; just try searching either "haida" or "Queen Charltote islands" and you'll find tons.Skookum1 (talk) 07:00, 9 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Disagree: Queen Charlotte Islands is a more commonly used term. Black Tusk (talk) 22:08, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It still is, but.....(see subsection).Skookum1 (talk) 02:33, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

OK it's official
Well, the BC government did the deed and cut a deal with the Haida to abolish the historic name of the islands and supplant it with the "ethnopolitical one". Waht the date of enactment of the change is wasn't clear from the CBC article, but at some point BCGNIS and CGNDB will have new entries which should be added to the page once they're available; note that the name change actually isn't official until approved in Ottawa (BCGNIS only documents names, CGNDB authorizes them).....many, many pages have to be amended now but as per Black Tusk's observation above it's not sufficient simply to supplant "Queen Charlotte Islands" with "Haida Gwaii" because the former is still the most common usage; "double name" mentions will be needed, i.e. "Haida Gwaii (the Queen Charlotte Islands)" is going to be necessary in many cases, not just "Haida Gwaii"......and for those who think this is about the BC govt recognizing native culture/history for noble reasons, I'm much more cynical - this is about getting the Naikun Wind Farm off the ground and opening the Charlottes to more resource exploitation, except now with teh participation of the Haida government.....what's in a name? Mostly politics...and a whole lot of money.Skookum1 (talk) 02:33, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
 * This is an example of the kind of problems/changes we're going to have to deal with; it's NOT possible to simply supplant the one term with the other (for one thing, one takes "the", the other doesn't) and in many contexts using "Haida Gwaii" in existing sentences is going to seem awkard; the double "Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands)" is going to be necessary for quite a while; most archipelago names in English include "Islands", but this won't be the case here...."Gwaii" is apparently now an English word meaning "islands", if only for this one part of the world. Note: the Skeena-Queen Charlotte Regional District is likely to also be renamed, and I can think of other quasi-treaty deals around the province where historical names, even anglicized versions of traditional names (e.g. Kootenay), are going to get changed as part of the BC government's "give 'em what they want so long as we get access to the resources" intentions.  I'm not sure which WP to take this to, as it's a bit of a taskforce given the number of articles which reference "Queen Charlotte Islands"......Skookum1 (talk) 03:56, 12 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I will grant you easily that this new "path of reconciliation" that the province has embarked on is not out of the kindness of their hearts. but this was their option to maintaining any leverage on Haida Gwaii.  may want to read those pdf's you posted.  you'll see that the aac on island has been drastically cut (old news), and that the new land management model will be one of ebm.  Inforlife (talk) 09:03, 12 December 2009 (UTC)  plus, i may be mistaken, but i believe the name change announcement took the Haida by surprise.  so.. surely a strategic move, but not part of a deal.
 * You're mistaken, read the cbc.ca cite - and look up the SRMP linked below; it's expressly part of a deal; and your myopia that the island's resources are only trees is wildly mistaken/myopic; the Naikun Wind Farm, which will provide air conditioning and pool pumps for California markets, and the government's intentions to open up offshore drilling, are all part of teh scheme; and there's still lots of gold and other ores on the islands.....the AAC is quite irrelevant to the larger resource agenda at play....Skookum1 (talk) 16:47, 12 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Since the name change is official, and the footnote provided for 'Queen Charlotte Islands' says "Queen Charlotte Islands	This is NOT an Official Name." the article needs to reflect that. Just because people may still call it that, doesn't make it an official name. The article should say the it was the former name but may be in colloquial use. I wasn't in favour of the name change, but the article needs to reflect reality, or why have it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.49.171.157 (talk) 21:01, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

This underscores the real problem with Wikipedia
This naming issue is a classic case for the real problem with Wikipedia. It's not the vandals nor the unreferenced wild ass statements. It's the people with an internet connection and an ax to grind.

Apparently, this renaming issue has gotten up some proud Anglo Canadian wiki editor's noses.

I think most sane people who have no particular interest in the actual renaming issue would have just renamed the stupid article and have been done with it, as I've seen done on numerous occasions in articles on more distant parts of the world when the local government renames part of its territory for cultural reasons. Bombay -> Mumbai, Burma -> Myanmar, etc...

The problem is that 99% people don't really care that much, and so they're not going to raise a stink, while 1% have a bias and care a lot, and they're going to make a lot of noise and get their way.

Do we have to be held hostage to these culture warriors? When does common sense prevail? Harburg (talk) 01:24, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Harburg, accusing us (since there's more than one of me - see the Requested Move section below) of being "culture warriors" and "being held hostage" is a very ironic statement, given that this whole renaming is very explicitly a "culture war" against "colonalists" and "settlers" and the people who were held hostage were BCGNIS (which is actually only one person) and political pressure is where the name change was made official; the "culture warriors" here are those dumping on "Anglo-Canadians" and wanting the rest of the world to kowtow to their linguistic-political agenda, and wanting Wikipedia to be the vehicle for that. But that's not Wikipedia's role, as explained below by PMAnderson, and if you'd take the time to read the REquested Move section you might understand more; and also read WP:What Wikipedia is not, and one thing it's very most definitely not is a soapbox which should obey POV (point-of-view=biased, prejudicial) agendas demanding, demanding, demanding that a linguistic-cultural agenda be observed.  When the rest of the world calls the islands Haida Gwaii, then the article can chance its title.  Not even QCI-hosted websites consistently use it, except as an adjunct to QCI (e.g. http://www.qcinfo.com).  Wikipedia is NOT a vehicle for rebranding campaigns....and official names when not common usage in English are not titles; as per WP:TITLE and WP:COMMONNAME.  This is why the officially-styled Helvetian Confederation article is called Switzerland, among countless other examples.Skookum1 (talk) 09:43, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * As a non-Canadian, I have a general preference for having these islands at the name I have heard of before. This is part of being an English wikipedia: communicating with anglophones. This does not have to mean using the name derived from the British Isles; Hawaii is preferable to the Sandwich Islands. Those who wish to change the English language should do so elsewhere and among others. When they succeed, one of the signs will be that these changes are uncontroversial; they are not now. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 08:12, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

here's an example of a "fix" I had to make to another article, Dixon Entrance, where "culture warriors" from the erase-white-history side deliberately obliterated all mention of the name Queen Charlotte Islands; and also made a false claim that "Seegay" means the Dixon Entrance as such, when in fact it means only "ocean". It's behaviour like this that casts the name-campaign for Haida Gwaii in such discredit; juvenile behaviour and intentional censorship; Wikipedia is about inclusiveness, not soapboxing or using it to force changes on language. That *I* was branded a "culture warrior" for being honest and complete, vs. the linguistic subversion that's too active on the cause of this campaign, is just insulting and also juvenile - and arrogant. I wonder how many other articles have been similarly "washed" of terms and usages which the Haida and their fans want done away with?Skookum1 (talk) 09:05, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

world map
It would help a lot if someone could show where the islands lie on a larger map.Petethewhistle (talk) 19:54, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree; there are maps on pages on nearby topics - Alexander Archipelago and Boundary Ranges maybe, which would suffice, though are only regional in scale. This is one of the few maps on a geo-article for BC which shows only the item in question and not its context within global or regional geography.  Which made it all teh worse when Haida activists tried to remove all mention of BC or Canada or Alaska from the article a while ago....Skookum1 (talk) 16:52, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

SRMP re name change
This is the Strategic Land Use Plan just approved/signed, of which the renaming is one of the clauses/conditions. Probably there are other extensive name changes within it, I'm in no mood to look at all the PDFs, and the linked page hasn't been updated yet.Skookum1 (talk) 02:57, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Queen Charlotte Islands
Queen Charlotte Islands is 100000 more common than Haida Gwaii. The policy is to use common names, not official names. I suggest a move to the normal name 'Queen Charlotte Islands'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.196.183.226 (talk) 20:25, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Your point is well-taken and relates to discussions re Las Malvinas/Falkland Islands and Tibet/Xizang. There's also a distinction between a landform (an archipelago) and a national territory; this term confuses both.  There is some precedent in Wikipedia for using "indigenously authentic" names but that's often because no English alternatives exist, or are widely-known.  NB only the British columbia government has amended this, I'm uncedrtain about the Geographic Names Board of Canada, and other languages continue to use the translated form of "Queen Charlotte Islands" (without being browbeaten into changing it).Skookum1 (talk) 21:06, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I find it a bit odd that the official name has changed from the Queen Charlotte Islands to Haida Gwaii. The term Haida Gwaii is surely less common than the Queen Charlotte Islands. I actually never even herd of it until I read this article long time ago. Changing the title from Haida Gwaii back to Queen Charlotte Islands is more proper.  Volcano guy  04:28, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, the GEOnet Names Server, "the official repository of foreign place-name decisions approved by the US BGN", contains only two entries for the islands: and . Both are listed as "approved". No other names, variant or otherwise, are listed. Pfly (talk) 04:48, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
 * What is this about then? The BCGNIS defination for Haida Gwaii states it is an official name.  Volcano guy  20:40, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The GEOnet Names Server is for the United States only. I was just following up on the idea that even if Haida Gwaii is official in British Columbia it may not be for the Geographic Names Board of Canada. It apparently isn't for the United States. I don't know about other English-speaking countries. Also, I personally don't much care what the page's name is. It reminds me a little of Uluru. Apparently the name "Ayers Rock" is still equally official, yet to my ears it sounds depressingly "colonial". Pfly (talk) 22:25, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I see that Ottawa recognizes "Haida Gwaii". A statement released on June 17, 2010 by Chuck Strahl of Indian and Northern Affairs said. "I want to take this opportunity to extend my congratulations to the Haida Nation on the official renaming of the Queen Charlotte Islands located in British Columbia as Haida Gwaii. This is a significant achievement. All those who live and visit the islands will, now and into the future, have a tangible reminder that the Haida Nation is an integral part of the history of the islands. The restoration of the name Haida Gwaii, which means 'Islands of the People,' is of profound importance to the Haida people. The name change is a fitting tribute to the long and rich history of the Haida Nation. It is deeply symbolic of reconciliation between the Haida and the Crown and breathes new life into Haida heritage. Once again, on behalf of the Government of Canada, I extend my sincere congratulations to the Haida Nation for achieving their goal of bringing back the traditional name to the islands. I also commend the British Columbia government for moving forward with the legislation that made this renaming a reality." Let's not kid ourselves: insisting on "Queen Charlotte Islands" is every bit as "POV" as wanting to change to "Haida Gwaii". At least "Haida Gwaii" has the merit of being recognized as official by both the provincial and federal governments, even if BC Ferries for the present is going with both names. As Minister Strahl said, the renaming is a reality. Time for Wikipedia to face it. Scales (talk) 07:30, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Chuck Strahl is not Ottawa, and he is not the Geographic Names Board of Canada; as a minister he has no authority to go about changing federal documents without the involvement of the department in question, which is the office in charge of official names; but in Wikipedia WP:COMMONNAME applies, not the official name if it's not the most widely-used; there are given BC usages where the native name is used over the usual anglicization, e.g. Skwxwu7mesh vs Squamish. The point is that other considerations than what the BC government has doen are at play here; Haida Gwaii is not a part of normal geographic English globally; and Wikipedia should not be used as a platform to enforce even officially-mandated branding; by that I mean Wikipedia should not be used as a device to propagate even official neologisms; it's how these islands are most commonly known, in other languages as well as in the US, UK, and South Africa, that determines the title; "third-party citations" from other countries, showing common usage in those usages, will convince them maybe....BTW in this and related articles, on successive edits or with some original articles, it was not even mentioned these islands were part of BC, or of Canada, and there are those who also removed all mention of the QCI name entirely, and also to prematurely do the name change in various ways; see WP:SOAP and consider your role in trying to use Wikipedia as a political/information campaign to spread a new usage; it's not supposed to be that; in article after article, say in histories involving the US and Russia, they're going to say "Queen Charlotte Islands" and update their national academic lexicon to make people on Haida Gwaii happy; otherwise people will go "WTF izzat?".....how me it in common usage in an Alaska paper - I don't mean in items about the name change - and in Washington papers ,and in papers in other Canadian provinces, or even in BC's, then it's common usage.  Trying to use Wikipedia to first force a name change, then spread it, is not what Wikipedia is here for, nor should it be exploited like that.Skookum1 (talk) 07:47, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Apparently I am happy to step all over convention. The GNBC web site gives Haida Gwaii as the name of the islands. It gives Queen Charlotte as the name of a land district, a channel, a geographic area and a mountain. Whatever the reasons for the change, the fact is that the name has been changed. Any encyclopedia that is to be taken as credible should reflect facts. The name was "Queen Charlotte Islands". The new name is "Haida Gwaii". The main entry should be named after the official name, a redirect should be set for the old name and a paragraph explaining the change should be included. Why is this complicated? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.104.154.108 (talk) 19:06, 21 February 2011 (UTC)


 * It's not complicated in the slightest, in Wikipedian terms. Wikipedia does not use official names, it uses most common names, and the fact of the matter is that only the BC government has made this an official name; not the Canadian government, and not any other country or any major 3rd party source.  The article on the officially-named Republic of Myanmar is Burma, NOT Myanmar, for example, and the Quebec article's title is in French, not English.  The Canadian government has not made this name official, nor have any major geographic sources or encyclopedias followed the very-political name-change of the BC government or that of the Council of the Haida Nation.  There's a big difference between legislating a name change and making it universally-acceptable across the English-speaking world.  It's also no secret - in BC at least - that the BC government did this to get the Haida to sign on to the Naikun wind project so that the Haida's line of credit and aboriginal rights could be used to validate an investment/infrastructure project for their political backers, though that's a somewhat separate issue.  The remaining prevalence of the name of the archipelago (rather than the political entity) in English is still the Queen Charlotte Islands, and Wikipedia reflects that, and no amount of badgering from Haida linguistic-political activists will change that.  The official name of China is chung kwok (in Cantonese anyway), but the title of that article is still "China"; similarly Deutschland is still Germany, Norge is still Norway, Italia is still Italy.  You cannot legislate change to language, especially not forcing it on the 400 million+ speakers of English who are not under the jurisdiction of the BC government, nor of the Haida Nation.Skookum1 (talk) 21:15, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Well you make many good points though the tone is bit ... snooty. I'm not going to argue about changing it myself but I do think that "badgering from Haida linguistic-political activists" is a provocative thing to say. I for one am not Haida nor a linguist nor particularly political nor an activist (though I suppose by reading this discussion and then participating I'm being an activist).  I simply think Haida Gwaii is appropriate, a nicer name and it turns out, official. It does make one wonder, and I'm sure this is discussed ad nauseum by wikifolk elsewhere, when would the change be made? At some point, one imagines, the mood of the populace would somehow be gauged to have switched. It seems a bit arbitrary in that regard. It's exciting to imagine the possibilities.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.108.200.75 (talk) 02:39, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I see that the Canadian Encyclopedia on-line is now calling its article "Haida Gwaii" and saying that Queen Charlotte Islands was the official name "until 2010 when Haida Gwaii was accepted." But it seems "Queen Charlotte Islands" is going to have to be pried from a certain someone's cold dead hands before this commonsense change is made on Wikipedia. Scales (talk) 07:38, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Blaming this on me is not going to get you anywhere, and I resent that deprecation "Anglo-Canadian" which is somewhat racist as well as highly presumptive and "labelling the enemy" etc. I'm a British Columbian first and foremost, and among those of "my people" (which is all of us, and not white/red/yellow despite the modern fashion to cut us all up that way as if that were politically correct) - among British Columbians I'm one of the most avid supporters of native land claims and know more native history than anybody but most academics, and quite often I know quite a bit more than they do, too. But I'm not speaking in my capacity as a British Columbian, only to aver that accusing is easy, understanding is hard. There's a lot of things in Wikipedia I don't like either but I don't make the rules, and in this case I'm not alone, as an objective review of this page's discussions will show. Wikipedia guidelines are what's at play, like WP:TITLE, WP:COMMONNAME, WP:MOSFOLLOW, WP:NPOV, WP:SOAP and more, and it's time the complainers here acquainted themselves with how Wikipedia works instead of carping on as if the world were out to get you. One Requested Move has failed about this, or rather an RM was held to move it back; I supported it because I know the rules and the whys and wherefores; the BC Government legislating something doesn't make it most-common-use in English, it doesn't make it an automatic standard, Wikipedia is not a platform to push political agendas or to try and promote the use of a term. To date, CGNDB hasn't made any such change, nor has the Brittanica or National Geographic. Wanting something to be accepted and pushing for it to the point of being insulting and deprecating and paranoid are very different things. Is the London Times or any of the Alaska papers, when mentioning the islands, referring to it as Haida Gwaii. ARe fishing-resort ads in the American magazines using "Haida Gwaii" expecting their fishermen-clients to know what that is? Harburg mentioned Burma/Myanmar - and wouldn't you know it there's an example where the officially-proclaimed name is not that of the Wiki article, likewise the official name of Tibet is Xizang but the article is Tibet nonetheless. That has to do with WP:TITLE and WP:COMMONNAME but also WP:POV; as does this. It doesn't help your cause here taht the history of this article, and others related to it, existed at times without any mention of British Columbia or Canada, only that they were islands in the North Pacific, and there were various edits to purge the name British Columbia and/or Canada and also revisions with biased language and misrepresentations of various accusatory kinds; that's both SOAP (soapboxing) and POV. The repeated claim that Haida Gwaii as a name is "ancient" is made over even though it's cited it was coined only in the 1970s or so, though it resembles an older actually-traditional name. Similarly on Dixon Entrance someone had said "its more ancient name is Seegay" as if it were only named in Haida (and not Tlingit or Tsimshian) and as if it "seegay" didn't just mean "the ocean" or "sea". Wanting to get a name changed is one thing, trying to erase history and replace it with fiction is not supportable; and it's that track record and the trigger-happy nature of the way this article was repeatedly name-changed and edited POVishly is long and thorny - and anything but "common sense". If you want, start a new RM, but be advised that Wikipedian logic isn't waht you'd like it to be, and people form all over the world will be taking part, conceivably, and will be more in tune with Wikipedia's rules and decision-making process and what the world standard or English usage is (and why it's not right to think that Wikipedia should/can be used that way, to promote what is effectively a rebranding); I don't WP:OWN this article at all, which is what you're accusing me of; what I hear and see is anything but common sense; adn I see a lot of petulance and nasty comments, and trying to blame it all on one editor. I was going to consult certain Wikiprojects and WP:TITLE's talkpage about this, as you lot are getting tiresome; there are naming conventions in the Indigenous peoples wikiproject and also in WP:CANADA and attempts to make sure sensitivities are covered; but what a small area in Canada wants to call itself and waht teh rest of the world still calls it are two differeent things wiki-wise, and as with Myanmar/Burma and Tibet/Xizang, when there's politics involved, nobody's happy. Spend your lobbying efforts on the editors of the Britannica and World Book and New York Times and so on, which will become reflected here; but soapboxing for Wikipedia to help you spread this name change, that's a different matter and "not what we do here". The violence of some of your comments towards me is really quite nasty and wildly off-base, if you actually knew my personal politics about native land claims and native culture in BC; and labelling me as a white interloper, and an "Anglo-Canadian" which is the gist of what's above, is just rank racism. Around here I'm just a Wikipedian, but if I have an ethnicity it's "British Columbian" and nothing else.Skookum1 (talk) 08:42, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Update regarding CGNDB: You can't search "Queen Charlotte Islands" anymore, only "Haida Gwaii" is recognized. I can't get details when this change happened. + m t  04:31, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Skookum1: I'm willing to believe that you are defending a sincerely held position, and you make a plausible case for that position. But if general usage is the key, when is the tipping point reached? I see that the Spring 2011 issue of BCAA's Westworld has defected to the camp of what you disparagingly call "linguistic-political activists". It's likely that within the next few years, nearly all of Canada will have similarly defected. But since Canadians will always be a small minority of the world's population, is Wikipedia to defer to the usage of travel agents in Dallas and Mumbai? (Or should that be Bombay?) Scales (talk) 19:52, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a good question and not easily answerable; Canadian English gets overruled all the time, e.g. Category:Hydroelectric power stations in Canada uses a British-ism; the US was granted an exemption for "power plants" but Canada wasn't (the norm here formally is "generating station", the typical-english is "power plant" or "powerhouse"). I recently endured four weeks or so, several hours a day, trying to get hyphens re-established as the norm for regional district titles vs the unquestioned-but-wrong application of endashes for same made by and defended by typography fanatics in other countries who don't even know what a regional district is. Recently an effort to rename Plains Indians to Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains was defeated because of the preponderance of Americans taking part in the discussion in great numbers; similarly it took some doing to get varous "Native American" category-names changed to "indigenous peoples" for much teh same reason (the presupposition that USian is standard English, an affectation which British editors also have tried from their end, as with power station/generating station.  At what point does it come current usage?  That's the "good question", and there's no clear guideline on it; does BCTV or the Sun use Haida Gwaii as the only usage now, for example?  Is it even fully current within BC?  "Salish Sea" is official now, but rarely used, for example (though in that case Georgia Strait, Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound have not been rescinded).  And "linguistic-political activists" is not unseemly or derisive at all, given the history of wanton POV edits about this on this article and on "Salish Sea".  Wikipedia is not supposed to be a platform - a soapbox to "push" neologisms, even official ones; why Mumbai is an article title and Myanmar is not I don't know, but some of the why and wherefore would have to do with the intent/agenda.  In Spanish, the Falkland Islands are Las Malvinas, in English, Wien is Vienna though its official name is Wien, ditto Moskva/Moscow etc.  And as for "activists" being disparaging themselves, you are welcome to review the previous attempts to rename this article - long before the name change was even officially proposed - and the various deletions of any mention of BC or of Canada from this and related articles - as a demonstration of why "linguistic-political activists" is a purely descriptive and not "disparaging" term; same with what was pulled, repeatedly, with Salish Sea and Whulge and also Cascadia - people trying to use Wikipedia to advance an agenda.  This is why I said what i said about getting other recognized major sources to amend their entries, e.g. the Britannica or Encarta - Googlemaps by the way seems to use CGDNB's juxtaposition of Georgia Strait's coordinates, vs the BCGNIS and USGS ones which are down by "the angle" near the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal; but Googlemaps has "Haida Gwaii" as the primary search term now, don't know when they did that (but they also label regional district electoral areas as if they were important to know geogaphrically, which they're anything but).  Anyway I've grown tired of all the ethno-cultural whining/paranoid behaviour on this page, and the attempts to slag me for it personally, just for trying to explain the Wikipedia position (instead of taking up the p.c. banner and waving it fervently as apparently I'm expected to).  I've posted this on WP:IPNA and WP:CANTALK and WP:TITLE to get other input/editors taking part, and there's a mediation process......bu7t be advised that demanding and demadning and insulting is no teh way to get thigns done around here, adn the history of one-sided edits and name-changes here weighs unfavourably against you.Skookum1 (talk) 22:21, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Requested move 1 (December 2010)

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:52, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Haida Gwaii → Queen Charlotte Islands — Although "Haida Gwaii" is the official name recognized by the government of British Columbia, per WP:COMMONNAME I suggest that this should be moved back. "Queen Charlotte Islands" is overwhelmingly the common name for these islands. It looks to me like the article was moved away from Queen Charlotte Islands without consensus to do so; certainly it was not as a result of a formal discussion here. Good Ol’factory (talk) 01:36, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * there were repeated attempts to change this page's name before the officlal-change even began being talked about. It's worth noting that the CGNDB (Cdn Geo Names Board) has not followed in the BC Liberals' footsteps in agreeing to Haida demands to officially change the name, and note the many languages it's still "the islands of Queen Charlotte"; I think the German articles and maybe one or two others have been changed to Haida Gwaii, but I think that's eco-activism of a certain kind, i.e. "showing support for indigenous cultures" even though probably in Germany Die Inseln des Koenigen Charlotten is maybe no more common than Haida Gwaii.  It should be noted that there have also been repeated attempts in this article, and elsewhere to entirely eradicate use of "Queen Charlotte Islands" - again, before the official name change was even hinted at, just as there were those trying to change all mentions of the Strait of Georgia to "Salish Sea" for similarly eco-indigenous POV agendas.  Anyway it's fine and dandy for the BC government to make a name change; that doesn't mean the rest of the world, or even the same country, is going to follow suit, nor does it mean it's the most common usage; apparently it is on the islands themselves.....I'm curious to see how they'll "de-colonialize" Queen Charlotte City.  Oh, and by the way, the BC government did the name deal in order to get the Haida Nation to sign on to various resources projects, including Naikun Investments, started by friends of the governing party, who were without any capital resources and credit; until the Haida signed on and Naikun can use their line of credit.....there was nothing noble about this name change, nothing at all.Skookum1 (talk) 02:39, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * So I take it you are in favour of the proposed move? Good Ol’factory (talk) 02:41, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Personally, yes. I submitted once the official-name change was passed (this summer, not when Campbell "announced" it - maybe he was wearing his red mittens, too) largely from fatigue; Salish Sea had a different resolution because it did not REPLACE the so-called "colonialist" names.  to me, pc-language is inherently POV, and so are politically-correct names and name-fictions (which is why I am so opposed to "First Nations reserve").  But because the Canadian government has not followed suit, and given the fact that if you took a poll (of people who knew their geography, not just anyone or they might not know f-all), the name QCI is going to come out on top....except in the coffeeshops of Tlell and Queen Charlotte City.....Sandspit's a different matter, logging town, might be obstinate and stick with the old name.  There's gonna be an attempt to lobby to change Queen Charlotte Strait to Kwakwaka'wakw Sea, by the way....there's even been over-the-top musings on giving Vancouver a "more aboriginal name" (when it never had one, other than in CJ as "Bankuba", like it is in Japanese).Skookum1 (talk) 03:09, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Rename Vancouver X̱wáýx̱way! Pfly (talk) 08:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That name, meaning "masks", is ONLY the old ceremonial village at what is now Lumberman's Arch in Stanley Park; there were several names in the downtown peninsula area and adjacent, eg. Snauq or "Snawk"....the upland part of the main Burrard Peninsula, from Little Mountain to the heights of Point Grey, is "Ulksen"...Jericho is "Eeyulshun" (soft sand squishing between toes); Gastown's old beach was Lucklucky, "vine maples".Skookum1 (talk) 09:11, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I know I know, just can't help saying X̱wáýx̱way at any opportunity. Pfly (talk) 11:19, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * X̱wáýx̱way is the most awesome place name I have learned for quite a while. (Now I just have to learn how to say it.) It's not quite as impressive as Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu, though. Good Ol’factory (talk) 21:15, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Support per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:OFFICIALNAMES ("Official English names...should be used only if they are actually the name most commonly used." Anyway, Haida Gwaii isn't even official at the national level yet).  —   AjaxSmack   03:39, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Support. As already stated by previous users, maintaining this page on Haida Gwaii (rather than the far more widely used Queen Charlotte Is's) would be against wiki policy. Note also that, per WP:COMMONNAME, "the commonality of the name overrides our desire to avoid passing judgment" and True neutrality means we do not impose our opinions over that of the sources, even when our opinion is that the name used by the sources is judgmental", i.e. whether Queen Charlotte Islands is a "colonialist" name is irrelevant. • Rabo³''  • 08:11, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Weak support per above points. Pfly (talk) 11:19, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Support per WP:COMMONNAME. Flamarande (talk) 23:33, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Support I am grudgingly in support. The level of usage for Haida Gwaii is not yet at level for it to be considered the primary name. I do believe that the usage will shift to Haida Gwaii in the future, particularly given the provincial governments support, but it's best to wait and see instead of employing a WP:CRYSTALBALL. A revisit in a years time might be appropriate, I wouldn't be surprised if we see a noticeable shift by then (The shift in the media is certainly starting to take place - Haida Gwaii: vs. Queen Charlotte Islands:).--Labattblueboy (talk) 18:53, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The real test will be to see if anyone outside of Canada changes their usage. For instance, will "Haida Gwaii" ever appear on National Geographic world maps? I kind of doubt it. I'm guessing that this will probably go much like the change from "Greenland" to "Kalaallit Nunaat" went—at most, it will appear in parentheses on maps after the more common name. Good Ol’factory (talk) 22:13, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Support per my comment in the last discussion. The name "Haida Gwaii" is also not even English. This is the English Wikipedia and the official language in British Columbia is English.  Volcano guy  02:41, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * A minor comment: Somewhere I made a comment about this case reminding me of Uluru vs. "Ayers Rock". The latter is more obviously an English name. But I'm not sure the "not English" idea works too well for place names. Lots of place names are "not English" but have become accepted usage for English anyway. I don't think Haida Gwaii is there yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is someday. Just saying. Pfly (talk) 12:08, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Just to note that there are native names that are official at both levels (i.e. federal as well as provincial); the best-known example is Gwaii Haanas National Park and Preserve....and if you do a search at CGNDB for "ksi", which means "river" in Nisga'a and Gitxsan, you'll find various rivers in the Nass basin are now officially - federally - in Nisga'a, rather than in their English adaptations; the Tseax River is now Ksi Sii Aks, I think, and the Kincolith River is formally Ksi Gingolx; these are because of the Nisga'a Treaty, which also converted Indian Reserves in that area to "fee simple" holdings, but with Nisga'a names restored (or de-anglicized, as some like Stagoo - and Kincolith and Tseax were already in Nisga'a, but not in modern orthography. The Nass River I think has a secondary official name, also, but "Nass River" remains official SFAIK.Skookum1 (talk) 21:09, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * One name that wasn't officially changed by treaty is the Muskaboo River - one of my favourite place names in BC; its Nisga'a name in BCGNIS is "recorded" Ksi M'aas Gibu

- "river of the white solf", though "white wolf" is a chiefly name, not a direct reference to the animal; Chief Muskaboo was one of those natives who assisted the Collins Overland Telegraph project. For more on Nisga'a names see this section of the GEoBC site where BCGNIS is hosted.Skookum1 (talk) 21:20, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 2 (March 2011)

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. Consensus is that, for the moment, Queen Charlotte Islands is still the common name. Dpmuk (talk) 13:01, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Queen Charlotte Islands → Haida Gwaii — Officially recognized on all levels of government (Provincially via BCGNIS, Federally via CGNDB/Atlas of Canada, regionally e.g. Skeena-Queen Charlotte Regional District's webpage, and internationally e.g. GEOnet Names Server) and through services (e.g., BC Ferries map). Other information providers, such as Google Maps and The Canadian Encyclopedia use "Haida Gwaii" as the primary display name. Google News search results indicate that "Haida Gwaii" is more commonly used in English-seeking news media with a ratio of 6:1. Keep in mind the good points in the previous discussion above. Particularly that "Queen Charlotte Islands" is still very common, and the name "Haida Gwaii" is much newer. + m t  04:11, 16 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment. A week ago, CGNDB did not have this change; now the search for "Queen Charlotte Islands" has nothing at all; a search for "Queen Charlotte" describes the Village of Queen Charlotte (aka Queen Charlotte City) as an Unincorporated area. Queen Charlotte Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound are not listed at all, whereas the minor waterway Queen Charlotte Channel is listed. The Queen Charlotte Land District retains that name (so far), and "Haida Gwaii" is listed as an island (singular) not "islands". Clearly CGNDB does not have its act together on any of this; makes me wonder who's running that show. And NB, the Skeena-Queen Charlotte Regional District has not changed its name; maybe that's in the works. There are two wiki-points here at issue: one is that globally "Queen Charlotte Islands" remains the most common usage and as someone said in the RD-hyphens discussions and others "We don't do official names" (which is why the Burma article is titled that way, among countless other examples). The second wikipoint I've made above, to User:Harburg, who complained about "Anglo-Canadian" "culture warriors", is that on various pages, such as Dixon Entrance, the other camp of "culture warriors" have sought to obliterate all mention of the name Queen Charlotte Islands - repeatedly, over and over (I've fixed the Dixon Entrance page but who knows who long before it's attack-edited again). All kinds of misrepresentations have been made, including on this page, earlier tonight, the claim in an inline comment that "Haida Gwaii" was the "original name" which is complete horse doodoo, as the name was only invented in the 1970s; likewise the claim that "Seegay" is the name for Dixon Entrance; it's just the Haida word for "ocean" and would apply to the open Pacific, Hecate Strait, Queen Charlotte Sound et al. If there's consensus to move the name, i.e. it can be shown that this is now a common usage, I'm unopposed - but any ongoing pretension that the name "Queen Charlotte Islands" be wiped from Wikipedia entirely must be met with firm admin/editorial intervention/correction. Wikipedia should not be used in this way. i.e. to disseminate/popularize a POV/politicized name-change, especially when there's a clear history of inappropriate editorial behaviour and cultural censorship by those advocating that Wikipedia MUST adopt the new name. "Common sense must prevail" is an awfully strange statement to make when very little in the way of common sense, or of responsible encyclopedism, has been demonstrated by those intent on "wiping away colonial history". What has instead been spewed is an endless torrent of accusation, vitriol, race-based hatred and worse. Demanding something be popularized/applied in the course of accusing others of "culture war" and implied racism is getting very very tiresome; we saw the same with Salish Sea, including various attempts to rename both Strait of Georgia and Puget Sound to that name, as well as to wipe those names from Wikipedia. WP:COMMONNAME cannot be swept aside in order to make Wikipedia a cultural soapbox and advance an ethno-linguistic agenda, especially when censorship of the older name has been so thoroughly and repeatedly applied, including condescending/hostile comments on this page, and also in teh body of articles, and not in vague terms either. To make it a common name - Wikipedia shouldn't be used for that, it's gonna take getting authoritative sources to change their entries (and that doesn't include the Canadian Encyclopedia, which is full of errors and badly written/cited material, and certainly isn't the Britannica or National Geographic)...Oh, but they're "just white colonialist sources" no doubt.....Skookum1 (talk) 05:30, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Re: other name changes: AFAIK, only the group of islands has been renamed (this request). Other articles such as Skeena-Queen Charlotte Regional District have not changed, and I'm unaware of the status of renaming any other "Queen Charlotte*" geographic entities. Any other geographic entity renaming is out of the scope of this change request. + m t  07:05, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Reply That's not what I meant at all. What I meant is that CGNDB isn't even complete, and is not authoritative; nor does it reflect any official name-changes made by the federal government.  haven't checked the Atlas of CAnada yet, for that matter.Skookum1 (talk) 07:09, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Small tangential off-topic note: Queen Charlotte Channel is nowhere near the North Coast, it's the channel between Bowen Island and the eastern Howe Sound coastline, and probably named directly for HM Queen Charlotte rather than indirectly via the ship-name (many names around Howe Sound are named for members of the royal family/dynasty, e.g. Brunswick Beach/Peak, Brittania Range etc.)Skookum1 (talk) 09:53, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Re Atlas of Canada: I can search for "Haida Gwaii" to find the islands, but yield 0 results for "Queen Charlotte Islands". + m t  07:39, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The Atlas of Canada is a reflection of CGNDB, not the same department I think but they are coordinated in various ways (though the Atlas of Canada SHOULD have things like Queen Charlotte Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound in it, which CGNDB doesn't. What's disturbing is they make no effort, which BCGNIS does with all rescinded names and some that are just "recorded", to include the former name at all.  Tug the forelock, pass the rubber eraser.  Ottawa has long been far away from reality, especially the British Columbian reality.Skookum1 (talk) 09:50, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment Recently I've noticed an increase in the use of Haida Gwaii, even in non-Canadian sources (especially Alaskan sources). I abstain from voting on this—just thought it worth mentioning the seemingly growing use of Haida Gwaii. However, if the page name is to be changed, I recommend adding a section about the name change—something more in depth than the current "Naming" section. Also, the old name "Queen Charlotte Islands" should be mentioned clearly from the start, as this is still, as far as I can tell, the most well-known name for the islands, especially historically. Pfly (talk) 08:08, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Re: I agree that the original name needs to be very clear, and historical references to "Queen Charlotte Islands" must not be modified, as they are print-worthy and in context. I just searched on GEOnet Names Server, with results: "Haida Gwaii (Approved); Queen Charlotte Islands (Variant)", which I suppose contributes international recognition to the name change. + m t  08:28, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, and part of the slow change I've noticed is US federal sources starting to use Haida Gwaii. I first noticed it in National Weather Service forecasts for Seattle. Sometimes they say "Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands)", but sometimes they just say "Haida Gwaii". I'd post a link, but their forecasts change constantly. Pfly (talk) 08:55, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Wikipedia doesn't do official PC names. We simply do the most common names used by the majority of the English-speaking world. IMHO we should use Haida Gwaii when it becomes the most common name and not before. Flamarande (talk) 13:23, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Re: The most common English-speaking name in present contexts is "Haida Gwaii". For example, with Google News, compare 37 results versus 177 results. The most common name in historical contexts (pre 2010) is obviously "Queen Charlotte Islands". + m t  18:16, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Another way to explore the "common name" is to look at what the general public search over time. Google Trends is one such tool with these results. "Haida Gwaii" became a more dominant search term in late 2010. + m t  10:27, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Flamarande. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:59, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Dosen't matter how many times there is going to be a "requested move" to Haida Gwaii I still oppose. "Queen Charlotte Islands" is still commonly used.  Volcano guy  15:19, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose While I personally prefer Haida Gwaii as a name for the Islands (Who was Queen Charlotte anyway besides a buddy of Marie Antoinette's, and what did she have to do with BC?), Wikipedia is not in a position to right past wrongs. We can certainly record and present past wrongs, per Pfly's comment, but "Haida Gwaii" will have to become the dominant international term before we make the change here.  Even if QCI is now officially a variant name, it takes time for that to become a real-world reality.  The Interior  (Talk) 23:02, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment Just to clarify, the islands weren't named for HM Queen Charlotte, but for a ship named for her, which was the first English-origin ship to chart/explore the Isles; read the article's name orign.Skookum1 (talk) 01:23, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, missed that connection. I was just picturing Marie and Charlotte quaffing tea and laughing about the colonial wilderness.  The Interior  (Talk) 01:34, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * There's a page, of course: Queen Charlotte (merchant ship). Also, it wasn't the first English ship to chart the islands (James Cook was notably earlier), just the first whose captain, George Dixon, realized the islands were, in fact, islands, not part of the mainland. Pfly (talk) 08:55, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME and per previous recent discussion. It seems like it is a bit soon to be reconsidering this name since it was just changed in December 2010. Good Ol’factory (talk) 23:54, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment: The name was changed in BC on June 3, 2010 (not December 2010). + m t  00:40, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment As I recall, June was when the name change/power deal was announced (that was the context, a tit-for-tat) and the actual official legislation making the name change did not happen until December.  There's a big difference between a politician announcing something and it becoming official (NB this was also done without the usual name-board procedure as created "Salish Sea" as an official name, but rather by direct legislation, though I guess that would have had to be an Order-in-Council and note proper vote of teh House (but that's the state of undemocracy in BC; it would be unlikely to have opposed in the Leg anyway, i.e. even if their votes counted for anything Opposition members would have voted for it, though conceivably one of the Indpendents might not have).  Also re the google results, sites from the Isles, even from Canada, or at least BC, should be filtered out, otherwise it's not any kind of proof of global English usage, only of the permeation of the net by name-change advocates.  Legislating something as truth, and it being truth...well, those are two different things.Skookum1 (talk) 16:46, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Pronunciation
How are you even supposed to pronounce "Haida Gwaii"? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:23, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The pronunciation of Haida Gwaii is relatively straight-forward: (IPA) or  (respell). You can hear someone say the name here, here and here. If you're wondering about the original name Xhaaidla(gha) Gwaayaai from which it derives, then it would be pronounced something like  in the Haida language. —  Io Katai   ᵀᵃˡᵏ  05:58, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Well, I was mainly wondering about the pronunciation of Haida Gwaii, which is not English and therefore not at all predictable (disregarding the fact that the pronunciation of countless English words is not predictable, either). Your admittance that it is relatively straight-forward only is symptomatic. How do I know that it is not, for example? This information deserves to be added to the intro. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:33, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * An "antique" spelling of Haida is "Hydah" which gives you a pretty firm idea of how it's pronounced in English. Not sure what their Russian name was, in fact (koloshi may have included them, it's the usual usage for Alaskan Natives, particularly the Tlingit, also Koloschen in German).  But the BCGNIS entry on Queen Charlotte Islands gives the Skidegate and Masset Haida language pronunciations, which are quite different from the usual in English.Skookum1 (talk) 07:12, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Metrics to establish most common name
I'm not sure I understand the outcome of the most recent move proposal, as Mwtoews provided considerable evidence that Haida Gwaii is indeed currently the most common name (BCGNIS, CGNDB/Atlas of Canada, Skeena-Queen Charlotte Regional District's webpage, GEOnet Names Server, BC Ferries map, Google Maps, The Canadian Encyclopedia, etc.), and no evidence to the contrary was presented. If not official sources like these, nor popular usage measurements like Google Trends, what metrics should we be monitoring to determine when the move is justified under WP:COMMONNAME?--Trystan (talk) 20:02, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

I thought it might help to compile everything into a table. Please feel to update/add to it.--Trystan (talk) 21:00, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Good table, Trystan. I added a row. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 15:45, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * CBC News and The Globe and Mail also use Haida Gwaii, as per some articles today about a missing person: . They don't even mention the former name.  —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 15:13, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I've added them to the table.--Trystan (talk) 23:23, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Using careful reasoning and analysis? Let's see how that turns out for ya. I'll swing on by again in several months and have a look-see. Harburg (talk) 05:42, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment note that Queen Charlotte Visitor Centre (in QCC) is not Haida Gwaii Visitor Centre, and the Queen Charlotte-Prince Rupert Regional District is not Haida Gwaii-Prince Rupert Regional District. True that the Haida are trying to get the name queen Charlotte off the map, but their name for "sea" they want to apply to the Strait and also the Dixon Entrance, and the Kwakwaka'wakw and Tsimshian and Tlingit are left out of hte equation; Skookum1 (talk) 12:06, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Requested move 3 (July 2011)

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved. NW ( Talk ) 14:24, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Queen Charlotte Islands → Haida Gwaii – According the the WP:COMMONNAME policy, an article title should be the term that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources, including major international organizations, major English-language media outlets, encyclopedias, geographic name servers, major scientific bodies and scientific journals. Where a name has changed, the policy suggests considering usage since the change.

The Queen Charlotte Islands have officially been renamed to Haida Gwaii. This name change was agreed to in December 2009, and took effect on June 3, 2010 when the enacting legislation received royal assent.

A chart on the article's talk page tracking usage in reliable sources has been collaboratively maintained since May 1, 2011. It demonstrates overwhelming use of Haida Gwaii rather than Queen Charlotte Islands. Major national news outlets have moved to using the current name without mention of the previous name. Encyclopedias, geographic name databases, major English-language classification schemes, and various other sources have adopted the new name. Google Trends indicates that searches for "Haida Gwaii" significantly outnumber searches for "Queen Charlotte Islands." Only Yahoo! Maps, Bing Maps, and a private tourism website were identified as favouring the previous name.--Trystan (talk) 16:53, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Support: Haida Gwaii has dominant support as WP:COMMONNAME. + m t  21:12, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Support Though I opposed last time, I think Trystan has sufficiently demonstrated that HG is now the dominant term. The Interior  (Talk) 21:26, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment' it's only been 4 months since the last discussion, shouldn't we wait a bit more? 65.93.15.213 (talk) 05:15, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * In making this proposal, I was very conscious of the relatively short period since the last proposed move. However, I felt that the above table canvassing reliable sources was sufficiently stable, had sufficient input from other editors, and was overwhelmingly clear in demonstrating the dominant usage. My thinking was that it would be appropriate to propose the move again once something major had changed that would likely lead to a different outcome, and I think the table fits that critera.--Trystan (talk) 14:50, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Apart from the fact that this was just discussed a few months ago, I'm not fully convinced that this is already the most common usage throughout the English-speaking world. Good Ol’factory (talk) 09:28, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The relevant policy, WP:COMMONNAME, sets out the relatively easy test of measuring usage in reliable sources since the name change. The sources canvassed in the table above almost all demonstrate a marked shift to "Haida Gwaii". If you are aware of reliable sources that contradict this trend, I would invite you to add them to the table.--Trystan (talk) 14:50, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * There's too many to go through all of them and add them. National Geographic would be one obvious one. Good Ol’factory (talk) 23:52, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * It's actually difficult to find sources that use "Queen Charlotte Islands" as the primary name, including National Geographic. Have a look on a search engine and compile what you find in the list above. + m t  00:11, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * No, it's not particularly difficult. I'm referring here to an atlas published by the National Geographic Society in 2011. It uses "Queen Charlotte Islands" on the applicable maps. Any other hard-copy atlases I have referred to that have been published this year are the same. Encyclopedia Britannica still uses "QCI" in both their hardcopy and online encylcopedias, as I suspect most encyclopedias still do. I don't have time today to add to the chart, which seems limited to on-line sources in any case. If you really want people to add every 2011 hardcopy publication we can get our hands on, that's another sign that we need more time to work on the table before a decision is made. In any case, I don't think three months is enough time for things to settle out, let alone compile evidence of it all, unless one is only interested in cherry picking. Good Ol’factory (talk) 00:15, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * (ec) The 2011 online editions of Encyclopædia Britannica, Merriam-Webster, Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, and Encyclopedia Americana all continue to have pages called "Queen Charlotte Islands", none of which even mention "Haida Gwaii". A search for "Haida Gwaii" on any of these returns no results. A quick search of the New York Times, 1980 to present, shows 6 uses of "Haida Gwaii" (some of which are about sculptures called "The Spirit of Haida Gwaii"), and 37 hits for "Queen Charlotte Islands", the use of which continues into recent years. These were just the first and easiest thing I had at hand to search. I agree with Good Ol’factor that the list of sources above is not "overwhelmingly clear in demonstrating the dominant usage". I'm not arguing for either name, in fact I have begun to lean more toward Haida Gwaii. But am abstaining from voting, just making a comment. Pfly (talk) 00:34, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, I note, for what it's worth, that a search for Haida Gwaii on the Statistics Canada website returns no results: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/stcsr/query.html?style=emp&qt=Haida+Gwaii&charset=iso-8859-1&qm=1&oq=&rq=1&la=en Pfly (talk) 00:56, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * FWIW, statistics are collected and reported for Districts. The search results from StatsCan are for Skeena-Queen Charlotte Regional District, not for the archipelago in question. Similar searches for Saltspring Island yield zero. + m t  01:27, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah ha, that explains it. I wonder if the regional district will ever be renamed to conform to the new official name, assuming it refers to the whole archipelago and not just the village of Queen Charlotte. Pfly (talk) 03:02, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * No need to toss out allegations of cherry picking; I am more than happy to have any recent reliable source identified and considered. :) I have made a good faith effort to assemble as complete a list as possible, and invited all users to contribute. Besides, which side would I cherry pick for? I have come into the this debate quite recently, and I understand that both sides are politically charged, but my only bias is towards an outcome that is evidence-based. I suppose I also must acknowledge an on-line bias, but this is one which affects all of Wikipedia (and indeed, has been shown to affect all academic research in recent years). At the same time, I don't think it makes for a fair contest to suggest that this decision should be made on the possibility of some hypothesized very large body of print literature that would entirely contradict and overwhelm the clear trend in the many sources that have been canvassed.--Trystan (talk) 05:22, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I did not accuse you or anyone else of cherry picking. I suggested that to attempt to compile a determinative list based solely on on-line sources is of limited use at this stage, unless one is interested in cherry-picking sources. I've no doubt that you were not cherry picking—it's just that I see the current compilation of limited usage, which is the other option mentioned. Good Ol’factory (talk) 11:11, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. My concern with timing is just that it seems too early to know whether or not some of the hard-copy sources that have used "Queen Charlotte Islands" in the past are going to switch to the new name. With the name change being so recent, it's entirely possible that we are merely dealing with publishers' lag times, whereby proofs of a hard-copy text need to be finalised well before actual publication. A particular org like National Geographic may have every intention of using the new name and will in proofs that they finalise after the official name change. On the other hand, they may make a conscious decision to keep using the old name. But for the vast majority of hard-copy sources, we don't really know what has been decided either way until some more time has passed. It's not wrong to just be patient and wait for things to settle out. Good Ol’factory (talk) 02:15, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Be it 3, 6, or 60 months, I can't imagine any of us are ever going to engage in a systematic review of print sources on this issue. Our best measure of usage in hard copy sources is going to be through on-line databases. Factiva is the best measure of print newspapers I know, and Academic Search Complete the best measure of print academic journals. Both are listed above, and very strongly favour "Haida Gwaii" over "Queen Charlotte Islands". For general books, Google Books is of course excellent, but doesn't seem to include any 2011 titles. For 2010, it was in favour of QCI by 478 to 330, though of course the name change only took effect half-way through that year. A more current measure is the WorldCat Library Union Catalog, which favours "Haida Gwaii" for 2010-11 titles by 42 to 17.--Trystan (talk) 06:12, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * By proposing the move now, we have no option to do such an assessment that would mean much even if we wanted to. Of course it would never be done "comprehensively", but it could at least be done to some extent. But right now it can't be done to any useful extent. That's why a settling out period would be helpful. Good Ol’factory (talk) 11:06, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the "right" timing to rename an article is when the naming usage is in mid-cycle. Not to early—otherwise it is isn't familiar to folks looking for the article, and not to late—otherwise it lags predominant usage and may appear "dated". In Canada, the usage of HG is widespread—even since the last move request nearly all regularly updated Canadian sources primary or exclusively use HG, with only a few sources that appear either neutral or haven't updated their website in years. The rest of the global media content publishers appears to be either neutral or split on the naming usage, but there isn't enough of a signal-to-noise ratio to really determine anything (e.g., try to see the bars in the "Regions" part of this Google Trends result for regions other than Canada). + m t  11:03, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Support per the table constructed in the above thread. Rennell435 (talk) 17:56, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Lead section POV
The lead section of this article reads to me as if it takes the point of view of the Haida Nation against the governments of Canada and the United States. There is a perceptible sense that the US and Canada are alien forces who somehow oppress Haida Gwaii without providing any benefits – as if the right thing to do would be for both Canada and the US to cede sovereignty over all the territory the Haida Nation claims to that nation and end all involvement in its affairs. In fact, the following passage is not particularly subtle in making that point:"... the U.S. state of Alaska is to the north, across a marine border Dixon Entrance disputed by two Nation state claimants, Canada and the USA. Haida territories, continuously occupied before Canada or USA claims, include lands and waters on both side of this political disagreement. There is no evidence of a free informed prior legal transfer of competence over these territories from the Indigenous Peoples to either Nation state." A more balanced article would tell about what benefits the people of these islands receive in return for submission to these two foreign powers. If they receive no benefits, and if the only result of being part of Canada and the US is oppression, then that point should be made more clearly and with reliable sources to support it.

I personally have no stake or even great interest in this specific issue, and my feelings about it are not strong enough to move me to mark the article with any sort of POV tag; but I do feel that I should express how the article reads to me for the possible benefit of editors who are involved in maintaining it.--Jim10701 (talk) 16:22, 28 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for bringing that up. As it turns out, the changes were undiscussed, and were made by an IP on July 31, 2011. I have removed them per your concerns. --Ckatz chat spy  18:09, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

"Formerly" vs. "More Commonly"
This edit re-replaces the phrase "formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands," with "more commonly the Queen Charlotte Islands," in the lede sentence. That QCI remains a common name is not disputed, but the available sources strongly indicate it is not a more common name than Haida Gwaii. Certainly the citation currently in the lede sentence does not support the current phrasing. My preference is the long-standing version using "formerly," but I would be open to any wording that doesn't make any uncited claims about the relative usage of the two names; "...also commonly referred to by its former official name..." seems a bit clunky, though.--Trystan (talk) 00:01, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I also think "formerly" is better than "more commonly", even if both are true (if both are true, "more commonly" is hard to prove, and may change over time anyway). The last paragraph of the lead briefly describes the official name change. Perhaps a sentence could be added there to point out how QCI remains very common despite the official change? That way the opening sentence could be succinct, with additional details still in the lead? Pfly (talk) 01:30, 19 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I've restored the "formerly" wording.--Trystan (talk) 19:33, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * It's still commonly referred to as Queen Charlotte Islands. No need to hide this fact. It's not because some law introduces a pseudo 'indigenous' name that the original name Queen Charlotte Islands is dead. --Wester (talk) 15:32, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Correct. As an unofficial name, it is still 100% current; nothing "outdated" about it. Those who wish to add "former" need a source confirming that the name is not even (common?) in popular (as opposed to official) use anymore in English. Perhaps in 50 years, when only old people continue to use (or at least remember using) the name.
 * BTW, if the name Haida Gwaii really means "Islands of the people", shouldn't Haida Gwaii govern the plural, too? (Funny that the PC crowd never cares to comment or even, apparently, think about such issues ... to hell with the common folk, who have to live with their armchair decisions. How many actual linguists are involved in such attempted regulations of language? Hardly any, or they wouldn't be so undemocratic and poorly thought through.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:41, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm 57 and it was and still is  commonly called the Charlottes/QCI, and not just by "old" people LOL (kids these days, sheesh, pardon me I gotta pluck the white hairs out of my grey-blond....Haida Gwaii is noticeably in official/public use but still most commonly referred to, even in BC, as the Charlottes. There's a compromise solution, I"m gonna do it, and will reject any attempt to use Wikipedia as a stage for the political rebranding or t he "selling" of the new name, or any attempt to discredit the continued use of the old one and its variant forms.....Skookum1 (talk) 17:13, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
 * That's exactly what I was saying: the name is not going to drop out of popular use anytime soon, if even the kids use it. I think you've misread me, I'm fully on your side. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:29, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

What I had in mind won't work because of the way the opening paragraph is worded; I was going to put something like "Haida Gwaii, until xxxx year formerly officially, and still commonly known as, the Queen Charlotte Islands, also known as "the Charlottes" (easy to cite)" or some other compromise of that kind, is the way to go. Attempts to try to use this article as a stump for the rebranding and discredit the old name are a no-go and highly POV and not what Wikipedia is or should allow itself to be used for; there were long edit wars about this before the name change was official and enough media and other citations emerged to validate changing the name. And some one of those edits back at that link quoted at the opening of this section presumed to say that there were 'enough' cites that use Haida Gwaii to validate discontinuing to use the old one, even discrediting the old name; said editor claimed that there were not enough citations to warrant leaving the old one in use; some long ago tried to eradicate it entirely.....WP:SOAPBOX combined with violations of WP:COI and WP:AUTO.....the "old" name remains in wide use in global English, media and academia as well as travel and popular speech....and Haida Gwaii is not the name in many languages.......(German has adopted it now, I believe, at least Germans heading there....). "formerly and still commonly named as" is the format, and the emphasis is that this name was official...and still occurs in the name of the regional district, the local faultline, various geological formations etc etc etc. etc...and the Haida language pronunciation of Haida Gwaii belongs here, not just the English one (which I have a problem with the IPA for, because it doesn't represent American or Aussie or British English, nor even some CAnadian English; but that's a general across-the-board problem with Canadian names (Americans habitually say "Frazhier River" despite the "Fraser" spelling, for example.....I'm fresh back here, can't believe this is 'still' be argued about...... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Skookum1 (talk • contribs)


 * I understand that many people have political sensitivities around this issue, but let's all try to continue to assume good faith. I'm not on any rebranding crusade. It simply made sense to me (and to the other editor who commented at the time) to have the introductory text based on the official name, in the interests of being concise. As I said, I am happy with any wording compatible with the facts:
 * Queen Charlotte Islands is the former official name,
 * Haida Gwaii is the current official name, and
 * both Haida Gwaii and Queen Charlotte Islands are commonly used.
 * Perhaps just saying 'formerly' would be taken by many readers as referring to both official and common usage; fair enough. But at the same time, the new wording, "The Queen Charlotte Islands, since 2010 officially known as Haida Gwaii", would surely imply that HG is merely an official name, as opposed to one in widespread common usage. It also has the disadvantage of being unnecessarily surprising by not starting with the article title, which is the most common name according to our extensive canvassing of reliable sources, above. How about: "Haida Gwaii, also commonly referred to by its former official name, the Queen Charlotte Islands." That's not exactly concise, but it's crystal clear.
 * Regarding pluralization, it is clear from available sources that Haida Gwaii is treated as singular. It's not uncommon for foreign plural terms to take a singular form in English. Compare Polynesia (many islands).--Trystan (talk) 18:35, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Very true, as in Haida "Gwaay" is the singular e.g. Sgung Gwaay for what used to be called Nintints after one of its chiefs; But English usages as noted often take the singular when the plural is the real meaning; not really done for the British Isles but I'm sure I could come up with examples....there's little consistency across the board in various English usages; since this one is an IMPOSED one, it's not natural to start with in English....Skookum1 (talk) 12:00, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Polynesia is an unsuited example as it's merely a (singular) compound ("many-island-land" or "Manyislandia", so to say), and not a phrase literally meaning "many islands", but whatever, I see your point and I know that etymology does not determine usage, but it is at least conceivable in principle that Haida Gwaii might be treated as a plural – at least if awareness of its (apparent – I have no clue about Haida grammar, so I just don't know if the translation is true) origin as a plural is still widespread enough at least among academics. But I suspect Haida is just too obscure for non-natives to know anything about plural marking in it.
 * While it is hard to avoid some OR in order to establish what is "in common use" or not, as there are unlikely to be citeable surveys about the question, to cut a long story short, I'm fine with the compromise solution. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:20, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Climate- 10 centimeters of snow
Snowfall is generally moderate, averaging from 10 centimetres (3.9 in) to 70 centimetres (28 in), though at northerly Langara Island it averages around 100 centimetres (39 in).

Given the mild climate of the islands, I don't doubt the existence of such a place, however, I would like to see records validating this. --UkrainianAmerican (talk) 23:42, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

2012 controversy around depositing iron in the ocean
The statement that "The 2013 salmon runs defied all expectations..." strongly implies that this is because of the iron that was put into the ocean. This has not been suggested by any reliable source. Given the salmon lifecycle, it does not make sense for the 2013 salmon run to be affected by a deposit of iron in 2012.

One could also add a statement that "in 2013-2014, the levels of PSP (paralytic shellfish poisoning) Haida Gwaii defied all expectations." (PSP is caused by a dinoflagellate that would probably benefit from increased iron).

Given the lack of any experimental design, it does not seem possible for anything to be linked to the iron depositing, either positive of negative. My suggestion is to just remove the statement about salmon returns.

On a related note, I think that the title "Ocean fertilization experiment" is quite misleading. It implies that the event in question was an experiment, and that it fertilized the ocean. Both of these points are very contentious. This title therefore gives undue weight to a single point of view. It could just as easily be referred to as the "illegal iron dumping of 2012". I tried to think of a more balanced title. Perhaps "2012 controversy around depositing iron in the ocean"? I realize that it sounds kind of goofy, but at least it doesn't strongly support one point of view. Any suggestions would be welcome. Millifolium (talk)


 * Actually it does make sense with the salmon life cycle. Yes, the salmon who ran the rivers were not spawned the previous year; and likely were years old. Nor, were these salmon spawned from different waters. Salmon almost always return to the rivers of their spawn. (Almost always since they must have proliferated somehow.) But, they would have been able to survive better having been fed on the bounty of the rich waters. More importantly, predators of salmon would have a) had an abundance of alternative prey animals to feed on, and b) needed to eat less of the fatter salmon to achieve satiation. Both would have contributed to many more salmon surviving to their final run.


 * Keep in mind whether or not iron can fertilize the ocean, leading to phytoplankton blooms, leading to benefits all the way up the food chain is not debate-able. It is well studied that nutrient rich waters, such as around natural cold water upwellings, are among the biologically richest in the world. Waters with a scarcity of nutrients are comparatively dead. What is debate-able is, as you wrote, the timing, and the other larger issues of whether such practices should be allowed, because of ethical reasons, and the potential danger of unforeseen side effects. 173.79.236.101 (talk) 21:19, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

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Connection to Hopi
Hi, I'm moving this fragment here until it can be reinserted in a way that is more complete and clear. Removed bit:
 * where the Haida memorial potlatch survives among the Hopi.

The source appears to be subscription-based, so I'm not able to check what the intended meaning was here. The potlatch custom is common throughout many native cultures, and Hopi is a different language family from Haida, so the connection isn't clear from the fragment. Thanks! — Henry chianski (talk) 01:40, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

200+ years is not typically called brief
I have changed a reference to the islands being called Queen Charlotte Islands to remove the word briefly and inserted the start and end date for the term. I think we can leave it to the readers to determine for themselves whether this constitutes a brief period of time. --Wilson (talk) 22:31, 27 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I believe it would be most accurate to change “also called” to “formerly” because the name was formally changed in 2010, as stated later in the article. D1doherty (talk) 05:53, 9 October 2023 (UTC)