Naden Harbour is located on the northeast coast of Haida Gwaii and is known as a popular fishing location. Naden is the Haida name that was adopted by the Raven Crest members, they were the Ne dan xada i and lived at the mouth of the Naden River which flowed
into the harbour.1
The Haida village of Kung, located at the entrance of Naden Harbour, was a large Indigenous
community in the 1840s. Encounters with Europeans during this period brought diseases such as the smallpox,
and many Haida villages such as this were wiped out. It was stated by the Hudson Bay Company in 1885 that only 800 Haida remained -- about 95% less than the original population.2 The remaining Indigenous Peoples at Kung left for the Haida settlement in Masset in 1884. The village of Masset survived and the Haida community has reformed with close to
4500 people.3
Naden Harbour later became the location of the Consolidated Whaling Company which
operated from 1911 to 1942; as well as a cannery which processed salmon, crab, and clams.4
1. Andrew Scott, Cape Naden in The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Place Names, (Harbour Publishing: Madeira Park, 2009), 106.