Skidegate
Skidegate is located on the southeast side of Graham Island, in Haida Gwaii. Skidegate is, in one meaning, named after a head chief of the area.1 Along with the community, there is Skidegate Channel, Inlet, and Landing.
Fur trader Charles Duncan visited the Skidegate region in 1788, and since his arrival, both European and US explorers and traders have named the surrounding features dozens of English names; variants on the now-standard Skidegate, adopted on British Admiralty charts in 1866, include Sge'dagits, Skitekat, Skit-ei-get, Skittagets, Skettegats, and others.2 One 1853 despatch refers to specimens of Coal at Skiddegate's harbour, while another letter, in the same year, pushes for the Port of Skidigate to be declared a Free Port, and to encourage British Subjects to settle there by offering land for Six pence an Acre.
  • 1. Andrew Scott, The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Place Names (Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 2009), 549.
  • 2. Ibid.
Mentions of this place in the documents
Places in this document

Graham Island

Haida Gwaii