FOLLOWING DAWSON TO HAIDA GWAII

In 1878 G. M. Dawson with his brother Rankine sailed to Haida Gwaii (Formerly Queen Charlotte Islands) for two and a half months in the engineless schooner Wanderer. In a stormy summer he mapped the geology of the east and north coasts but he also fixed key positions astronomically, wrote a pilots guide, surveyed the biology of land and sea, evaluated the land and its potential resources, wrote a dictionary of the two prominent tongues, and recorded Haida art, sociology and ethnology. Some critical geological sites he identified include the Karnian pillow lavas of Bigsby Inlet, the Norian massive limestone and argillite of Kunga Island. His investigation of Jurassic and Cretaceous was confused by similar appearing sandstones, lumped fossil collections and lack of distinguishing Jurassic Yakoun from Paleocene Masset pyroclastic accumulations. Dawson, however, made remarkable observation of the glacial geology leading to the proof of a Queen Charlotte Ice Cap which future biologists long contested. This was the man I followed.

Finally, more recent historical aspects concern the Queen Charlotte fault and Harry Hess’ recommendation to me, if I could, map the archipelago because of the unique lack of a continental slope, offshore deep and gravity anomaly.