Council of the Haida Nation

The Council of the Haida Nation is the Aboriginal Sovereign Authority and Government of the Haida Nation within Canada. The Haida Nation are the Indigenous people of British Columbia's Haida Gwaii Islands, but which does not include Prince of Wales Island in Alaska, another Haida homeland. The Kaigani Haida, who are the Alaskan group,<!--were exiled from the Haida Gwaii a few hundred years ago--> are not part of the same government and are constituted separately within the Central Council Tlingit Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. There are two subgovernments of the Haida Nation within Canada, the Old Massett Village Council and the Skidegate Band Council.

The archipelago is one of the richest marine and terrestrial environments on earth. The Haida culture comes from the land with a distinct language and distinctive and renowned material culture. Formed in 1973, it has been involved in many conflicts over the fate of its territories, which have been claimed by Canada since 1871, and by the Colony of British Columbia and the Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands prior to that. No treaties between the Crown and the governments of the Haida were ever signed, as in most of the rest of the current Canadian province of British Columbia.

The Council of the Haida Nation has a Constitution of a Nation, and has come to unique solutions in dealing with colonialism. <!-- See Gwaii Haanas Agreement.-->

All Haida territories were in the past also claimed by Russia and Spain as...
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