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Additional Information pages for Prince of Wales Island

132° 49' W Longitude - 55° 12' N Latitude
Hydaburg is located on the southwest coast of Prince of Wales Island, 45 air miles northwest of Ketchikan. It lies 7 road miles west of Hollis, site of the State Ferry landing.

History:
During the mid to late 1700s, the Haida Indians migrated to Prince of Wales, a predominantly Tlingit area, from Graham Island in the Queen Charlotte Islands, Canada. In 1911, three Haida villages combined at the present site (Sukkwan, Howkan and Klinkwan) for their children to attend school; it was designated as the Hydaburg Indian Reservation in 1912. The new village established a trading company, store and sawmill. However, the villagers were never comfortable with the arrangement, and at their request in 1926, the land was restored to its former status as part of the Tongass National Forest. 189 acres of the land were reserved for the school and town site disposals. The first fish processing plant opened in 1927, and three other canneries operated through the 1930s. When the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) was amended in 1936 to include Alaska Natives, Hydaburg became the first village in Alaska to form an IRA Council.
Today, Hydaburg is the largest Haida village in Alaska. Residents maintain a subsistence and commercial fishing lifestyle. A totem park, developed in the 1930s, is located in the village.  The community is interested in developing a fish processing facility due to a fishing based economy, a U.S. Forest Service Visitor Center, specialty woodworking, and a mini mall/retail center. Subsistence food sources include deer, salmon, halibut, shrimp and crab.

Additional Information pages for Prince of Wales Island