Queen Charlotte Islands' Cumshewa Head Trail

Hans B. Neumann is a history lecturer at Scarborough College, University
of Toronto.

This little book represents an illustrated trail guide for one of the
hiking tracks on Moresby, one of the largest of the Queen Charlotte
Islands (located off the B.C. coast just below the Alaska Panhandle).
The trail covered is the Cumshewa Head Trail, which runs along the
island’s interior coast.

The general area and its problems are introduced by Chief Cumshewa, of
the people of the same name (who are indigenous to the area). The body
of the text details, in diary form, an April 1989 hike along this track.
This narrative—sensitive to sights, sounds, and the ecology of the
close-to-the-coastline trail—is accompanied by Karstad’s sketches.
It also includes two useful, if somewhat sketchy, maps of the track. The
book concludes with Wood’s synopsis, which offers often-ignored advice
on proper trail etiquette as well as estimated hiking times between
various points on the trail.

For anyone planning a hiking trip in the Queen Charlottes, particularly
on Moresby, this pocket-sized book—small enough to fit into almost any
zippered pocket of a backpack—would certainly come in handy.