Abstract

This paper summarizes current information regarding Late Quaternary environments of the Northern Northwest Coast. Special attention will be paid to palaeoenvironmental factors with the potential of absolutely limiting a human presence in any given region, or strongly affecting cultural adaptations, including the timing and extent of Late Pleistocene ice-advances, major sea-level changes and the developmental histories of the Stikine, Nass and Skeena River systems. Lesser attention will be paid to the evolution of terrestrial biotic systems since about 15-20,000 years BP, as revealed by palynological studies. Because of significant intra-regional variation, palaeoenvironments will be discussed in terms of three subareas: 1. the Queen Charlotte Islands, 2. Southeastern Alaska and, 3. the northern mainland coast, extending inland along the rivers to about Telegraph Creek-Hazelton. A particularly interesting feature was an emergent land-bridge which connected the Queen Charlotte Islands to the mainland in the early Holocene and which ended in a very rapid rise in sea-levels about 9-10,000 BP, possibly recorded in Haida flood legends. Other potentially catastrophic events described in native traditions include the Aiyansh lava flow about 220 BP in the Nass River valley and the Rocher Déboulé landslide in the Skeena River valley about 3,500 years ago.