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Hydaburg
 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. It lies at approximately 55° 12' N Latitude,
132° 49' W Longitude (Sec. 12, T077S, R083E, Copper River Meridian). The
community is located in the Ketchikan Recording District. The area
encompasses 1 sq. miles of land and 0 sq. miles of water.
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 townsite
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.
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