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Wills and Kate Visit Haida Gwaii

Wills and Kate Visit Haida Gwaii

I love this photo. Kate is like, "WHEE CANOEING IS FUN!" and Wills is like, "Kate, I'm trying to concentrate on my stroke. Please."

I mean. She DOES love any and all events that occur on a boat.

Wills and Kate Visit Haida Gwaii

Wills and Kate Visit Haida Gwaii

British Columbia is SO PRETTY YOU GUYS. (I also learned on Wikipedia that the Haida are renown for their canoes, which they used to make out of one giant redwood.)

Wills and Kate Visit Haida Gwaii

Wills and Kate Visit Haida Gwaii

If this blazer looks familiar, it's because Kate often wears the exact one in navy. ("Oh, I like that blazer," was a thing I thought, before I remembered that I ALSO already own it in blue. GET A GRIP, JESSICA.) I wish I had IDs for the dignitaries who have greeted them here -- Informative Caption doesn't have them -- but I will keep looking and if you have an info, please share it.

Wills and Kate Visit Haida Gwaii

Wills and Kate Visit Haida Gwaii

Kate took off the blazer and put on a sweater to "head out on a fishing trip with Skidegate youth centre children." If her jeans are olive green, I'm not sure I think the red matches? If they're more of a brown, of course, then we're back in a Mountie-esque color scheme, and that entertains me.

Wills and Kate Visit Haida Gwaii

Wills and Kate Visit Haida Gwaii

It's not a proper fishing trip if you don't get to manhandle a fish, right?

Wills and Kate Visit Haida Gwaii

Wills and Kate Visit Haida Gwaii

"HELLO I AM HOLDING A FISH RIGHT NOW."

Wills and Kate Visit Haida Gwaii

Wills and Kate Visit Haida Gwaii

"Honey, did you see me hold that fish?! It was fun. I want to do it again."

Also of note: these scarves, like all of the ones they've been given thus far, are really beautiful.

Wills and Kate Visit Haida Gwaii

Wills and Kate Visit Haida Gwaii

"No! Harry said that actually he thought she was GREAT, but he thought she didn't like him! Isn't that interesting"

"Oh, I think Michelle told me that last week, when we were cross-referencing our lists of suggestions. Don't let me forget to give that to you."

Wills and Kate Visit Haida Gwaii

Look, no one is more sympathetic than I am about the drawbacks of being in Kate and William's situation -- we wrote a whole book about it, after all -- but getting to visit places like this and talk to these people surely helps balance the scales, by a LOT. How GORGEOUS it is there.

Wills and Kate Visit Haida Gwaii

Wills and Kate Visit Haida Gwaii

"Be honest, William. Is my outfit too much all the same color?"

Wills and Kate Visit Haida Gwaii

Wills and Kate Visit Haida Gwaii

"Bye, guys! Thanks for hosting us! It's beautiful here! Is...are...do...do we have to canoe back? Just wondering?!"

Royally Played: Wills and Kate (in Smythe) Visit Canada, Day Seven
Today's events are totally entertaining. Canada has made Kate handle a raw fish -- she is a good sport about it! -- and also canoe, which she apparently found delightful. This is like the time I had to go on Outward Bound, except I was not a good sport and did not look delighted during any of it. This trip was to Skidegate, which Wikipedia tells me "is a Haida community in Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands) in British Columbia," and then further explains that "the Haida...are an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America....Haida society continues to produce a robust and highly stylized art form, a leading component of Northwest Coast art. While frequently expressed in large wooden carvings (totem poles), Chilkat weaving, or ornate jewellery, it is also moving quickly into works of popular expression such as Haida manga." Obviously, Wikipedia is not the best source for the most perfect information about anything, but the Wikipedia page about the Haida is really interesting (and also distressing because -- SURPRISE!!! -- the Americans and the Canadians behaved generally horribly throughout history). I'm annoyed that I didn't do more Wiki Deep Dives about more of the First Nations cultures we've been exposed to on this trip; speaking wholly selfishly, I know I am personally interested in this sort of thing, so why did I keep interesting information away from my own self? Like, I just read a whole bunch about basket-weaving and then fell into a wormhole reading about Haida mythology before I realized that, whoops, I actually needed to publish this post before the week ended. (But isn't this interesting? "Within Haida mythology, Raven is a central character, as he is for many of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas...He is responsible for releasing the sun from its tiny box and making the stars and the moon. In one story he released the first humans from a cockle shell on the beach; in another story he brought the first humans up out of the ground because he needed to fill up a party he was throwing." The very concept of creating people because you were worried your party would be under-attended feels incredibly universal. We are all more alike than we know.) Also, look how hideous it is here. Just miserable. And such terrible weather! The Duke and Duchess will today visit the beautiful Haida Gwaii, BC on Day 7 of #RoyalVisitCanada!pic.twitter.com/bes2dRnCwZ — Kensington Palace (@KensingtonRoyal) September 30, 2016   [Photos: Getty Images]

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