People uprooted from Cumshewa Inlet (4)

Cumshewa Inlet, off the east coast of Moresby Island in Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) was the site of various Haida villages including Cumshewa. Small-scale logging for local use was present in the early 1900s, expanding during the First World War with steam-powered operations to meet aircraft-grade spruce demand. After the war, most of the logging operations closed.

By the 1920s, Kelly (Kelley) Logging Company was operating in the area using floating camps to navigate Cumshewa Inlet. Japanese Canadian workers lived in houses in the floating camps. The company would send logs to Ocean Falls for processing. In the 1933, the A.P. Allison Logging Company moved its operations from the Queen Charlotte City area to the north shore of Cumshewa Inlet, developed the islands’ only logging railway, and established Allison (later Aero) Camp with basic infrastructure including bunkhouses, a cookhouse, machine shop, and dock.