14 Xutsnoowú Province Archives

While biogeographers think of the island as a unit (province #14), Xutsnoowú Ḵwáan itself claims only one quadrant. Ecologists apparently favor marine boundaries. To canoe people, rarely visited island crests are more logical dividing lines.

Home of Xóots

Although this hundred-mile long island is not named for an individual, I consider its official map name the ultimate IWGN (important white guy name), honoring a whole roomful of distant dead dignitaries (British Admiralty of the late 1700s). At least its tallest summit—Eagle Peak, 4,650 feet, thumbnail, right) escaped being named for another bureaucrat who never saw it.

By the way, in the interests of equal-opportunity place-name debunking, consider this quote from Harold Jacobs, in a chapter called Xoodzidaa Ḵwáan; inhabitants of the burning wood fort. (Will the time ever come? Hope & Thornton, eds, 2000). Note that x and x̱-underlined are pronounced differently:

“The name Xootsnoowú (“Brown Bear Fort”) is sometimes wrongly interpreted as the name for Angoon Ḵwáan, this having been done by people who, my informants have told me, ‘Do not have a great command of the language or the history of the area.’

Actually, the name comes from xoodzi, (which is burning wood or charred remains) not xoots (brown bear). This confusion with xoots has led to the misnomer, however widely accepted it may be, that the name of the territory means ‘Brown Bears’ Fort.’ It is in fact the Burning Wood Fort. Xootsnoowú, however, is a descriptive name that is often applied to
Admiralty Island.”

Linked resources below give encyclopedic detail for natural and cultural history of this beloved island. For starters, though, consider just this:

What are the logical units in a marine archipelago? Islands themselves, with sea as borders? Or, for us two-leggeds who rarely stray far from coastlines, shouldn’t those remote island crests be considered the borders—with primary fiords as centers? Those sea-centric units, turns out, are called Ḵwáans.