The Northwest Coast is found along the Pacific Ocean on the western shores of Canada. It includes the entire coastline of British Columbia. It is a very diverse environment with many lakes and rivers, as well as mountains. One thing about this area is, it rains a lot!

Because of all that rain, there are many kinds of plants that grow in the forests and the trees grow very big. Hundreds of years ago, these tall trees were used to build big houses.

A lot of these houses were built on Haida Gwaii, the Queen Charlotte Islands. The people who built these houses were called Haida. The Haida still live on the Queen Charlotte Islands but they no longer live in traditional Northwest Coast houses. Now most of these houses are no longer standing and all we have left are photographs, drawings and archaeological sites.