Gandll Gawda ga/Shirley Longboat

Gandll Gawda ga is Shirley Longboat's Haida name passed down from her mother. It means"Fast-running water" in X̲aayda Kil (southern dialect). She is a Haida carver based in Skidegate, working in argillite — a dense black slate quarried exclusively from Slatechuck Mountain on Haida Gwaii; no other deposit exists anywhere in the world. Likewise, Gandll Gawda ga is also a rarity --- one of only two Haida women to master this historically male-dominated discipline. She restores earlier carvers' pieces alongside her own work, and has originated and developed her own "salmon egg" abalone-setting.