The Tlowitsis Nation territories span the coastal area of Northern Vancouver Island, British Columbia from ancient history until the early 1960s. They occupied several village sites scattered across islands along Johnson Straight. Seasonal travel routes, food processing spots, burial and cultural sites and other named places extended across the entire territory. Qalagwis, now known as Turner Island, was their primary winter residence.

In the 1960s, the British Columbia government closed down the monthly hospital ship and school on Qalagwis. With little prospect of schooling and access to health care, the Tlowitsis community left the island. In the ensuing diaspora, community members have become culturally, as well as physically, removed from their traditional territories. The Tlowitsis Nation (now administered out of offices on Vancouver Island) sits at the extreme edge of a continuum of settlement patterns of contemporary First Nations, with high levels of dislocation and dispersal.