The Haida and Inuit peoples of Canada have a history of rebuilding their society after incurring heavy human, economic, social, and cultural damage as a result of epidemics introduced by outside societies. As case studies in the search for coping strategies on how to co-exist with epidemics, I would like here to introduce and compare disease transmission, as well as its societal and cultural impacts, in the late 19th Haida and mid-20th century Inuit societies.