Yan means Beeline Town (literally, "to proceed in a straight line"). It was a large village of seventeen houses established in the late eighteenth century when a split occurred between two Masset families, one of which, the Masset Inlet Rear-Town People, moved across the inlet to Yan. Other Raven and Eagle families joined them there, but were segregated into Eagles in the north end of town and Ravens in the south.

The town chief of Yan, name Stiltla, was an accomplice of Chief Wiah of Masset in the capture of the ship Susan Sturgis in 1852. After its seizure, the ship was brought to Yan, then looted and burned a short distance offshore from Stiltla's House Looking at Its Beak. Stiltla built another large house at Masset, on which he displayed a carved eagle from the sternboard of the ship.

Shortly after photographer Edward Dossetter visited Yan in 1881 when the town was booming, Henry Wiah, the town chief of Masset, invited the population to return, and Yan was abandoned.

Women and children of Yan pose for the camera in front of Flicker House and a memorial pole to an Eagle chief, Ildjiwas. Photograph by Edward Dossetter, 1881.