In Spring and summer of 2021, I was part of a media team that went on several occasions to the Fairy Creek blockade. Hundreds of protestors were putting their bodies on the line to prevent logging of massive, ancient cedars in the Caycuse watershed.

I watched as an elaborate cat and mouse game unfolded between cops and protestors. Hundreds of concerned citizens are trying to buy time before chainsaws cut into old-growth yellow cedars that are over 1,000 years-old.

Only 2.7% of BC’s ancient rainforest is left standing. Now this precious ecosystem is under threat of logging. It’s ludicrous! If you drive around Vancouver Island, you’ll see plenty of second and third-growth forests to re-harvest and replant. There’s no need to touch this precious Fairy Creek Valley.

The very brave stand tall and risk everything to save the forest. They are known as “the arrestables” and they find clever ways to stall the industry from accessing the designated cut blocks. It took two hours and six special-unit RCMP officers to remove one young man from the blockade after he had carefully trapped his arm in the road. In another case, it took 26 officers to remove an incredibly brave man who was dangling over a waterfall using a boat mast suspended from a bridge (See photos 3 and 4). Some of these protestors remain in these dangerous, precarious, and uncomfortable positions for hours!