Solidarity rally in Powell River features speeches about old growth, effects of colonialism

A rally organized by Fridays For Future Powell River in solidarity with ongoing protests against old-growth logging at Fairy Creek attracted several dozen people to Willingdon Beach on Saturday afternoon.

Indigenous and non-Indigenous speakers discussed the importance of old-growth forests in preserving ecosystems and tackling climate change, and condemned the RCMP’s restricting of journalists from accessing blockades in the area, located near Port Renfrew.

A group called the Rainforest Flying Squad has been setting up moving blockades since last summer in an effort to prevent the Teal-Jones Group from logging old-growth trees in the area, as the company has been permitted to do so by the provincial government.

Rally attendee Bill Lytle-McGhee, a director of Climate Action Powell River (CAPR), told the Peak that logging old-growth forests undermines efforts to reduce emissions that cause global warming.

“It’s just part and parcel of the ecosystem destruction, and the value of the trees as carbon sinks for the future climate strategies that we hope are going to unfold,” said Lytle-McGhee. “The logging of those trees is against all that.”

CAPR member says old growth logging must stop

Lytle-McGhee noted that logging is an important part of the local community, but said he believes the industry must stop logging old-growth forests.

“I know that Powell River is a logging community, big time, and there may seem to be some type of conflict of interest there, but it’s got to stop somewhere,” he explained. “The old growth, at some point, we have to stop destroying the natural systems that support us all, and I think we’re at that point.”

Lytle-McGhee added that he hoped the rally would raise awareness in the community, and pressure elected officials to take action.

“It’s a significant problem, and nothing seems to be being done about it,” said Lytle-McGhee. “We’re hopeful that all the MLAs will take some action on this. It’s a global issue. If they’re not doing anything about it, they’ve got their heads in the sand.”

Some speakers at the rally said they are not opposed to the logging industry as a whole, but that old-growth forests must be protected.

The rally began with a moment’s silence honouring the 215 children whose bodies were recently discovered at the former site of a residential school in Kamloops. Several speakers noted connections between the colonial ideology that spawned the residential school system, and the depletion of trees that Tla’amin Nation and other First Nations have relied upon for millennia in preserving their culture and way of life.

Tla'amin council member shares family experience

Erik Blaney, a Tla’amin executive council member, gave a speech about his own family’s traumatizing experiences in the residential school system.

“My grandmother and mother both went to residential school,” Blaney told the people at the rally. “My granny was there for 14 years, and she was taken at the young age of four. My mom was there as well for five years. And I had to sit with her through her trial where she had to relive everything again, and explain it, and try and make sense of it, and make things right for herself, and help the government understand the atrocities that happened in those schools.

“We’ve all known that there’s been kids buried on properties outside residential schools.”

Blaney explained that his grandmother and two of her friends attempted to escape the Sechelt residential school, sharing two pairs of shoes between them in very cold conditions as they hiked for three days from Sechelt to Earls Cove. There, they found the RCMP waiting for them.

“Once they got brought back to the residential school, the beatings came, and [Blaney’s grandmother] was put in confinement,” said Blaney. “I thank you for taking that moment of silence to remember those kids, because it breaks my heart, thinking, my six-year-old boy right there, I don’t know what I would do if someone came knocking on my door and said we’re taking your kid, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

“Don’t push our people to share their story. Try and find it for yourself.”

Blaney said when Tla’amin settled its treaty with the federal and provincial governments in 2014, the nation affirmed its rights over its entire traditional territories and as an equal voice at the table for making decisions. However, he said his nation’s objections to old-growth logging have been ignored.

“When our government stands silent against the logging of old-growth forests, when we’ve written a letter, and we’ve said this isn’t right, we’d like to change things, we’d like to talk about it, all we get is silence,” said Blaney.

Blaney explained that Tla’amin has conducted a climate change study that found cedars in the area are projected to be gone by 2050. The nation, he said, is working on cedar preservation programs, and is discussing old-growth management so cedars can grow to a big enough size that Tla’amin people can harvest them for canoes and longhouses in the future.

“It’s really scary to think about the disappearance of a species of tree that our people rely on, disappearing in the next 25 years, and we’re seeing it,” said Blaney. “If you take a drive through the territory, you look at the crowns of the cedar trees, they’re thinning, they’re drying out. We are living the effects of climate change right now.

“I’ve been there three times now to Fairy Creek. The arbutus trees are dying along the highways on the way up. I’m not saying it’s too late, but I’m saying you people here, you care. You’re standing with us. You feel it. You want change. And I thank you for that. My nation thanks you for that,” he told people at the rally.

Citizen feels connected

Ann Paul, a Tla’amin citizen who also attended, told the Peak she felt a connection with all attendees of the rally in their feeling of being betrayed by the provincial government.

“I’m feeling connected to the people here today, because I know they’re experiencing the same feeling in some way, the same things that my ancestors must have gone through when it comes to a complete betrayal of trust from the government,” said Paul. “It does my heart good to see people standing up here and talking, non-Indigenous people who have the same goals, and the same emotional ties to the forests, and nature and the environment. And it’s nice to see the respect that they have.”