Elder who began logging at 18 says territory ‘practically naked, bare’
About 20 forest defenders made camp on a gravel logging road in southwest Vancouver Island, near Port Renfrew, British Columbia, at a spot where a logging company was expected to cut old-growth trees the following morning. The group slept in tents and the backs of cars, parked one truck sideways across the road, and took their positions at 3 a.m., headlamps tracing the ground.
One of those in the road as daylight crept in was Bill Jones, an 86-year-old Pacheedaht First Nations elder who said he has watched the forests on his nation’s territory disappear for most of his adult life.
Jones said he started logging himself at age 18, before he understood what he was helping to dismantle.
“There is no dispute about what happened to our land,” Jones said. “There’s nothing left — it’s practically naked, bare,” he said. “There’s few remnants here and there, and so we have to save what we can.”
The defenders had arrived the previous evening in a five-car caravan. About an hour after they took their positions, headlights appeared in the distance. The logging truck slowed, idled, then turned around. Nobody got out. Nobody spoke.