Photograph Essay from 1991 Walbran Blockade.

The first picture here is of the very first arrest in the Walbran Valley from the 24th July 1991 and shows Faith MacFarlane being detained by the RCMP. The court charge for the blockades was civil contempt of court for ignoring the injunction. The first arrestees were mostly just lying on the road, the tactics changed considerable over time with need to slow the loggers progress.

The injunction being read out asking people to let the loggers through all those ignoring it were then seen as being in contempt.

The tactics became more and more creative often involving height and the blockades putting themselves in some discomfort and danger.

The support camp at the main bridge across the Walbran River, the forest not yet cut on the other side.

On the other side of the bridge there was a ‘tree sit’, a blockades perched high up in the trees far out of reach of the police and loggers. This blockade and others near by was effective for a month or more until the infamous ‘Trojan BeerTruck’ incident.

Picture of tree sitter, 80’ up suspended between trees blocking the loggers from crossing the Walbran bridge.

The were other creative blockades, this photo is an example of the ‘cantilever’  where a log is suspend over a cliff with a  blockades perched on the end. The other end on the road being supported by weight usually a donated beater vehicle.

 

The logging company workers here were so impressed with this blockade that they made signs with ‘10-10-10’, their score for effort. It was a brief friendly touch to a often tense and fractious summer.

This last photo is of the tree sit that belonged to Rolly, the ‘smelliest man alive’ who took nonviolent direct action to whole new level with his own personal ‘mountie repellent’.  What happened does make for an interesting story but he was attempting to protect an area of ancient forest that contained a tree that had similar dimensions as the Castle Giant which  grows just across the river here and has a circumference of 64’ around and an estimated age of 1200 years.The tree he tried to protect, would have been one of the largest Red Cedars in the world.

These blockades of the ‘Hot Summer’ of 1991 resulted in 38 hard fought arrests which delayed road building significantly. This insured that the integrity of the valley was maintained and allowed time for a wider public discourse on BCs  logging practices that lead into the Clayoquat blockades. The  Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park was created in 1994.

Significant biologically important areas were left out of the park, the ‘Bight’. This has led to continuing conflict and in 2011 flagging tape was found besides the ‘Castle Giant’, this instigated another round of blockades to now protect the ‘Central Walbran’. This currently has reached an impasse, there has been no logging  but there is no formal protection either. The area is currently deferred from being logged until 2026.