Alberta Wilderness Association 94
Aleck, Charlene 305
All Alone Stone (IPC magazine) 46
All Islands Symposium 54
Amos, Bruce 295, 303
Anthony Island 52. See also Skungwai
Apsey, Mike (Deputy Minister of Forests) 65
Archibald, Nancy 78
Armstrong, Pat 106, 141, 144, 297
Ash, Stephen 251, 253, 260, 262, 288
Athlii Gwaii. See Lyell Island
Atwood, Margaret 285
Audubon Society 244
Baker, Richard St. Barbe 314
Bank of British Columbia 263, 264
Barrett, Dave 40, 42, 43, 47, 64, 104
Bassett, Doug 248
Bateman, Robert 51, 93, 106, 125, 147, 182, 275, 285
BC Hydro 45
BC Quest 187
BC Wildlife Federation 176
Beban, Frank 53, 55, 65, 81, 106, 107, 125, 126, 131, 138, 140, 151, 189, 213, 236, 296, 307. See also Frank Beban Logging Ltd.
Beilis, Charles 62, 97
Bennett, Bill 47, 117, 118, 136, 137, 149, 150, 284
Berton, Pierre 94, 144, 145
Biickert, Jack 65
Blaikie, Bill 228, 240, 242
Blais-Grenier, Suzanne 92, 94, 97, 99, 107
Bohn, Glenn 140
Bowditch, Dan 45, 49, 69
Bowditch, Ursel 45, 49
Bramham, Daphne 250, 300
British Columbia Forest Products 70, 110
British Columbia Social Credit Party 47, 83, 84, 118, 151, 164, 182, 209, 215, 269, 272, 278
Broadbent, Ed 136
Broadhead, Henley & Associates 73, 75
Broadhead, John (J.B.) 16, 25, 26, 45, 54, 68, 70, 75, 83, 87, 91, 100, 105, 109, 110, 119, 120, 121, 137, 139, 141, 176, 187, 214, 223, 225, 226, 229, 246, 248, 249, 262, 278, 283, 284, 285, 292, 294, 298, 303
Broadhead, Maureen 75
Bronstein, Ron 72, 73
Brown, Diane 17, 127, 129, 131, 191, 298, 303
Brummet, Tony 273
Brummet, Tony (BC parks minister) 88, 89, 90, 118
Brundtland Commission. See World Commission on Environment and Development
Brundtland, Gro Harlem 149
Burnaby Island 36, 39, 41, 88
Burnett, Rob 154, 161
Burney, Derek 276, 284, 286, 287, 289, 290, 291, 295
Burney, Joan 276
Burns, Jamie 257, 286
Caccia, Charles 86, 88, 93, 94, 121, 126, 144, 174, 228, 242
Calder, Liz 228
Callwood, June 23
Campagnolo, Iona 63, 67
Campbell, Kim 273
Camp, Dalton 26, 261, 266, 270, 275, 290
Canadian Aces 144
Canadian Assembly on National Parks and Protected Areas 109, 111
Canadian Association of Smelter and Allied Workers 91
Canadian Environmental Defence Fund 24
Canadian Environmental Network 98, 153, 225, 228
"Canadian Galapagos" 50, 108, 139. See also Haida Gwaii
Canadian Nature Federation 93, 110, 119, 141, 143, 169, 174, 176, 246
Canadian Sealers Association 142
Canadian Wildlife Service 92
Capozzi, Herb 278
Carney, Pat 168, 169, 186, 299
Carrier Lumber 120
Carruthers, John 87, 88
Carson, Trudy 37, 39, 43
Carter, Jimmy 91
"Chain Saw Twins". See Armstrong, Pat; Long, Bob
Chow, Sharon 91, 176, 300
Clarke, Gary 300
Clark, Joe 78, 89, 168
Coast Guard 277, 278
Cockburn, Bruce 137, 171, 174
Collins, Mary 186, 231, 232, 303
Collinson, Dempsey 126
Collinson, Jim 160, 163, 166, 170, 175, 211, 212, 217, 219, 221, 235, 244, 250, 252, 255, 256, 289, 290, 297, 310
Collins, Terry 209, 226, 232, 249, 256, 275, 280, 286, 287, 303
Collins, Vince 219, 220
Cominco Mining 120
Coming into the House (song) 147
Copeland, Grant 110, 112, 113
Council of the Haida Nation 116, 137, 167, 174, 295, 310. See also Haida Nation
Cousteau, Jacques 271
Cranmer, Doug 59
Crofton, Pat 186, 231, 232
Crombie, David 121, 122, 135, 143, 145, 173
Cullis, Tara 17, 276, 278, 298, 305, 314
Cultural Survival (Canada) 24
Cumshewa Inlet 32
Dantzer, Vince 186, 239, 242
Davidson, Al 108
Davidson, Claude 58
Davidson, Robert 14, 188, 278
Davis, Glen 16, 139
Davis, Wade 13, 14
Dawson, Kirk 211, 212, 218, 254
Department of Fisheries (Canada) 42, 61, 69
Devine, Grant 248
Dewar, Marion 152
DeWitt, Forrest 133
DeWitt, Grace 132, 133. See also Jones, Grace
Diamond Club (Toronto) 144, 145
Dodge Point 72, 73
Dogfish Pole 60
Doman Industries 70
Doug and the Slugs 147
Douglas & McIntyre (publishers) 76
Downie, Peter 285
Ducks Unlimited 248
Duff, Wilson 59
Dumont, Bill 69, 70, 71, 72, 81
Eagle Clan 57
Eagle phratry 34
Earthlife Canada Foundation 187
Ecological Reserves Unit 51, 54, 68, 72, 101
Edenshaw, Gary. See Guujaaw
Edenshaw, Gwaai 17, 19
Edenshaw, Jaalen 19
Edenshaw, Lee 37
Edge of the Knife (SG̱aawaay Ḵʹuuna) (film) 17
Ellesmere Island park 157, 159, 160, 163
Ellison, Tom 188
ELUCS. See Environment and Land Use Committee Secretariat (ELUCS)
Enbridge Northern Gateway 15
Environment and Land Use Committee 111, 140
Environment and Land Use Committee Secretariat (ELUCS) 43, 47, 51, 64
Environment Canada 169, 245, 261
Evans, Garth 63
Expo 86 149
Fahlman, Grant 246
Fantasy Gardens 262, 277. See also Vander Zalm, Bill
Farquharson, Ken 126
Fate of the Earth conference 152, 154
First Ministers’ Conference on Aboriginal Rights 210
Fisheries Act 61, 105
Fitzsimmons, Gerry 159, 170
Forest Act 62
Forest Investments Ltd. 167
Forest Service (B.C.) 42, 47, 53, 61, 62, 68, 70
Foster, Bristol 50, 54, 78, 101, 133, 147, 182, 299, 300
Frank Beban Logging Ltd. 192, 272. See also Beban, Frank
Fraser, Cate 253
Fraser, John 25, 78, 89, 93, 99, 104, 143, 186, 228, 229, 231, 232, 239, 242, 251, 253, 260, 266, 271, 275, 285, 287, 290, 292, 305
Friesen, Benno 241
Fulton, Elizabeth 257
Fulton, Jim 16, 26, 58, 77, 87, 93, 95, 135, 185, 209, 214, 228, 235, 236, 238, 239, 241, 242, 243, 257, 269, 275, 276, 288, 300, 302, 303
Galapagos Book Collaborators 52
G̱andll Kʹin Gwaayaay. See Hotspring Island
Gate Creek 222
Gedanst 103
George, Paul 49, 54, 57, 63, 68, 69, 75, 77, 85, 89, 110, 111, 113, 147, 196, 214, 262, 299, 315
Gérin, Jacques 92, 107, 160
Gessler, Nick 69, 72
Gibbs, Jeff 187, 188, 190, 191, 235, 284, 304, 311, 314
Gladstone, Percy 104
Gladstone, Sophie 58
Gorman, Steve 300
Gotlieb, Allan 138
Gould, Duane 106, 115, 132
Graham Island 35, 61
Graham Island Advisory Planning Commission 64
Greenaway, Lorne 231
Greene, Lorne 174
Greene, Tom 66, 122, 137, 191, 303
Green Party of Canada 16
Grenier, Marc 236
Gros Morne National Park 285
Gurbin, Dr. Gary 89
Guujaaw 15, 33, 36, 39, 45, 47, 49, 51, 52, 60, 62, 67, 69, 72, 76, 79, 100, 104, 105, 115, 130, 135, 137, 144, 147, 151, 152, 159, 189, 191, 194, 195, 197, 242, 263, 293, 294, 299, 302, 309, 310, 311, 313, 314
Gwaii Haanas 11, 13, 129
Gwaii Haanas Agreement (1993) 15
Gwaii Haanas Marine Agreement (2010) 15
Hackman, Arlin 236
Haida activism 14, 111, 121, 125, 130, 136, 150, 164, 171, 190
Haida Gwaii 13, 14, 30, 33, 39, 40, 50, 51, 57, 58, 65, 75, 76, 78, 83, 85, 91, 98, 115, 126, 144, 169, 188, 253, 271, 277, 286, 309
Haida language 17, 19, 127, 131, 132, 153, 190, 278, 303, 313
Haida Nation 13, 33, 59, 76, 79, 104, 115, 116, 122, 127, 136, 151, 153, 171, 242, 253, 258, 263, 277, 294, 298, 308. See also Council of the Haida Nation
Haida Watchmen 15
Hamel, Reverend Peter 137, 144, 214
Hansen, Hank 213
Harper, Stephen 15
Harper, Tim 210
Hartley Bay 293
Hatfield, Richard 211
Henley & Associates 75
Henley, Thom 17, 29, 39, 45, 49, 53, 54, 57, 62, 67, 69, 71, 73, 75, 83, 92, 100, 110, 111, 112, 115, 119, 120, 121, 133, 139, 141, 147, 182, 188, 189, 196, 214, 246, 248, 249, 259, 263, 265, 277, 293, 303, 311, 314
Hotspring Island 17, 115
Huberts, Terry 311
"Huckleberry" ("Huck"). See Henley, Thom
Hummel, Monte 139, 244, 246, 248, 249, 269, 278
Hurd, Harvey 125
Husband, Vicky 16, 25, 83, 91, 98, 100, 109, 112, 120, 121, 159, 166, 167, 172, 176, 178, 182, 185, 188, 189, 213, 216, 225, 256, 263, 276, 292, 298, 302, 315
Indigenous Guardians Pilot Program 15
International Union for Conservation of Nature 138
International Woodworkers of America 62, 91, 120, 151
IPC. See Islands Protection Committee
Islands at the Edge 91, 100, 119, 139, 237, 238, 249
Islands Protection Committee 40, 41, 42, 45, 47, 49, 51, 53, 63
Islands Protection Society 63, 64, 67, 68, 69, 82, 95, 105, 115, 138, 139
Jacques Cousteau Society 244
J.B. See Broadhead, John (J.B.)
Jennings, Peter 269
Jennings, Sara 269
Jones, Ethel 129, 131, 133, 144, 190, 191, 298, 311
Jones, Grace 144. See also DeWitt, Grace
Juan Perez Sound 88, 97, 116, 209
Kangaliag Waii. See Islands Protection Committee
Keating, Michael 248
Kelly, Patricia 305
Kempf, Jack 165, 169, 175, 183
Kidder, Margot 152
King, Fred 231
Kitimat 54
Klein, Ralph 289
Knowlton Nash 294
Krieger, Richard 51, 54, 57, 68, 194
Kristiansen, Lyle 86
Kunga Island 146, 165, 211, 216
Landrick Creek 97, 105
Last Mountain Lake 249
Law of the Sea Convention 76
Lay, Ken 147, 262
Lea, Graham (MLA) 43, 63, 77, 84
Lepas Bay 39, 57
Lightbone, Lavina 128, 137
Limestone Island 219, 308
Long, Bob 116, 142, 144, 146, 164, 165
Long John Baldry 147
"Looking Around and Blinking House" 253
Loo Taas (Haida war canoe) 25, 257, 263, 268, 276, 277, 286, 289, 295, 297, 298, 303
Lortie, Marc 295
Lyell Island 36, 42, 43, 47, 53, 57, 61, 64, 81, 87, 88, 95, 104, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 122, 125, 126, 136, 137, 140, 146, 151, 159, 165, 167, 177, 178, 180, 189, 211, 216, 277, 294, 300
MacDonald, Flora 168
MacDonald, Mary 296
MacMillan Bloedel 72, 136, 139, 168, 210, 272
MacNeill, Jim 150
Manning, Roger 128, 138
Marks, Adolphus 129, 131
Martin, Mungo 59
Mason, Bill 174
Massett 31, 35, 45, 51, 57
Massey, Vincent 33
May, Elizabeth 16, 21, 26, 99, 153, 166, 179, 183, 211, 217, 219, 235, 249, 255, 266, 279, 283, 290, 295
May, Stephanie 21
Mazankowski, Don 26, 152, 228, 233, 242, 244, 245, 248, 250, 254, 257, 260, 261, 286
McAllister, Peter 300
McComb, Murray 158
McCrory, Colleen 16, 83, 85, 89, 91, 93, 97, 98, 99, 103, 109, 112, 113, 120, 121, 141, 146, 157, 159, 165, 166, 167, 172, 189, 213, 225, 227, 262, 274, 283, 298, 305, 315
McCuish, Lorne 218, 231
McDougall, Barbara 168
McElroy, Les 111
McKay, Harry 127, 129, 130
McKnight, Bill 173, 174, 237, 242, 273, 308, 309
McMillan, Dr. Charles 180
McMillan, Kathy 255, 256
McMillan, Tom 21, 24, 25, 77, 107, 112, 115, 120, 121, 126, 128, 136, 143, 144, 150, 153, 163, 166, 173, 174, 180, 183, 186, 190, 211, 214, 220, 222, 224, 231, 236, 238, 240, 242, 246, 249, 250, 254, 255, 256, 258, 260, 261, 265, 270, 271, 273, 274, 279, 285, 286, 287, 289, 291, 297, 302, 303, 310
McNamee, Kevin 25, 93, 95, 110, 144, 157, 160, 179, 225, 236, 300
Mendes, Chico 314
Mikus, John 176
Miller, Dan 165
Miller, Frank 97
Miller, Jack 69, 76, 89
Ministry of Environment (B.C.) 68
Ministry of Mines (B.C.) 68
Moresby Island 48
Moresby Island Concerned Citizens 107, 115, 132, 142, 231, 297
Morris, Mary 69
Mowat, Farley 94, 106
Mulroney, Brian 92, 136, 152, 180, 183, 185, 209, 243, 251, 261, 265, 267, 270, 274, 278, 283, 288, 297, 299
Munro, Jack 62, 91
Murray, Jim 78, 169
Murray, Lowell 228
Nash, Knowlton 255, 267
National and Provincial Parks Association of Canada 93, 110, 157
National Committee to Save South Moresby 93, 94, 101, 106, 110
National Geographic 138, 215, 234, 267, 271
National Parks Conservation Association 138, 244
Native Economic Development Fund 175
Naylor, Glen 63, 64
Newman, Peter C. 284
Ngo, Harrison 314
Nicholl, Mike 54, 147, 167, 173, 295
Nichols, Marjorie 126
Nielsen, Erik 92, 105, 152
Ninstints 52, 58, 59, 67, 68, 194, 195
Nitinat Triangle 151
Noranda Mines 168
Nylons 144
Olsen, Barry 158, 174, 180, 184, 187, 212, 237
Onley, Toni 285
Operation Burrowing Owl 246
Orchard, C.D. 46
Pachal, Dianne 94
Pacific Council of Ministers 221
Pacific Rim Agreement 175, 177
Pacific Rim National Park 151, 163
Pacific Seabird Group 67
Paiakan, Paulinho 314
Palmer, Karen 236, 259, 271, 290, 292
Parker, David 283
Parks Canada 87, 165, 244, 252, 287, 289, 295, 309. See also Parks Service
Parks Service 87, 95, 160, 166, 169, 180, 184, 210, 245, 252, 261. See also Parks Canada
Patterson, Freeman 93
Pearse Royal Commission on Forest Resources 47
Pelton, Austin 97, 103, 104, 106, 111, 116, 118, 120, 121, 122, 123, 126, 128, 159, 163, 165
Phillips, Bruce 290, 291, 295
Phillips, David 144
Poole, David 251, 284, 289, 291, 297
Pothier, Patrick 109, 110, 135, 182, 183
Potts, Gary 314
Powrivco Bay logging camp 53, 125, 191, 200
Price, Watson 18, 129, 131, 134, 144
Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands 244
Prince Charles 149
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh 244, 246, 278
Pritchard, Paul 139
Progressive Conservative Party 83, 105, 273
Progressive Conservative Party, Alberta caucus 289
Progressive Conservative Party, BC caucus 169, 185, 213, 224, 231, 242, 245, 261, 271, 272, 273, 280
Public Advisory Committee 53, 54, 61, 62, 64, 65
Public Interest Advocacy Centre 154
Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Canada, Local 4 91
Q.C. Timber 61
Queen Charlotte Islands. See Haida Gwaii
Queen Charlotte Islands Museum Society 68
Queen Charlotte Islands Regional Development Fund 251
Rae, Bob 145
Rafferty–Alameda dams 227, 310
Rankin, Murray 68
Raven phratry 34, 58
Rayonier Canada (B.C.) Ltd. 36, 40, 47, 53, 61, 63, 68, 70, 201
RCMP 49, 129, 174, 191, 253, 301
Rediscovery (youth program) 57, 76, 187, 196
Red Neck News 82, 103, 106, 164, 165, 296, 301, 307
Reed, Les 120
Reef Island 219, 308
Regional Economic Development Agreement 210
Regional Economic Development Fund 261, 296, 297
Reid, Bill (BC tourism minister) 231
Reid, Bill (Haida artist) 58, 75, 91, 100, 119, 125, 133, 171, 182, 188, 189, 210, 229, 249, 263, 275, 298, 303, 315
Reid, William Ronald 59
Rennell Sound 61
Richardson, Colin 190
Richardson Island 88, 146, 165, 211, 214, 216
Richardson, Miles 15, 83, 103, 117, 120, 122, 126, 127, 130, 136, 137, 145, 150, 151, 164, 173, 190, 192, 242, 243, 258, 277, 292, 298, 302, 304
Richardson, Miles Sr. 103, 127
Riis, Nelson 242
Riley Creek 61
Robinson, Svend 18, 130, 133, 135
Rogers, Stephen 62, 84, 90, 140, 165, 166, 167, 169, 172, 175, 176, 178, 183, 232, 250, 273, 286
Rowe, Paul 226
Rubin, Norm 99
Salim, Emil 150
Sampson, Tom 133
Sandspit 53, 81, 116, 296, 301
Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation 247
Savage, John 189
Schellenberg, Ted 231, 243
Schneider, Tom 76, 89
Scott, Lorne 247
Scott, Most Reverend Edward 144
Second City 145
Sedgwick Bay 125, 129, 190
Seeger, Pete 136, 152
Selkirk, Nan 251
Sewell Inlet 53
Shadbolt, Jack 285
Shearon, Jim 237
Sheehy, Gregg 93, 110, 111, 119, 139, 141, 147, 214, 300
Shoot-Out at Riley Creek 61, 105
Siddon, Tom 223, 311
Sierra Club of Ontario 119, 121
Sierra Club of Western Canada 91, 176, 300
Skedans Island 219, 308
Skidegate 35, 41, 60, 133, 191, 264, 298
Skidegate Band Council 40, 42, 63, 68, 83, 104, 122, 129, 265
Skungwai 59. See also Anthony Island
Smith, Bob 137
Smith, Brian 128, 137, 251, 271, 273, 290
Smith, R.L. 82, 103, 106, 165, 296
Socreds. See British Columbia Social Credit Party
South Moresby Agreement (1988) 14
South Moresby (park project) 79, 85, 117, 157, 159, 164, 169, 176, 181, 182, 186, 209, 243, 255, 263, 265, 267, 271, 277, 293
South Moresby Resource Planning Team 66, 68, 87, 88, 138
South Moresby Wilderness Proposal 40, 45, 49, 51, 65, 263
Spector, Norman 118, 119, 179
Stark, Andy 267, 269, 270, 275, 278
Ste-Marie, Geneviève 160, 245
Stephenson, Pat 141
Stephenson, Sue 142, 144
Stephens, Vic 197
St. Germain, Gerry 241, 253, 271, 273
St. Paul’s Church (Toronto) 144
Strachan, Bruce 183, 184, 190, 209, 216, 222, 224, 231, 235, 236, 250, 256, 273, 274
Strong, Maurice 100, 150, 171, 275
Suzuki, Carr 305
Suzuki, David 17, 26, 78, 93, 106, 119, 125, 171, 188, 211, 214, 275, 276, 300, 301, 302, 303, 305, 314
Suzuki, Sarika 17, 305
Suzuki, Severn 17, 18, 305
Swanson, Mary 57
Tainted Tuna Scandal 105
Tales of Raven: No Tankers, T'anks 54
Talunkwan Island 37, 41, 199
Tangil Peninsula 40, 217, 263, 292
Tanu Island 88, 146, 165, 194, 211, 216
TFL(sc) 24 53, 61, 63
Thompson, Andrew 63
Thomson, Pat 303
Tobin, Brian 240, 241, 242
Tunngavik Federation of Nunavut 158
Turner, John 119, 136, 240, 265
Uncle Kulga. See Williams, Percy
United Nations 76
Valhalla Trading Post 100
Valhalla Wilderness Society 103
Vander Zalm, Bill 26, 151, 164, 165, 179, 180, 181, 209, 220, 233, 244, 245, 248, 250, 252, 254, 256, 262, 268, 269, 270, 271, 274, 278, 279, 283, 288, 296, 299
Vander Zalm, Lilly 269
Van Dusen, Tom 256
Verchere, Bill 189
Waddell, Ian 242
Wald, Dr. George 152
Waldon, Bob 146
Wallace, Harry 129, 131, 190
Wanagan 58, 69
Warren, Mavis 106
Waterland, Tom 47, 62, 65, 90, 118, 120, 126, 128, 137, 140
Wave Eater. See Loo Taas (Haida war canoe)
WC Squared. See Western Canada Wilderness Committee
Webster, Jack 117, 177
Weir, Josette 76
Wenman, Bob 186, 280, 303
Wesley, Reg 305
West Coast Oil Ports Inquiry 54, 57, 63
Western Canada Wilderness Committee 69, 77, 85, 97, 110, 147, 188, 193, 262, 315
Western Diversification Fund 245, 261, 273, 275, 290, 297, 308, 309
Western Forest Products 70, 71, 73, 81, 87, 97, 117, 125, 126, 128, 129, 135, 138, 140, 164, 165, 184, 185, 209, 223, 272, 279
Western Pulp 139, 165
Whitney, Al 118, 176, 296, 300, 301
Whitney, Irene 296, 301
Whittingham, Tony 121, 122
Whonnock Industries 70, 138
Wilderness Advisory Committee 119, 120, 126, 139, 146, 152, 164, 165, 166, 177, 180, 184, 214, 216, 221, 223
Wilkinson, Charles 14
Williams, Bryan 118, 120, 126, 139, 152, 284
Williams-Davidson, Terri-Lynn 14
Williams, Percy 36, 40, 58, 100, 104
Williams, Shannon 296
Wilson, Alan 132
Wilson, Willard 122
Windy Bay 39, 54, 57, 61, 81, 87, 115, 146, 164, 165, 167, 169, 174, 176, 180, 183, 207, 211, 215, 222, 253, 284, 294
Wolf Clan 58
Woodshock Conference 121
Wood, Viola 43
World Commission on Environment and Development 149
World Heritage Site 59, 67, 68
World Wildlife Fund 139, 244, 246, 248
Yakoun River 37
York, Tyler 19
Young, Cameron 91
Young, Nathan 42, 63, 64
“Youth Brigade" 189, 190, 191
Yovanovich, Ada 18, 129, 131, 133, 144, 190, 298, 307, 311
Zimmerman, Adam 139, 248
Paradise Won
The Struggle to Create Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve
To John Fraser
and the Conspiracy to Save the Planet
and
To John Kidder
Paradise Won is a true story, as much as any story can be true. It is objective, as much as I can be objective about something I worked for, prayed for and wept for. I am not a reporter; I am a storyteller, writing from my own perspective – not that of the Haida Nation, nor of any of the other crusaders who struggled so long and so hard to save South Moresby (Gwaii Haanas). I dedicate my story to them – the many people who appear in these pages and all those others, not named, without whom the chainsaws would still be at work in Gwaii Haanas.
There are many people I must thank, especially those who suffered through long and repeated interviews, as I attempted to find out what had happened all those years ago and to sort out fact from faulty memory: J.B., Huck, Guujaaw, Paul and Adriane, David and Tara, Colleen, Jeff, Vicky and Patrick, Kevin, Gregg, Miles, Bristol, Cameron Young, Keith Moore, Barry Olsen, Sharon Chow, Sue Stephenson, Dan McAskill, Bryan Williams, Murray Rankin, Brian Smith, Jamie Alley, John Fraser, Jim Fulton, Terry Collins, Ada Yovanovich, Ethel Jones, Al Whitney, Pat Armstrong and Charles Caccia. Thank you all for so generously giving me your time and for reminiscing about the history of the struggle.
My parents, John and Stephanie, and my brother Geoffrey and his wife, Rebecca-Lynne, read my early drafts and acted as my loving critics. Thank you so much. Thanks also to my uncle, Tom Middleton, who has always been my role model as a writer. Thanks to Glen Davis for his eagle-eyed perusal of the manuscript. I also want to thank Dinah Forbes, my editor, who helped me figure out how to tell the same story in half the number of pages I first wrote, and whose pencil magically transformed the manuscript into a book. For donating their work, I must thank John Broadhead, who drew the beautiful map on page 9, and Jeff Gibbs and Richard Krieger for their photographs. Love and thanks, too, to Farley Mowat for encouraging me to write this book and for contributing a wonderful foreword minimizing my weight. And last, thanks to Doug and Tim, without whom this book would have been finished a lot sooner.
Forty years ago, in a remote archipelago known then as the Queen Charlotte Islands, multinational timber companies dominated the economy, dictated public policy, and determined the very mood and civic culture of a place visited by few. Today, these companies are gone, more than half of the land is protected, and what timber production remains is in the hands of the Haida, who are today in control of their destiny in a manner that would have been unimaginable when I lived on the islands in the 1970s. Haida Gwaii has emerged as one of the iconic travel destinations in the world. What was achieved in a single generation only happened because those who loved that land – Haida and non-Haida alike – took to the barricades and called for a new geography of hope, a new dream of the earth.
—Wade Davis (reflection on the significance of the creation of Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve), January 2020 B.C. Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk Professor of Anthropology University of British Columbia
It has been 30 years since the first printing of this book. When I look back at the significance of the conservation achievement that was and is Gwaii Haanas – the stopping of logging against incredible odds, the alliance of Indigenous and settler culture Canadians in an epic struggle – it might be imagined how much it has influenced recent campaigns, from blocking the Kinder Morgan pipeline in solidarity with the Tsleil-Waututh, Musqueam and Squamish, to the other side of the country in Labrador, and Innu efforts to stop the flooding of their lands in the Muskrat Falls debacle, to many more Indigenous-led struggles to protect land. Yet, as I reflect on the creation of Gwaii Haanas, what strikes me now is how the victory foreshadowed what we now call “reconciliation.”
In a recent documentary film on the life of Robert Davidson, his partner Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson noted that the 30 years since the logging stopped have been a time of deep reconciliation; that the logging families of Haida Gwaii and the Haida who fought logging had to come together and see a shared future (Charles Wilkinson, director, Haida Modern, 2019). The changes that were triggered by Robert Davidson, choosing in 1969 to restore Haida art in the form of the first pole in a century, now stretch far and away – well beyond Haida Gwaii’s shores.
Wade Davis is right. Things have changed. Today I would never say “South Moresby” to describe the area of Gwaii Haanas. Nor would I call the archipelago “the Queen Charlotte Islands.” The land of the nation of the Haida people is Haida Gwaii.
Then, I had no idea of the impact of residential schools. I had never heard that the Elders I so respected had been snatched from Haida Gwaii as small children and taken over a thousand kilometres away to Edmonton, Vancouver Island and interior B.C. to go to residential school.
There is much to bring up to date – starting with where we left off. Yes, the historic signing in July 1987 stopped the logging, but that was only the beginning of an intense period of negotiations for the Council of the Haida Nation and the Government of Canada.
Gwaii Haanas has existed as the Islands of Beauty to the Haida for thousands of years. In a few years it would have been devastated. The Haida mark 1993 as the year that Gwaii Haanas was protected.
After the 1987 ceremony, the next step was the signing of the 1988 South Moresby Agreement in order to establish the area as a National Park Reserve. The negotiations continued to be long and difficult. Miles Richardson continued as president of the Council of the Haida Nation, pushing forward the reality of Haida sovereignty. In the same period the Constitution of the Haida Nation was completed. Bringing the whole of the Haida Nation together set the stage for the constitution. And it was the fight against the logging that brought together the communities of Skidegate and Old Massett. The Gwaii Haanas Agreement was finally completed in 1993. Nearly two decades later came the final legal agreement. In 2010, the protected area reached out into the open ocean with the Gwaii Haanas Marine Agreement.
The success of Gwaii Haanas created a new model for national park establishment. For the first time, a Canadian national park reserve was established embracing a promise of co-management with Indigenous peoples. I say “promise” because to this day, tensions remain with respect to how much Parks Canada Agency truly respects co-management.
Nevertheless, the Haida Watchmen are an essential part of the conservation, interpretation and educational component of the management of the park. The success of the template of Indigenous-led conservation and protection on the land has spread to other areas. Miles Richardson played a big role in taking the message to other new park reserves as they were formed.
Indigenous Guardian programs all over Canada had their spark in the establishment of Gwaii Haanas. The Indigenous Guardians Pilot Program is now federally funded and has “eyes on the ground” conservation programs in more than 40 Indigenous Nations and communities across Canada. When I met with their leadership in early 2020, they confirmed for me that it all stemmed from the Haida Watchmen program and its continued success in Gwaii Haanas.
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Miles Richardson continued as president of the Council of the Haida Nation until 1996. By 1999, another key hero in this story, Guujaaw, became president. He led the campaigns to continue to work for self-government. When former prime minister Stephen Harper decided to ignore the 1971 moratorium on oil tankers and approve the Enbridge Northern Gateway project to take diluted bitumen piped from the oil sands by tanker from Kitimat, plowing through Haida Gwaii’s waters, Guujaaw was at the forefront in stopping it. He remains active, having served as president until 2012. One of his greatest accomplishments, in his view, was never having a desk! He told The Globe and Mail, “I never wanted to be a manager. I’m more a freedom fighter.” (Roy MacGregor, “How an unexpected journey to Haida Gwaii reconciled a Nisga’a woman with herself,” The Globe and Mail, November 16, 2017).
The waters of the northern British Columbia coast are now finally protected from oil tanker traffic, formalizing the federal and provincial agreements of the early 1970s. As the first edition of this book recounted, the “No Tankers, T’anks!” campaign of the 1970s, which began in Haida Gwaii, is now recognized in federal law. And I had the honour of casting my vote for that law in Parliament!
I suppose it is not a bad moment to mention that since I wrote this book, I became a Member of Parliament. In 2006 I was elected the leader of the Green Party of Canada. In May 2011, I became the first ever Green candidate to win a seat at the federal or provincial level in Canada.
Many of my dear friends whose stories I share in this book have left us all too soon. Colleen McCrory died far too young in 2007 of galloping brain cancer that took her within days of the diagnosis. I miss her deeply.
My parliamentary mentor, Jim Fulton, whom I last saw at Colleen’s funeral, died within months, also of cancer that he had fought for years. Although he was not actually able to mentor me once I was elected, I set up my Parliament Hill office with an eye to replicating the chaos and effectiveness of Jim’s Parliament Hill operation.
Glen Davis, whose generosity financed much of the environmental work to create Gwaii Haanas, was killed in a contract murder in May 2007. His killers remain in jail. That someone acting out of greed could take such an extraordinary human being from this world remains deeply painful. There are no words for the enormity of the hole his death has left in our lives, nor of the gap in supporting good work to save Canadian natural spaces.
I should have had a whole chapter about Vicky Husband in this book. Her dogged determination to stop the logging of Haida Gwaii is now channelled into many key campaigns. She is a one-woman force working to stop Site C, preserve old-growth forest – increasingly at risk in British Columbia – champion wild salmon, and a myriad of other causes. We remain sisters and the closest of friends.
Like Vicky, John Broadhead continues his work in conservation, living with wife Leslie in Haida Gwaii. He is credited with quietly persuading Canada to take a leap of faith and give the Gwaii Haanas co-management agreement with the Haida a try. Since then, working in partnership with the Haida, his maps and analysis have played a key role in protecting almost 60 per cent of Haida Gwaii, especially salmon habitat, and in several legal cases regarding Haida Title.
Thom Henley moved from Canada and is doing conservation and education work all around the world – in over 100 countries.
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The fight for South Moresby affected us all for the rest of our lives, with some of us remaining deeply intertwined with the Haida.
As we campaigned to save “South Moresby,” David Suzuki and Tara Cullis and I grew closer. Their children Severn and Sarika were about 7 and 4 years old. I love these girls so much and have been proud of them forever. They came to Haida Gwaii upon the signing of the agreement, little kids in the forest in Windy Bay. They were greatly influenced by the struggle and success of Gwaii Haanas, and a few years later, at age 12, Severn spoke to UN delegates at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit:
I am afraid to go out in the sun now because of the holes in the ozone. I am afraid to breathe the air because I don’t know what chemicals are in it…. Did you have to worry about these things when you were my age?
In 1997, both of us worked on the Earth Charter Commission, with Severn once again being the youth voice.
Today, Severn is the mother of two little Haida children. Severn and her mother-in-law, Diane Brown, are working together to protect the Haida language. They both worked on scripts for the ground-breaking Haida language film Edge of the Knife (SG̱aawaay Ḵʹuuna). The film premiered in 2019 with Diane and other family members starring in it. It is deeply tied to the story of stopping the logging and creating Gwaii Haanas. Guujaaw’s son Gwaai Edenshaw was the co-director of the first ever Haida language film. Diane Brown told me that she cried all the way through it – just from the overpowering emotion of hearing the Haida language and only the Haida language for two hours.
I first met Diane when she was a health worker in charge of monitoring water quality on Hotspring Island (G̱andll Kʹin Gwaayaay) in the summer of 1988. You can see her in the photo of the arrests on the logging road on Lyell Island. She is the beautiful young Haida woman standing next to Svend Robinson. Her biological mother, Ada Yovanovich, is seated right in front of her. Her adoptive father, Watson Price, also sits awaiting arrest.
In 2008, Severn Suzuki married Diane’s son, Judson. It may have been a match made in heaven, as we used to say, but it feels like a weaving of cosmic forces beyond that old cliché. Sev married the grandson of two of the elders who had been arrested blocking the logging road. Judson, having witnessed his mother and grandparents fight for the future of Gwaii Haanas as a teenager, began working right away in Gwaii Haanas, eventually becoming a Warden for Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve, continuing the stewardship of the waters and lands of his ancestors.
Since the time of the creation of Gwaii Haanas, Diane Brown has been a champion of protecting and sharing Haida language and culture. She has taught Sev to speak Haida and she speaks with incredible pride of her daughter-in-law’s work to learn Haida to be able to speak it with her sons. That there could be a connection between the preservation of that threatened language and protecting a threatened ecosystem seemed unlikely – until Diane told me the story of her father, Watson Price.
Watson Price was born in 1905 and had never spoken any language but Haida. When he was ten years old, he was taken from his family, packed up on a steamship with other Haida children to the Coqualeetza residential school in Sardis, near Chilliwack. There was no money to be able to bring him home for visits. Like many children in the residential school system, he never got home through the year – and the years. It was at least eight years before he returned home to his family. He did not even realize until he got home and heard people speaking words he could not understand that he had lost his language.
Diane said she had never heard her father sing or say sentences in Haida. “But,” she told me, “after he got arrested, he gained the pride he had in himself and as a Haida man that residential school had taken away. Suddenly he started singing and telling me legends in Haida. It was such a joy.”
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Watson was 82 when he was taken away by the RCMP. It did not happen all at once, but from that day something changed. After Diane and her husband got a 28-foot runabout, they took her father out on the water. At first Diane could hardly believe it, but her father was out at the stern, singing songs in Haida. First it was the songs and then, back in the cabin, he started telling her all the legends he remembered from his youth. Diane told me, “He got 100 per cent recovery of his language and he remembered all the legends.”
Diane was already one of the few Haida speakers of her generation. She had him repeat the stories to her, over and over. She uses the stories he taught her in all her lessons and teachings. His recovered memories became a core component of teaching many other Haida apprentices.
Every time a Haida-speaking Elder dies it is as though a library has burned down. That Watson remembered the stories of his youth is a miracle. That it happened connected to his principled stand against logging brings this story full circle.
Last year, Sev and Judson took their two boys to Lyell Island (Athlii Gwaii). Both boys can speak Haida, taught by their mother and grandmother. Judson led them back to the spot where he had stood on the sidelines as a teenager, watching the blockade site where the elders were arrested and led away.
Not far from that spot stands the new pole erected at Windy Bay. Carved by Jaalen Edenshaw and his brother Gwaai, Guujaaw’s sons, and fellow carver Tyler York, it commemorates the protection of Gwaai Haanas – land and sea. Traditional in all its elements, it tells the story with one noticeable nod to the alliance of non-Indigenous and Indigenous champions.
Some of the watchmen are carved wearing rubber boots.
Until 1986, along with a few thousand other Canadians, I followed the South Moresby story in the media, wondering Would there be a park? Would British Columbia and the federal government ever agree whether there should be logging in these pristine forests? Would the Haida be allowed to keep this exquisite part of their island home free of the sounds of chainsaws? Then in July 1986, my interest in South Moresby took on a distinctly personal flavour. Someone I knew from Cape Breton environmental crusades had become embroiled in the thick of negotiations over South Moresby by accepting a job as senior policy adviser to Tom McMillan, the federal minister of the environment.
At 35, Elizabeth May is a little slip of a thing (as her kind used to be described), imbued with an air of beguiling innocence. But she talks a blue streak and is as effervescent and bouncy as the proverbial cat on a hot tin roof. She is as vivid and as vital as an electric storm. The first time she exploded into the quiet of my Cape Breton retreat, I felt as if a typhoon had caught me in its swirl. I have aged considerably since then – but Elizabeth has not. She gives the impression of being a kind of female Peter Pan, never to lose her youthful exuberance or her insatiable curiosity. But the impression that she is an ephemeral spirit is misleading. She is a crusader, born and bred; and the cause to which she has committed herself, mind, body and spirit, is the struggle to save the living world from destruction by her own species.
Her commitment is no recent phenomenon. As a child she was seized by the certainty that mankind was devilishly unkind to the rest of animate creation, whether those creatures were luna moths being zapped by electric bug killers, or great whales being destroyed by bombs exploded in their bellies. Her mother, Stephanie (who is also of the crusading breed), told me that even in early childhood Elizabeth possessed an absolute awareness that human beings were ruining the natural world, and that they could not be permitted (for their own good, as well as the world’s good) to continue doing so. “She didn’t argue. She just knew she was right; and she just knew she could and must help change things around. She wasn’t grim or fanatical about it. She had the sunny optimism of absolute conviction. And nothing could persuade her otherwise.”
To this day nothing has, and I doubt very much if anything ever will.
Elizabeth May is a crusader, but not of the stereotyped variety. She does not engage the enemy with weapons of shining steel, or of cutting intellect. Instead, she relies on love, compassion, the powers born of subjective feelings and an inner faith. She is of the primeval tradition, which has recently been identified as the Gaia movement, whose central tenet is that all life is of one flesh, indivisible and mutually supportive. According to the Gaia concept, the apparent differences between the multitudinous varieties of living beings do not isolate them as separate entities, but rather link them together as component parts of a single, world-girdling and living fabric.
Born in the United States, Elizabeth was 18 when she and her family came to Canada in 1973 and bought a decrepit restaurant on the west coast of Cape Breton Island. It did not sustain them, they sustained it, with the result that for almost a decade Elizabeth had to forgo her plans to become an environmental lawyer, while she cooked and washed dishes instead. But she never lost touch with her Gaia concerns, and she read so extensively on her own that she eventually knew as much about environmental problems as many a tenured professor.
“Elizabeth trained herself,” her mother told me, “like some medieval knight preparing for a quest.”
The challenge came in 1975 when Swedish-owned Nova Scotia Forest Industries, with the support of the Nova Scotia government, began preparations to spray pesticides over much of Cape Breton Island to combat an outbreak of spruce budworm. It was a unilateral decision. The people of Cape Breton were not consulted, nor were they warned of the risks to life and health. However, Elizabeth May had apprised herself of these, and so she rode out from the Schooner Restaurant in Margaree Harbour to sound the tocsin. She became the prime mover in rousing such a groundswell of grassroots resistance to the spray program that eventually the government withdrew its support and the pulp companies found themselves defeated.
By 1979 the budworm epidemic was dying down of its own accord, and Elizabeth at long last was able to begin university. But a few years later another major environmental threat surfaced in Nova Scotia. The forest industries had concluded that they could expand future production by resorting to a massive aerial spraying of herbicides, which would kill most forest vegetation except profitable softwoods such as spruce and balsam. Compliant with industry as usual, the government departments concerned quietly approved a request for permits – this time to spray from aircraft a mixture of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, the active ingredients in the infamous Agent Orange used by the US military to defoliate much of Vietnam, causing uncounted cases of cancer amongst the Vietnamese.
Proponents of the herbicide program had learned a lesson from their defeat over the use of pesticides. The new plan was announced only two weeks before the planes were due to take to the air. Doubtless the industry and the government were convinced that nothing could be done to interfere with their plans at such short notice. But Elizabeth dropped everything and rode out to rally the troops. She did so to such effect that ten days later she and her allies had obtained a temporary injunction to halt the spraying.
The battle that followed was ferocious. With three major pulp companies and the provincial government arrayed against them, Elizabeth and her allies struggled mightily for two years. But the struggle was, as writer June Callwood said at the time, between David and Goliath … only it was Goliath who had the sling.
And this time Goliath won.
In order to pay her share of the legal and other costs involved, Elizabeth had to sell her car and her family had to sell a 100-acre farm they owned near Baddeck. The Mays shrugged it off. “We would have sold the restaurant too if that would have helped Elizabeth win,” Stephanie May remembers.
Elizabeth duly graduated from law school and moved on from Nova Scotia to broader battlefields. She became instrumental in organizing the Canadian Environmental Defence Fund, which provides legal assistance to groups all over Canada fighting to preserve and protect the natural world. She was determined that when next the environmental David faced the industrial Goliath, the weapons would be more equal.
Then in August 1986, she was asked by Tom McMillan, minister of the environment in the federal government, to become his senior adviser on environmental matters. She held this enormously influential post until June 1988. Before her resignation (on a matter of principle to which she alludes in this book), she had been instrumental in implementing plans for several new national parks, and had worked on the Ozone Protocol and on vital reforms to the federal Environmental Assessment Act. She had also channelled more than a million dollars of government funds to assist the environmental movement all across Canada,
In the autumn of 1988, Elizabeth organized a nationwide publicity campaign in an (unsuccessful) attempt to force the three major Canadian political parties to promise more than lip service to environmental problems. She has spent the past year deeply embroiled in the campaign to save what remains of the world’s rainforests while also serving as the unpaid executive director of Cultural Survival (Canada), which works with Indigenous people to save both them and their natural environment. In one way or another she remains actively involved with almost every other major environmental issue as one of the most effective defenders of the living, breathing earth that we possess.
Now she has begun to give rein to a talent which may dwarf the many others she possesses. As this book attests, Elizabeth May is a born storyteller in the grand tradition. It may well be that she will achieve her greatest successes in defence of life upon this outraged planet as a writer, whose clarity, honesty and conviction brook no denials.
—Farley Mowat, January 1990
It was Sunday, July 12, 1987 – the morning after the big Haida feast in Skidegate. Most of the customers at the Helm Café in nearby Queen Charlotte City were weary celebrants. It was a measure of the power and magic of the feast that so much of its mood could linger over the gleaming formica and bacon grease of the small, nondescript café.
Tom McMillan, federal minister of the environment, took his last bite of French toast and congealing syrup, and polished it off with a glass of milk. I sipped my coffee and surveyed the old Haida men, Parks bureaucrats, elated environmentalists, and reporters gathered around their separate tables savouring the memories of the previous night’s celebration – translucent images of Hereditary Chiefs in their traditional costumes of feathers, fur and masks, of young Haida paddlers dancing newly created steps, cheering their own accomplishment, and of Tom McMillan’s cake that proclaimed, in green icing, South Moresby National Park. I had been working for Tom for almost a year, and that celebration of the arrival of Loo Taas, which coincided with the saving of South Moresby, of the end of logging within the area, was the culmination of everything that I had worked and prayed for. In the café were good friends gained in the effort to protect South Moresby: John Broadhead (J.B.), who had put the last decade or so into the cause; Vicky Husband, who had been working non-stop for the last six years of her life; Kevin McNamee, who worked for a Toronto-based parks group. He had been in the thick of it for several years as well.
We were in a mood to count our blessings – and our friends. “You know,” Vicky said, “we could never have done this without John Fraser. If it wasn’t for John, the whole thing could never have happened.”
“When you consider how close we came to losing, over and over again,” I added, still feeling a sense of unreality. “I mean, it really was a miracle. And each time it was nearly lost, someone – Dalton Camp or Mazankowski – “just kept it alive.” After all this time, it was hard to believe the battle was really won.
And so we went around the table, marvelling at all the people who in one way or another had helped to save the day. Paramount in our thoughts was the dedication and sacrifice of the Haida, especially the 72 men and women who had faced arrest on the logging road of Lyell Island (Athlii Gwaii). Then Tom said something that reminded me how perceptive he could be. “You know,” he began, “not only was the effort of each person absolutely indispensable, but each person contributed something that only he was capable of contributing. Only David Suzuki could have brought South Moresby to public attention the way he did through The Nature of Things and through his own reputation. And only Jim Fulton, as MP