As industrial logging of old growth forests continues amidst protests, Christine Lowther bears witness to the blockade over thirty years ago in Clayoquot Sound.

Review by Sonja Pinto

Some of the world’s largest remaining areas of old-growth forests are on Vancouver Island, including Ada’itsx/Fairy Creek territory near Port Renfrew. Headlines were made there in recent years due to protesters defending against clearcut logging in what became the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history with over one thousand arrests.

It’s a fight that goes back decades as Christine Lowther demonstrates in Blockade: Diaries of a Forest Defender (Caitlin $26), a memoir detailing her early 1990s involvement in the fight to stop clearcutting in other parts of Vancouver Island. Lowther belongs to a group called The Friends of Clayoquot Sound, an organization that defends old-growth forests and holds values like consensus, non-violence and Indigenous self-determination. Her book is written from a settler activist’s perspective and Lowther reflects on the learning and mistakes that inevitably come with settler activism on unceded land.

Lowther learned about the blockades at Kaxi:ks/Walbran and Tlaoquiat/Clayoquot Sound by seeing posters stuck on utility poles. Bringing along two friends, Lowther traveled to join the blockade camp in the woods. “As soon as we hit the logging road, the contrast between the beauty of the forests and the gouged-out, desertified look of clear-cuts was shocking,” she says.

At camp, there were blockaders from all walks of life. Children as young as six participated with their parents alongside protesters in their 80s and all ages in between. Activists from around the world joined the blockade. Despite the camp’s diversity, the forest defenders were stereotyped as radicals, “just kids”, foreigners and welfare bums. Challenging these stereotypes, Lowther writes that most blockaders (including herself) had taken leave from their jobs to participate.

She met people from surrounding Indigenous nations and gained insights from their teachings that shaped her own activism. Lowther tells how she discovered that the casual use of terminology downplays the devastation that human industrial activity does. “For many years now Gisele Martin, a Tlaoquiaht woman, has been pointing out that the term ‘land use’ should be replaced by ‘land care,’” says Lowther.

Lowther kept extensive journals throughout her stay at the blockade. “I wanted to record every detail: tents, kitchens, placards, people, art, children, dogs. A week felt like a month. Away from the city, time passed slowly.” The camp conditions were often wet and cold, but there was a communal feeling among the defenders; everyone looked out for each other’s safety and contributed to the community’s wellbeing.

The blockade “offered the structure of workshops and trainings to better prepare participants for various scenarios with cops, media, and angry loggers,” says Lowther. An eye-opener is Lowther’s excerpts of the conversations the protesters had while roleplaying loggers and activists. Blockaders also collectively made signs with slogans like “One Forest, One Fate,” “Beautiful Brutish Columbia,” and “Pacific Plunderland” to aid their protest efforts.

Despite the peaceful ambience of camp, the blockaders’ interactions with cops and loggers were anything but peaceful. “Police walked into camp and arrested young people who continued to sing their hearts out even as they threw themselves in front of approaching company trucks,” recalls Lowther. “We were like hunted animals.”

She documents the non-violent tactics and strategies used by land defenders to deter loggers and police. Methods like U-locks, tripods and tree sitting were common tactics. Other strategies included planned strategic arrests and “support people” who provided emotional support and info for the planned arrestees. “Cops are meant to ignore support persons, not arrest them,” explains Lowther. However, this was not always the case. Lowther describes multiple instances where support people were also detained. “When arrested themselves, they can carry out none of this work.”

“The forest was full of cops watching us,” Lowther remembers. Cops wore video cameras and snooped through people’s bags. “Was that legal?” Lowther wonders. Yet, when confronted, some police seemed uncertain about their stance on old growth. “We’re not given a chance to think about it,” one officer told Lowther.

Blockaders were read injunctions and other confusing mandates. “The legalese was baffling,” Lowther says. She and many other land defenders were hit with charges like contempt for court and drawn into lengthy legal battles for their protest actions. Lowther herself eventually got arrested. “I did not feel like I could go willingly from the destruction of the planet, so again I was painfully dragged [away by cops].” After this, she had to appear in court to defend herself and was banned from going near the blockades.

Lowther also details fraught interactions with loggers, who were predominantly working-class men. Many of them expressed apprehension about the work they were doing but ultimately  they had to put food on the table for their families. Lowther emphasizes the need for retraining and support for loggers who, she notes, will be out of jobs anyway when there is no more old growth to log. “We have to green the economy without leaving anyone behind. It’s survival,” she says.

Despite all the challenges and obstacles, Lowther continued participating in the blockades and she gleaned insight from each day spent in the blockades. “The forest constantly changed as we hiked through it,” she says. The trees surrounding the blockade were constant reminders of the importance of their struggle. “At night the miracle of their existence was somehow closer to being within reach; in the darkness they seemed awake, watchful, and wise. We never forgot why we were there.”

Blockade features several photos from the 90s Clayoquot camp and aerial photos showing clearcuts as recent as 2024. This memoir is essential reading for understanding the current struggle to defend old growth on so-called Vancouver Island. Thirty years later, many of Lowther’s fellow blockaders keep in touch, commemorating anniversaries of mass arrests in group chats and reminiscing about the impact of their protests.

Despite the ongoing threats to old- growth forests that continue to this day, Lowther’s hope seems unwavering: “Our presence each morning was a victory. They would never be unwatched again!”  9781773861609

Sonja Pinto is a writer, photographer, printmaker and book reviewer. They reside on the unceded territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən peoples (Victoria, BC).