11. History’s Possession

Over the centuries and more, the Nuu-chah-nulth, inhabiting their ancient lands and using their native waters, managed and exploited their natural resources, taking what they wished, doing so for their own reasons and purposes. The “culturally modified trees” of Meares Island were one powerful demonstration of a traditional use of forest resources.³⁰³ Living in a world of bounty, the Natives hardly had to think of “sustained yields” and “harvesting the forests.” Those terms belonged to outsiders of the industrial age.

In earlier days, those covered in the first part of this book, these peoples had no cash or money, doing business by barter and exchange. Such credit lines as they had were based on the power of the chief and of the group or village. They were as acquisitive as any people on earth, conscious of wealth and station—and ambitious to maintain their station against any rivals or pretenders. They intermarried in order to strengthen their position, and the chiefs paid particular attention in this regard. Acquisitive for resources and sources of foodstuffs and supplies, too, they extended their tribal empires at others’ expense—for example, getting the best places for salmon fishing or to watch out for the return of herring or the grey whales. They lived in a world of internecine tensions. They went to war to enlarge their patrimonies. Many remembered the old wars that ended in 1855. Fewer societies could have been as self-conscious as these nations that in the 1980s formed the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tribal Council, which, after all, was a political entity of necessity to test the courts and obtain favourable rulings. They had the rising tide of history on their side.

The Nuu-chah-nulth had possessed Meares Island since time out of mind. In those distant days of the sea otter chiefs, the lands and seas of Wickaninnish offered unlimited sustenance, though late winter could bring food scarcity if not enough dried and cured salmon were to hand. Shellfish was abundant. Resources of the sea and land are and have been the lifeblood of the Nuu-chah-nulth nations. First, and perhaps since time immemorial, it was the whale. Then came the era of the sea otter, which invited the world’s mariners to local waters and drew the nations into a global and international network. Not to be forgotten are salmon and other fish species, including pilchard and dog salmon (for oil).

After the era of sea otter prosperity came a couple of decades of quietude and readjustment—an in-between time. Empires, governmental and bureaucratic, commercial and industrial, were advancing relentlessly, dancing to different drummers, so to speak, than those of the older and traditional Native ways. Indian agents and Indian land commissioners came to Nuu-chah-nulth territories after 1855 and returned more frequently as the century wore on. In the mid-1870s, missionaries made visits and intrusions, and their influence was mighty, some might say catastrophic. With them came the power of government, heretofore only advisory and distant. The Canadian state changed all that, and whereas British Columbia held control of the land and the resources of that land (including mines and forests), the Government of Canada had legislative jurisdiction over, and fiduciary or patriarchal authority and obligation for, “Indians, and lands reserved for the Indians.” This was the greatest act of equalizing First Nations and bands in the federation. Canada’s authority was exerted over provincial authority. This, we need to remind ourselves, was completely in keeping with British imperial policy, most notably in regards to matters of trusteeship (that is, the fiduciary powers and responsibilities of the Crown and its ministers in Ottawa).

The Nuu-chah-nulth had been witness to all these changes. They had survived or adapted to them all. They entertained the outsiders, did not beat them off. They seem to have made no direct complaint, no concerted political action. They accepted the international treaty requirement that they would no longer hunt the whale, something some of their distant kin, the Makah, are now contesting. By and large, the Nuu-chah-nulth peoples and nations accommodated themselves to these changing scenarios. They adapted to circumstances and, not least, they survived.

The sea otter brought them into a worldwide web of commerce, linking Meares Island with India, China (and Macau), London, Boston, the Falkland Islands, the Hawaiian Islands, Kamchatka and Japan. The armed merchant sailing ship of the late eighteenth century was the means for establishing this web. The Nuu-chah-nulth were content with navigating their inland channels and ranging along the coast in their great canoes—and the Nootka canoes, large and small, were regarded as the premier vessels on the Northwest Coast on account of the craftsmanship and, above all, the cedar forests. Global met local and vice versa. When in 1911 an international treaty declared the sea otter a mammal that could not be hunted, some of the Nuu-chah-nulth objected strongly to an infringement on their Aboriginal rights.³⁰⁴

Meares Island, and the greater Clayoquot Sound area, were drawn back into the global spotlight by the Meares Island crisis of 1984 and the subsequent Clayoquot non-violent protest of 1993.

There are many legacies of all this. Some are memories, faded somewhat by the ravages of time, of the quiet fights and struggles behind the scenes. Others are more tangible.

Meares Island reinforced in law the importance of culturally modified trees and places with archaeological potential. This demonstration of antiquity formed a key factor in preserving the Island from the systematic use of the chainsaw across its forested terrain. There was export value to the concept. Removing culturally modified trees, which mark the historical presence of Indigenous peoples, is like erasing the DNA of the First Nations: this is the view of Chief Rande Cook (known as Makwala), who was speaking of a 2019 clear-cut at Schmidt Creek, above Robson Bight on the east coast Vancouver Island.³⁰⁵

Klah-keest-ke-uss, Chief Simon Lucas of the Hesquiaht Nation, put it this way: “The very survival of the Nuu-chah-nulth people depends on the survival of old-growth forests. Old-growth forests are our most important places of worship. Within forests we are completely surrounded by life; within forests we can renew our spiritual bonds with all living things.”³⁰⁶

Perhaps nothing epitomizes the general public’s desire to protect places such as Clayoquot Sound as much as the initiative taken by a multiplicity of cultural and political entities to recover, or at least preserve, what remains of primeval seas, shores, islands and forests. Following the 1993 anti-logging arrests, delegates to the World Conservation Congress, meeting in Montreal in 1996, called for Clayoquot Sound to be designated as a United Nations international biosphere reserve. BC’s Environment Minister, Paul Ramsay, said the application to the UN aimed to have the area recognized for environmental and conservation values while creating chances for sustainable development.³⁰⁷ This, then, was the new policy—save, protect, and develop on a sustained basis.

The wheels move slowly on environmental protection. In January 2000, with support of local First Nations and communities, as well as the federal and provincial governments, Clayoquot Sound was designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, one of more than 700 such places around the world that “promote solutions reconciling the conservation of biodiversity with its sustainable use.”³⁰⁸ The designation acknowledges in broad compass Aboriginal title and treaty rights, and does not prejudice ongoing negotiations. Much educational work has been done, engaging younger voices—the same demographic that would have manned the barricades in 1993. A ten-year review, completed in August 2010, provides glowing evidence of new partnerships forged, recovery projects undertaken and solid on-the-ground efforts to save this magical place, which some think is as close to paradise on earth as exists.³⁰⁹

Of course, protected areas and old-growth forests boost tourism and help recreational businesses but a new and stark factor has entered into man’s capabilities to survive in the face of global warming and climate change. Old growth can “capture carbon” better than any other item in the forest. And in the new language of carbon emissions and climate urgencies, “carbon sequestration” may be another way to possess Meares Island’s great forests and damp, heavily carpeted valleys. Maybe Meares Island will be reduced, in some bureaucrat’s table, to a number in “carbon capture,” some fragment of benefit to humankind in the future.

Many of the forces for possession of Meares Island these days have a similar paper, administrative character. For the island remains wrapped up in the commercial legalities of various tree farm licences; the rules, definitions and regulations of its two Indian reserves (Crown land); and, similarly, its assorted water access permits and hydro power line permits. For some there is, also, the dark legacy of Kakawis and the old Indian School property. And, not to be forgotten, its trap-line permits. Yes, it appears to be First Nations land. But let’s make this clear: it is nonetheless tied up in the red tape of history and regulation, both federal and provincial. It may be a Tribal Park—for which this historian will be eternally grateful—but it is also possessed by the historical tentacles of empire. Empires are based on power, and those powers are seldom relinquished, seldom lapse. Such powers may be transferred—London to Victoria, for instance, or in the case of Indian reserves, Victoria to Ottawa. Under stress in one locale, the exercise of power may move to margins that promise greater freedom of action and less management oversight. The legal system is the broker here, dividing the authority of law, preserving the power of the Crown, which has fiduciary obligations in regards to “Indians, and lands reserved for Indians.”

As we have seen, the unique characteristics of old-growth forests make them prize targets for logging companies, for the yield from first-growth trees far exceeds that from second-growth. Sadly, current provincial governments have not placed moratoria on all old-growth areas. At the end of the twentieth century, the Government of British Columbia brought forth the Vancouver Island Land-Use Plan (2000), with the aim of ensuring that a critical mass of old growth continued to exist. Certain areas were dutifully identified as special management zones. One such, Nahmint Valley near Port Alberni, lies in traditional territories of the Hupacasath and Tse-shaht First Nations. Readers will recall the discussion, in Chapter 7, when Stamp and Sproat arrived to begin logging in nearby lands—and how the Tseshaht had protested. Now both environmental activists and First Nations had played an important role in advising on the new land-use plan.

However, the plan lacked teeth, as Vicki Husband, one of the environmentalists consulted by government, has declared.³¹⁰ She was right. Two investigations, one conducted by the Ministry of Forests and another done outside the ministry, show that the government agency responsible for auctioning provincial logging permits was not complying with rules designed to ensure sufficient old-growth forest is retained to avoid loss of biodiversity.³¹¹ Rules were ignored by those holding permits, oversight by government was error-ridden, and forest ecosystems were destroyed. Old-growth trees were topped or fallen. Scholars and environmentalists watched with alarm, and political and environmental journals or websites like Narwhal, Walrus, Focus and Tyee chronicled the forest’s demise, predicting dire outcomes. A 2018 report from the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre reported that “in high productivity areas such as valley bottoms, less than 10 per cent of the original old growth remains. ‘On Vancouver Island, only about a fifth of the original, productive old-growth rainforest remains unlogged. More than 30 per cent of what remained standing in 1993 has been destroyed in just the last 25 years.’”³¹² The forest industry’s advance on the ancient forests continues unabated under the questionable surveillance of BC’s Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources Operations. The stock of old growth is diminishing, moving toward a vanishing point that looms closer and closer.

From time to time, though ever so rarely these days, some previously undiscovered segment of old-growth forest is chanced upon by explorers of the forests of west coast Vancouver Island. Such was the case in 2019, when Mossome Grove (“Mossy and Awesome”) was found in the San Juan River Valley, near Port Renfrew. The six-hectare grove has been described as one of the most beautiful forests on Earth, with “tall, straight solid Sitka spruce” and “the ninth-widest big-leaf maple in BC,” all draped with moss and ferns. Mossome Grove stands on Crown land but—and here’s the rub—it is unprotected. The location remains undisclosed and unprotected. Like those who find shipwrecks, the discoverers want to keep the scavengers and unwanted intruders away. But members of the Ancient Forest Alliance are hoping that the grove will be, as one of them put it, “the new poster child for B.C.’s endangered ancient forests.”³¹³

In contrast, in 2021, Native demands for a share of the economic benefit from resource extraction in old-growth forests became a factor in plans to log in the Fairy Creek watershed, one of Vancouver Island’s last untouched watersheds, near Port Renfrew. Here the Pacheedaht have a revenue-sharing agreement, and they will receive compensation for logging in their territory.

Apart from one patch on Lone Cone, Meares Island has never been clear-cut. This makes it different from much of the surrounding landscape, where great swaths of grey reveal the extent of clear-cutting. And, of course, there is always “romance,” the beauty of a place far away, one out of mind almost, dreamlike and precious—life on the perfect edge of Canada and the continent.

There is no denying the importance of tourism in the new era possessing Meares Island. For the island stands opposite Tofino as a world apart from the customary clear-cut mountainous hillsides that can be viewed from that spot. “Out here on this wild edge, where sand, sea, and sky merge, people have always found a lot of space for thinking, dreaming, recharging,” says Adrienne Mason, writer of science, nature and history.³¹⁴ I am too hard-headed to be a travel writer, but I like what some of them do in their line of work.

Tourists may visit for a day or two, sensing the majesty of that place. Hundreds of thousands are drawn there each year. They are drawn there by the reputation of untouched and wild places, where land meets the sea in this unique labyrinth of sea channels and islands. David Pitt-Brooke, a naturalist, writes on this matter from his experience as an environment education officer for Parks Canada, which administers Pacific Rim National Park: “They come with an urgency that sometimes borders on desperation, these refugees, searching for wonderment and beauty in the natural world, qualities rare in their ordinary daily lives. They come for understanding and enlightenment. They come to experience an alternative lifestyle, seeking some sense of acceptance in this place, if only in a modest capacity as observers. They come to touch the earth, looking for an antidote to their growing isolation from the natural world, the bane of modern urban existence.”³¹⁵

Pitt-Brooke mediates between the real world and the imaginary and idealized one. For, as he explains, tourists come to take away memories and mental images of what they have held for just a brief moment in their ever-so-short lives. They have come from all over the world to take in the beauty and to hold it in precious memory (for it seldom fails, as your historian knows). The town of Tofino, with its shops, eateries, bakery, galleries, co-op, and liquor store, has its own fascination. It is true that the tourists take away only a superficial knowledge of the place—for one thing, few realize that Tofino’s water supply comes from Meares Island. Still, they have sensed what were once primeval forests, unmarked channels, uninterrupted vistas and clouds surrounding the tops of mountains. And here is where a fine book such as Pitt-Brooke’s Chasing Clayoquot can allow readers in faraway places to possess the lands and seas of Wickaninnish. His writing, and that of others, are forms of possession, of a grasp that has not come away empty-handed.

At one supreme and idealistic level, Meares Island is Tla-o-qui-aht traditional territory. The Ahousaht likewise possess Meares Island, as do the remnant Kelsemaht. However, there are dark underpinnings to this long saga of who controls what. Meares Island will surely always be contested ground—though not a place for political firestorms, roadblocks, civil disobedience and legal quarrels. Quietude is Meares Island’s hallmark: this is not a place for bravado and barricades; no, the Nuu-chah-nulth do not operate by force or threat. Their ways are those of peace and respect, generously given and graciously received. In the larger history of human relations across seas, islands and continents, this is a good state of affairs.

Now, perhaps, there beckons a new dawn. Tourism favours the Native users of Meares Island and provides much-needed income. Visitors are enthralled by the place, and seem to touch the eternal there. Meares has no dock, but when the captain navigates close to a rock, guide Tsimka Martin jumps ashore and helps others make a safe arrival. This is the first Tribal Park in Canada, she says, and of course it is the birthplace of the Clayoquot Sound protests and the “War of the Woods,” as locals call it. Moses Martin had been a logger by trade. He had a change of heart when he saw how logging was destroying a salmon stream. His words echo down the years: “You’re welcome to visit our park, but leave your saws in the boat.”

Tsimka Martin reminds the visitors that the loggers were greeted by songs and drumming. Boardwalks now aid the travellers, and the large hemlock, alder, Sitka spruce and old-growth cedars are a wonder to behold. Visitors stop by an ancient tree. One traveller recounted his emotions when looking at a thousand-year-old tree: “Its reach-for-the-sky height and enormous circumference make me want to stop and just breathe. What was happening a millennium ago? First Nations here were fishing salmon, hunting whales and moving between camps. The Vikings had barely made contact with the other side of Canada—the other side of the world, really.”³¹⁶

Meares Island stands under its two mountain landmarks, its dark forests coming down to salt water and the pathways to wider seas; its valleys are largely undefiled by industrial activity. Here and there stand the giants of the forests, and somehow they have resisted what seemed almost inevitable a generation ago.