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Why Europeans Care

How Dare They Do This

Rare surviving remnants of old growth rainforest continue to be under assault by logging companies and face extinction in British Columbia (BC). Vancouver Island especially has suffered from MacMillan Bloedel and its successor, the American tree killing company Weyerhaeuser. One painful instance of ruthless corporate plundering is the destruction of Pachena Grove, clearcut in the late spring of 2006 (right). The 100 hectare old growth spruce forest at the mouth of Pachena River next to Anacla Indian Reserve was renowned internationally as the head of the West Coast Trail. A local indigenous owned company may well be the immediate perpetrator but Island Timberlands (aka Weyerhaeuser, MacMillan Bloedel) are the indirectly guilty, buying First Nations' collaboration by exploiting their economic plight.

Pachena Grove big tree destroyed, 2006.
Photo: Phil Carson

Pachena Grove Cutblock, 21 May 2007.
Aerial Photo: Tnano (text added)

BC is running out of the intact coastal forests that have fueled industrial logging for over a century. At the same time, indigenous land claims are increasingly being recognized by the Canadian court. As a result, the forest industry is rushing to cut down the last big trees, and devious deals are done between corporate and government officials and their co–opted native counterparts. The irreplaceable giant spruce grove at the mouth of Pachena River was massacred in 2006 (left), wrecking hundreds of aboriginal heritage trees. This crime was against the Huu–ay–aht community of Anacla. It also degraded the valuable wild salmon habitat of Pachena River and diminished the biodiversity of Pachena Bay and the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve.

Canada is gaining a bad international reputation for refusing to sign the 2006 United Nations Convention on Indigenous Rights. Also, at an international climate change initiative in 2008, Canada was condemned for its dismissal of the legal rights that indigenous peoples have over the forests they live in. Almost all BC forests are part of unceded territories that have been under dispute since the province was colonized by Britain in the mid 19th century. Yet from the beginning, transnational corporations have grabbed and plundered the profitable forest resources of First Nations across BC with impunity, while the native communities suffer from poverty, neglect and institutionalised racism.

Pachena big tree destroyed, April 2006.
Photo: Phil Carson

Pachena big tree destroyed, 2006.
Vancouver Island, British Columbia

The 2006 clearcutting of the Pachena Grove resulted not only in the loss of big trees but also indigenous heritage (above and left). This act of nature destruction at the head of the West Coast Trail was engineered by the forest industry and is an ominous sign of what is to come from the elaborately framed treaty deals being signed between the BC government and First Nations. Designed to give certainty to big business, the treaties extinguish Aboriginal Title and privatize Indian Reserves and Crown Land, thereby facilitating industrial resource exploitation.

"Ohiat Indian; Barklay Sound," 1870.
Photo: BC Archives (F. Dally)

Sproat was typical of the colonizers who believed that the absence of certain characteristic features of European civilization in the indigenous peoples justified classifying them as savages and therefore as part of nature over which dominion had to be exerted. But Sproat also wrote that the amazing oratory skills of the Ahts were superior to the colonizers' and he described how he owed his life to "George the Pirate," a famed Ohiaht paddler and to Chief Kleeshin. An Huu–ay–aht whaling harpoon collected in 1893 reveals great sophistication and beauty (right).

The Huu–ay–aht First Nation on whose land Pachena Grove is located are described as Ohiat (also spelled Ohyat or Ohiet) Indians in one of the earliest popular narratives of native life on the west coast of Vancouver Island, by Gilbert Malcolm Sproat: Scenes and Studies of Savage Life (1868). Published in London, the book is a colonial account of the dispossession of the indigenous peoples, whom Sproat called "Ahts" (now known as Nuu–chah–nulth). Sproat describes the Ahts as a "nation" and although he ponders over the "right of any people to intrude upon another, and to dispossess them of their country," he concludes that "civilized men" have the right to occupy "savage countries." A photo of an "Ohiat Indian" was taken by Frederick Dally (left) at about the same time as Sproat's book appeared in Europe.

Ohiaht whaling harpoon, 1893.
Photo: Canadian Museum of Civilization

"Sea Hunters," Painting by Gordon Miller, 1983.
Canadian Museum of Civilization

The amazing skill of the Nuu–chah–nulth peoples as whalers has long fascinated Europeans. An historical painting by Gordon Miller (above) shows these "sea hunters" in a Nootka canoe, carved from a single ancient cedar tree. See the online exhibit at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, "Where Sea and Land Meet." Many of the earliest and most valuable Nuu–chah–nulth artifacts are held in European collections, such as the painted cedar mask featured on the cover of the exhibition cataloque of the Ethnology Museum in Berlin, collected in the 1880s by Adrian Jacobsen (right).

Book cover: "Indianer Nordamerikas."
Ethnology Museum, Berlin

Huu ay aht house pole, Royal BC Museum, 2006.
Photo: Karen Wonders

Kiix?in was inhabited by the Huu–ay–aht for thousands of years and contains the best preserved remains of an ancient Nuu–chah–nulth village. The giant cedar trees used to construct Kiix?in are a valuable source of archaeological data: Building Quaksweaqwul (Dendrochronologia, 2005). The Kiix?in figures are regarded as "first ancestors" who embody their close relationship with nature. In 1882 Kiix?in became Kleeshan Indian Reserve 9 when the Canadian government established the West Coast Agency to confine the Nuu–chah–nulth peoples to specified reserves. In 1916 the size of Kleeshan was cited as 330 acres but over the years it has become reduced to 133.50 acres. The 1876 Indian Act and the 1893 Indian Timber regulations give Canada control over the economic exploitation of Indian Reserve forests, legislation that robs native communities of their resources and disregards the negative cultural and environmental impacts of old growth forest destruction.

Two Huu–ay–aht welcoming figures carved c. 1860 for a potlatch and feast are on display in the entry lobby of the Royal BC Museum (right and below). Originally the two figures stood in front of the Quaksweaqwul bighouse in the Huu–ay–aht village of Kiix?in (pronounced KEE shun). In 1911 a collector removed the figures and in 1941 they were erected in Victoria at an outdoor totem pole display (Thunderbird Park) where they remained as popular tourist attractions until 1968.

Huu–ay–aht house pole, 2006.
Photo: Karen Wonders

Nuu chah nulth hat, Smithsonian Institute.
Photo: Walter Larrimore

First Nations sustained biodiversity in their homelands for at least 10,000 years before colonization, because it was essential to their survival and also it was part of their cultural responsibility. A cedar tree, for example, was prayed to before its bark was harvested and the tree continued living afterwards. The role of a hereditary chief has been to preserve the knowledge and resources of his people. Not much is left of the cedar resources in Huu–ay–aht territory, which has been ravaged by industrial forestry.

Huu–ay–aht Tyee Ha'wilth Tliishin (A. Spencer Peters) is seen on the right wearing a wreath of cedar and holding a ceremonial cedar talking stick. He lived at Anacla, next to the Pachena Grove and some have suggested that the destruction of this sacred place with its hundreds of culturally modified trees, many of them ancient survivors up to 1,000 years old, caused him such grief that he died prematurely at the age of 59 on 28 September 2008.

The government's control over Kiix?in was further strengthened when Kleeshan Indian Reserve 9 was abutted by the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve in 1977, and in 1999 when it was anoited a National Historic Site. Yet in 2006 a proposal was made to clearcut log 19,920 cublic meters of cedar logs from the Kleeshan Reserve. The tragic reality is that the ecological integrity of Kiix?in as an ancient indigenous heritage site is at grave risk. At the same time Nuu–chah–nulth culture, which depends on cedar resources, is celebrated worldwide as a living art form. A beautiful 19th century hat woven from cedar bark (left) is on display at the Museum of the American Indian, seen in the exhibit "Listening To Our Ancestors."

Hereditary Chief A. Spencer Peters.
Huu–ay–aht First Nation

People dressed in cedar garments.
Photo: Denise August, Hashilthsa

The species commonly called yellow cedar is especially valued in Nuu–chah–nulth culture. It is one of the few native species with a scientific name that tributes the indigenous people of North America. First discovered at Nootka Sound, the species has a complex taxonomic and nomenclatural history, beginning in 1824 as "Cupressus nootkatensis" (Nootka Cypress). It is slow growing and can reach well over a thousand years in age. But because of its high commercial value, not many specimens have survived destruction by the wood products industry. One exception is an ancient giant tree near Anacla that remains unprotected and at risk in a designated timber cutblock on Crown forest land (right).

Traditional clothes such as capes and skirts were made of strips of cedar bark (left): "The Nuu–chah–nulth vocabulary includes a different word to name each size of cedar tree indicating its specific use. Indeed the Nuu–chah–nulth People could be called, as one elder put it, the Cedar People" George Clutesi Curriculum Program: Nuu–chah–nulth Traditional Clothing.

Endangered Nootka Cypress near Anacla.
Photo: video still

Huu ay aht post, Anacla, Pachena River, 2008.
Photo: British Columbia Government

Used for ceremonial occasions, a traditional "Nootka" war canoe carved from a gigantic cedar tree is dry docked at Anacla (right). Anacla Indian Reserve 12 was one of the 13 Huu ay aht reserves laid out in 1882 by the government of Canada. It is an ancient Huu–ay–aht resource and village site that was devastated by a tsunami caused by an earthquake on 26 January 1700. For more on this legend, see Steven Earle: Huu–ay–aht Earthquake. The only survivor was a woman called "Anacla aq sop" for whom the estuary was named. Like most colonial derived place names in Nuu–chah–nulth territory, Pachena Bay is a misnomer.

The 2006 destruction of the Pachena Grove at Anacla is a sorrowful instance of mismanagement and greed by the forest industry with lasting repercussions for the Huu–ay–aht and Bamfield communities. The BC government uses aboriginal culture to promote eco tourism (left), yet at the same time facilitates the industrial destruction of the cedars which are the basis of this culture.

Huu ay aht canoe, Anacla, 2008.
Photo: Barek

Pachena Bay was cited on a 1861 British Admiralty Chart and again by the 1864 Vancouver Island Exploring Expedition. It was mistakenly identified as a more southern location named after the Pacheedaht Indians (the anglicized name Pachena means "sea foam"). Today tourists from around the world congragate at the Pachena Bay head of the West Coast Trail. The huge stumps that litter the beach are relics of the primaeval rainforest that was clearcut logged (right). Not until 1977 was a coastal strip protected as part of the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve. Pachena Grove was partially included in the park until a murky land swap was engineered by the logging company MacMillan Bloedel. Less than five percent of valley bottom old growth has survived industrial logging on Vancouver Isand, yet in 2006 the Pachena Grove was sacrificed. This irreplaceable loss of big trees and biodiversity may have additional environmental consequences on Anacla such as land slides and flooding.

Ancient stump, Pachena Bay, 2008.
Vancouver Island, British Columbia

Private forest lands, Vancouver Island, 2007.
British Columbia Government (Click to enlarge)

In BC, contested indigenous land and Crown land has been converted to private land through schemes engineered by big business and their government accomplices. The first such conversion of questionable legality was the Dunsmuir Land Grab in 1883 which involved almost a quarter of Vancouver Island: this area is seen in green on the map (left). In the 1950s, Crown land was converted to "Tree Farm Licences" (pink areas) which today are increasingly being redefined as "Private Land" (dark pink). In 2009, as part of this conversion process, the government announced a new scheme of "Commercial Forests" part of the shocking scheme to liquidate what little remains of the old growth forest on Vancouver Island.

Legalized Land Grabs "Defined Forest Land" (right). Corporate PR engineered with the devious 2004 Private Managed Forest Land Act. (Click to enlarge)

The process of legalized land grabs that began with colonization has resulted in the deforestation of most of Vancouver Island. In 1911 American investors got hold of the most lucrative forest lands and set up the first industrial logging operation in BC at Franklin River (the indigenous name is Owatchet) in Huu–ay–aht territory. In the 1950s the Franklin River Division was designated as part of a 452 826 hectare Tree Farm Licence No. 44 (TFL 44). In 2007 Western Forest Products identified a big piece of TFL 44 as its own "Defined Forest Area" (right). 2008 government maps show much of this land base as "Huu–ay–aht First Nations Area."

"Defined Forest Area 2007"
Western Forest Products (text added)

"Man of Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island."
Painting from John Webber's engraving, 1784

The Nuu–chah–nulth, well known since the expedition accounts of Captain Cook were published in the late 18th century, are speakers of "Nootka"’ and ‘"Nitinaht," two members of the Wakashan language family. "Wakashan Nation" appears on all historical maps of Vancouver Island (left), yet the Nuu–chah–nulth are forced to take legal action to establish their Aboriginal Title.

Logging industry signs, Bamfield Road, 2008.
West Coast, Vancouver Island, British Columbia

Bamfield Road was built as a logging road to service the Franklin River Division of MacMillan Bloedel and it remains the only road in Huu–ay–aht territory. Logging industry signs on the road were photographed by a tourist in 2008 (above and right). It is revealing that the map (right) does not even include the Huu–ay–aht village of Anacla on Pachena Bay. Some of the most lucrative stands of old growth forest on the West Coast were located in Huu–ay–aht territory, in TFL 44, and it is estimated that over 40 million cubic meters of timber has been logged from 1940 until the present.

MacMillan Bloedel "Tree Farm Licence No. 44," 2008.
West Coast, Vancouver Island, British Columbia

Sign: "Map of Bamfield Road," 2008.
Vancouver Island, British Columbia

One sign claims the area "Tree Farm Licence No. 44" to be "cooperatively managed" by MacMillan Bloedel and BC's Ministry of Forests (left). In truth the vast profits made from liquidating the old growth forests have gone into private hands. In 1999 MacBlo was taken over by Weyerhaeuser, the notorious "cut & run" American company that sold out in 2004 when land rights heated up.

Franklin River Divison clearcutting, 1970s.
MacMillan Bloedel Tree Farm Licence 44

Everywhere in the Franklin River Division area of TFL 44, the valuable old growth forests have been devastated by clearcut logging (left). None of the fortunes extracted from this timber has gone to the indigenous communities who have suffered great impoverishment since colonization and lost much of their archaeological and natural heritage. The BC government's bullying and rush to settle land claims by signing treaties which extinguish Aboriginal Title thereby giving "certainty" to the resource extraction industry is evident from the excessive amount of PR generated by the Ministry of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation. Headed by the former minister of forests, Mike de Jong is infamous and widely despised for his conniving style of double dealing with First Nations.

Chief Louis Nookmiis(1880 – 1964).
Photo: British Columbia Archives

. . . Sometimes the whiteman takes a few feet of the Indian Reserve and claims it, and I am afraid to say much to the whitemen. I often go to see the posts, and every time I go they are in a different place, and I always put it back again. I told Mr. Neil, the former Indian Agent about it. He said 'those surveyors know what they are doing but you do not.' That is what he told me. There is one small Reserve that is not on the chart. The post is there yet, and I want to know how the Government got hold of that land" Ohiaht Meeting.

The Royal Commission "cut off" (removed) 640 acres from Numukamis Indian Reserve No. 1 which was located at the mouth of the Sarita River, ignoring native testimonials that this was the the primary salmon river of the Ohiaht people. Chief Louis Nookmiis complained: "The cannery men are using a seine for their fishing, and they catch all the fish going up the Serita river." With 40 houses, Numukamis was the most populated of the Ohiaht communities. Two carved houseposts from Numukamis were collected by the Provincial Museum in 1911, one figure holding a salmon (right). Sarita River's once rich salmon habitat was destroyed by MacMillan Bloedel's gutting of the old growth forests in the Sarita Watershed, which is part of the Franklin River Division.

Ever since their land was invaded by Europeans, the Nuu–chah–nulth have suffered the theft of their resources and land. An early recorded denunciation of this colonial injustice is by Huu–ay–aht Chief Louis Nookmiis (left) who was present at the Royal Commission meeting with the Ohiaht Indians on 8 May 1914: "We get the wood from our own lands to sell so that we can make or get our food. When we go to cut wood on Government land, the whitemen always chase us away and put us in gaol – that is the reason we have to cut the wood from off our own lands. . .

Numukamis housepost, 1911.
Photo: British Columbia Archives

Huu–ay–aht Clarence Dennis, 2005.
Photo: David Wiwchar, Ha Shilth Sa

The indigenous peoples were confined within reserves, like concentration camp inmates, while their resources were plundered and their children taken away and forcibly assimulated in residential schools. Huu–ay–aht Clarence Dennis (left), a survivor of the Alberni School, returned in 2005 to participate in a ceremonial cutting down of a holly tree at the entrance of the school (19 May 2005, Ha Shilth Sa). He explained that the holly tree had symbolized the pain suffered by generations of First Nations children at the school.

The family of Clarence Dennis has held traditional rights at Sarita Lake for countless generations. His dream to build a bighouse here was thwarted in 1999 when MacMillan Bloedel applied a new tactic to claim ownership of the unceded Crown land.

Clearcutting in the Sarita River Watershed, 1970s.
MacMillan Bloedel's Franklin River Division

Huu–ay–aht David Dennis (right), son of Clarence Dennis, is a witness to the continued abuse of Aboriginal Title and Rights. In 2004 he was co chair of the Southern Region of the Nuu–chah–nulth Tribal Council and in 2008 he was voted president of the United Native Nations Society. On 24 July 2007, he wrote an open letter to the Huu–ay–aht explaining why he was opposed to the Maa–nulth Treaty: "You should understand that through this agreement, the non native governments are achieving their goals of 'finality' and 'certainty,' meaning that our laws are finished and their laws will apply and prevail over the land and over us. This all is designed to trump any future challenge to the authority and power of the non native governments over our communities" David Dennis: Open Letter.

Some 37 Huu–ay–aht salmon bearing rivers and streams have been destroyed by industrial slash and burn cutblocks (left). Yet instead of paying compensation, the big logging corps engage in secretive and devious plots together with their government cronies to exclude contested Crown forest land from indigenous land claims and environmental legislation. Their expertice includes the unethical practice of driving wedges between First Nations and breaking up tribal affiliations.

Huu–ay–aht David Dennis, 2003.
Photo: anon

Corporate PR greenwash that claims logging is conducted in an "ecologically & culturally sensitive manner" is easily exposed by using Google Earth: see an image of the Sarita River log dump (right). There is no hope for the restoration of Sarita River when the rate of forest liquidation continues at such a frantic pace. "Feel good" endeavours (ie. the 1996 film on Sarita River "Heart of the People") and scholarly work (ie. the 2007 thesis on the Huu–ay–aht, "As Sacred as Cedar and Salmon") serve only to obscure the brutality of the global wood products industry and its hold on local economics. Thus the government rushes to get treaties signed and Indian title erased. As David Dennis observes, the high stakes have resulted in his people "being tricked, bought off, and in certain cases misled" as to how "it will impact their lives and the lives of their children" Open Letter.

Log booms at Sarita River, 9 January 2009.
Satellite photo by Google Earth

Basket by Francis Williams.
Photo: Burke Ethnology Museum

Dolly Watts McRae (right) is an accomplished First Nations writer, business woman and guidance counselor. Born into a hereditary Gitksan family, in 1945 she was sent to the Alberni Residential School which she attended until 1955. She says: "We are entitled to payment from the extraction of our natural resources. We are a proud people and we want to be self reliant. We want to ensure that our children have a future. . . . Do not sign treaties that will extinguish rights to the land. Instead, what is wanted is a settlement that will entrench their rights to the land that will lay foundations of Native self determination under the Constitution of Canada. The First Nations wish to have jurisdiction over the lands that are scheduled for development. First Nations have to become part of the decision making process in all areas such as parks, marinas, fishery, forestry, mining and so forth" An Alternative.

Numukamis Indian Reserve No. 1 was home to Fanny Williams (1919 – 1996), also known as "Naa naas a tuks." She was a weaver distinguished for her fine work: an example is the c. 1995 lidded basket made from cedar bark and grass in the Burke Ethnology Museum (left). Fanny is buried in the cemetery at Numukamis, or the Sarita Indian Reserve as it is also called. Traditional skills like weaving and carving require the preservation of cedar trees and the tragedy of their extermination cannot be cleansed by industry greenwash.

Dolly Watts McRae, 2008.
Photo: Westcoaster News

Huu–ay–aht canoe, Bamfield, c. 1900.
Photo: British Columbia Archives

The long range implications of the treaty deals are unknown. Ever since whites arrived in their waters, they have used native knowledge, including native modes of transport (above). The destruction of Pachena Grove in 2006 is an ominous sign of what is to come. Two Huu–ay–aht Hereditary Chiefs, Victor Williams and Spencer Peters (right), lived in Pachena Grove and surely they must have felt betrayed by its desecration due to the treachery of the logging corps MacMillan Bloedel and Weyerhaeuser.

Professor Gerald Alfred (Taiaiake), director of Indigenous Governance Programs at the University of Victoria, writes: "If Canada were a country with a moral centre, its citizens would not be celebrating the achievements of the BC treaty process, they would be shouting out in anger against the immoral actions of their governments and the fact that they, as a society, are taking advantage of weakened peoples who are in the midst of social and spiritual crises, to enrich themselves, yet again" Taiaiake: Comment.

Huu–ay–aht hereditary chiefs, 2005.
Photo: Steven Earle

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