Transcript: Xʷ IS Xʷ ČAA and MAIA WIKLER on Indigenous Sovereignty at Fairy Creek Blockade /240
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Ayana Young Hello and welcome to For The Wild Podcast, I’m Ayana Young. Today you’ll be hearing a special on the ground interview between Maia Wilker and Kati George-Jim, xʷ is xʷ čaa.
xʷ is xʷ čaa As much as this fight is about old growth logging, it is so much deeper than just an industry it's so much deeper than one singular forest, one singular tree, or organism of any sort. It has everything to do with what is beneath the soil, what is being carried by the water, what is the entire cycle of the life that exists on these territories. And that includes our relationship to the land and how we get to practice who we are as quuʔas, as [?], as coastal people, and how, as relatives, we need to stand for each other's territories and stand against colonialism invading people's territories for the sake of a very small profit in comparison to the actual value of the land, the value of our ancestors, the value of our culture, and language, and spirituality.
Ayana Young Kati George-Jim, also known as xʷ is xʷ čaa, is the niece of Pacheedaht elder, Bill Jones, Kati has been leading the movement with Rainforest Flying Squad blockading attempts to log some of the last remaining intact ancient temperate rainforests on southern Vancouver Island within Pacheedaht territory. She was violently arrested while supporting forest defenders as a legal observer, during the injunction enforcement at one of the blockade camps in May.
Maia Wikler is PhD student, climate justice organizer, and writer. In June 2019, as a member of The North Face New Explorers Arctic Expedition, Maia reported from the Arctic Refuge on the impacts of the ongoing environmental and human rights crisis from the fossil fuel industry and climate change. She is directing a short documentary film for The North Face in the Arctic on the intergenerational, women-led fight to protect the Arctic Refuge. Her research focuses on memory as a tool of resistance and resilience in the face of corporate abuse, specifically related to deforestation and the climate crisis.
Francesca Glaspell We will now hear about the situation unfolding at the Fairy Creek Blockades from Maia Wikler followed by her on the ground interview.
Maia Wikler Today, less than 3% of old-growth forests remain in unceded British Columbia, yet these endangered forests are still being logged across the province at the staggering rate of more than 500 soccer fields per day. On Vancouver Island, they are destroyed 3 times faster than the Amazon rainforest, according to Sierra Club BC. With so few old growth trees left, there is a high risk of permanent biodiversity loss across much of BC.
Over the past 20 years, BC -- or rather unceded Indigenous forests -- were so heavily logged that carbon emissions caused by the industry are now twice as large as Alberta’s oil sands, according to David Broadland.
Last August, Pacheedaht elder Bill Jones and land defenders caught word that Teal Jones would begin road building and logging ancient forests in the pristine Fairy Creek watershed in a remote part of southwest Vancouver Island. Fairy Creek, located about a two-hour drive from Victoria, is one of the last unlogged valleys of coastal rainforest in all of British Columbia. According to the Ancient Forest Alliance, Fairy Creek is home to some of the world’s largest yellow cedars, including several trees that may be more than 2,000 years old.
Galvanized by the dire threats these endangered ecosystems face, activists began the Fairy Creek Blockades under the grassroots name ‘Rainforest Flying Squad’ in August 2020.
For nearly a year, land defenders have held off logging operations through several ongoing blockades on unceded Pacheedaht and Ditidaht territories.
Despite the province having promised a “paradigm shift” in its approach to managing old growth, the government has failed to implement all 14 recommendations from the province’s Old Growth Strategic Review Panel report released last year which included logging deferrals in ecosystems and landscapes with very little old-growth forest remaining. BC politicians are engaging in what many call a “talk and log” scenario. According to the Wilderness Committee, the province increased the area of old-growth cutblocks by more than 40 percent in the last year. BC Timber Sales continues to auction off some of the last remaining highest productivity, high biodiversity sites of old growth forests for logging.
In April, the BC Supreme Court granted Teal Jones an injunction to ban interference with logging. On May 17, RCMP began enforcement of the injunction, equipped with paramilitary gear, specialized nighttime operations, and undercover infiltration. RCMP have obstructed freedom of the press. Arrests have been censored and journalists are corralled and contained within designated media areas, if granted access at all.
On May 26, a coalition of media outlets and press freedom groups filed an application in B.C. Supreme Court, asking a judge to order the RCMP to provide journalists with access to injunction enforcement actions taking place at the Fairy Creek blockades.
There will be many more movements and injunctions like the ones at Fairy Creek as the climate crisis intensifies, natural resources continue to grow more limited and Indigenous communities assert their rights. The unchecked media obstruction by RCMP unfolding at the Fairy Creek blockades could set a dangerous precedent for democracy in the larger, ongoing movement for Indigenous sovereignty and climate justice.
Indigenous elders, youth, politicians, community leaders, activists, students and folks from all walks of life are currently on the frontlines holding down more than 7 blockade camps throughout at-risk logging areas in Fairy Creek, Walbran Valley, Eden Grove, and Caycuse Valley. From chaining themselves to fallen logs, occupying tree sit platforms hundreds of feet above the ground and cementing their arms into the ground. Over 200 activists have been violently arrested and dangerously removed from their “hard block” tactics.
The fight for old growth forests is much more than big tree activism.
While land defenders maintain blockades to protect some of the last stands of ancient rainforests in BC, just two fluent language speakers from Ditidaht remain, whose territories include the Caycuse blockade, where ancient cedars of over 800 years old are being felled in the Caycuse Valley in a matter of minutes.
The BC government ended all funding this year for Indigenous language programs — which coincided with the discovery of children’s graves at the Kamloops residential school, where unspeakable horrors were committed by the colonial state and its actors to erase Indigenous languages.
The solidarity to protect endangered ancient forests are inseparable from the threats facing endangered Indigenous languages and sovereignty; all of which are inextricably bound to the land.
Nuuchahnulth Land Defender Aya Clappis has explained that resource extraction and isolated logging roads contributes to violence against Indigenous peoples, failing to recognize these intersections hinders the long-term goal of Indigenous liberation. Canada’s own National Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women found “there is ‘substantial evidence’ that natural resource projects increase violence against Indigenous women and children and two-spirit individuals.
Many First Nations communities are faced with a desperate choice of extreme impoverishment or the destruction of their forests as a result of stolen lands and the impacts of colonialism. Pacheedaht elder Bill Jones has explained that B.C. has an extensive history of using corporations, as early as the Hudson’s Bay Company and as recent as Teal Jones, to legitimize land and resource theft and dehumanizing Indigenous peoples.
Pacheedaht is in the process of negotiating a modern treaty with the B.C. government, and in recent years has moved heavily into the forestry sector. The revenue sharing agreement that BC signed with Pacheedaht First Nation and Teal Jones mandates Pacheedaht Nation to “not support or participate in any acts that frustrate, delay, stop or otherwise physically impede or interfere with provincially authorized forest activities.” Further, the contract commits Pacheedaht to “promptly and fully cooperate with and provide its support to British Columbia in seeking to resolve any action that might be taken by a member of the First Nation that is inconsistent with this Agreement.”
The Nation will be paid less than $300,000 in the first of three years of Teal Jones logging invaluable ancient, endangered and irreplaceable forest ecosystems.
On June 9th, BC NDP Premier John Horgan announced that he would comply with the Pacheedaht’s request for logging to be deferred at Fairy Creek. The deferral, which only lasts two years, merely prevents a section of an approved road network from going ahead. RCMP enforcement of Teal Jones’ injunction and logging continues in at-risk areas.
The Union of BC Indian Chiefs wrote in a letter co-signed with environmental organizations to the BC Provincial government that with less than 3% of these ancient forests remaining, BC needs to be held accountable to support a just transition for Indigenous communities who are forced to depend on old growth logging.
Further, old growth logging as an industry on Vancouver Island is directly responsible for only about 60-80 jobs, most of which are held mainly by white men. Lawyer for Rainforest Flying Squad, Noah Ross says, “The provincial government’s failure to take steps to defer or halt old growth logging demonstrates how beholden our frontier settler society is to the need to maintain well-paying jobs for white men even when the consequence is destruction of the few remaining stands of old-growth.”
This is why there must be a just transition.
I have been visiting the blockades since late February, as a writer and an ally. Even amidst heavy snowfall, a small group of forest protectors gathered at River Camp situated on a logging road that leads into the Fairy Creek Watershed where active road building was halted by the original summer blockade. Now, months later, that small group of around 10 forest protectors has grown into thousands -- people are reconnecting with the land and enacting the principle of reciprocity that is integral to our humanity.
In June, I visited Kati George-Jim, xʷ is xʷ čaa to interview her for this podcast episode. She is the niece of Pacheedaht elder Bill Jones, and an inspiring spokesperson and leader of the movement.
We met at Sassin camp in unceded Ditidaht territory, located several hours from Lake Cowichan on remote logging roads without access to cell service. Sassin means hummingbird in Nuchalnuth, a camp set up as a safe space for Indigenous youth and BIPOC following the violent assaults from loggers targeting Indigenous youth a few months ago at the Walbran watch camp.
We began our interview by the fire but about 20 minutes into the conversation, her friend ran over to let us know that active logging of old growth could be seen across the valley in Caycuse where one of the blockade camps had been dismantled by RCMP and Kati had been violently arrested. We immediately jumped onto the back of the truck and raced down the dirt road, coming to a stop on a steep hillside that had been logged. We looked out from the midst of a clearcut across the valley. We could see the fresh scars marking where ancient trees of thousands of years had once stood just moments ago.
Kati and I continued our conversation from the back of the pickup truck, overlooking the valley in the very midst of ongoing extractive colonial violence. We sat close together as it began to rain, trying to make sure our conversation could be picked up on my phone. At one point, we both paused taking everything in, and a hummingbird hovered in between us and then flew away. “That was Sassin!” We both looked at each other in awe and continued our conversation.
xʷ is xʷ čaa Okay. So how do you want to start?
Maia Wikler Do you want to start with introducing yourself?
xʷ is xʷ čaa Yeah, I will. My name is xʷ is xʷ čaa, my borrowed name is Kati George-Jim. On my mother’s side, her name is kQwat'st'not and she is of Tsuk and Pacheedaht on her father’s side and English and Acadian descent on the other. And on our Tsuk side, my grandpa Bob George was the son of the late Eddie George of Tsuk and Discovery Island, which Discovery Island is in the Lekwungen territory. And then on my grandpa's mother's side, his mum was Sarah Daisy Lazzar of Pacheedaht and European descent. And for that side, Sarah Daisy Lazzar was the eldest daughter of granny Ida Lazzar, and granny Ida was the eldest daughter of Annie Jones and Andrew Lazzar.
Maia Wikler Do you want to tell me a little bit about where we are and how you've arrived at Sassin and what this camp means to you?
xʷ is xʷ čaa Yeah, so Sassin in Nuu-Chah-Nulth means hummingbird, and I don't even know what day it is, but I believe it was almost four weeks ago now that loggers from the Western Forest Product company that owns TFL 44, which is within the court ordered injunction by Teal Jones, and the these loggers came directly from work in TFL 44 to harass and ended up violently attacking young Indigenous folks who were at the Walbran watch camp, where it wasn’t a hard blockade, it was watch camp. And these loggers not only attacked and harassed the camp, but they racially targeted the Native people that were there. And this incident is on record, it's recorded, and videotaped. And there were, I believe, over 10 loggers that approached this camp. And this was the first and only as, as far as I know, actual physical interaction between people from logging companies, specifically Western Forest Products and people at the camps and it’s not a surprise that they were racially targeted, especially because of the amount of anti-Indigenous hate that exists on all of our territories, but especially when folks that feel threatened, like their jobs, or their future feels threatened by Indigenous leadership and Indigenous sovereignty.
And so after that day, folks, including myself, came to that camp and, you know, came and chatted to the Indigenous folks that were there and were able to, to get a feel, what they were feeling and feel that, that anger on behalf of the land itself too to see that those that are standing up, to protect our ancestors and to protect the future of our ancestors to be on these territories. That they were targeted for standing up in solidarity with the land. And so, after that day, a group of us were able to come back again and scout where those loggers were felling trees within TFL 44 and just the previous morning, they had fellen a portion of the forest just to get at single logs, single ancestors, both red cedar and Douglas fir. And in this TFL, where Sassin camp is, in the back there are four cut blocks, and the cut blocks are directly on top of a creek and so not only are these industries breaking the their own Canadian law and provincial law by logging on a creek and by disregarding any sort of environmental impact, but they're also violating the laws of these lands in Nuu-Chah-Nulth, specifically Ditidaht territory, where these logging companies are operating on and so following that, we took a stand and were able to establish a camp here as a base camp for supporting the people that were at at that time, Caycuse camp in the Caycuse Valley, along the river, the Caycuse River where they were protecting old growth logging with we later found out tree sits and other sort of actions that were meant to stop logging in a different TFL, a tree farm license, and this was TFL 46 by Teal Jones, and Teal Jones is the company that was able to get the injunction from the court. And so this camp is connected to other camps in that way.
And also at that point for myself, who is spending time between Pacheedaht and Ditidaht territory, where the action camps are operating out of, to be a part of establishing this camp as Sassin, as a place where Indigenous leadership, specifically for coastal, like quuʔas, for the coastal people of Nuu-Chah-Nulth and queer quuʔas and young quuʔas, and the quuʔas that need a place to be upheld and have skill sharing and to also share culture and and respect and that growth, that's what Sassin has started as and has really become today and ensuring that on front lines, both Indigenous resistance and every other type of front line, is that we're upholding what it means to be in relation to the laws of the land, whether you're from here or not and that means, you know, in English how we say consent, but in our laws, when we talk about respect or talk about relationships with each other, we have to be learning from the land.
And so at this camp, we are centering that, we are centering the consent of the peoples that are here, as Indigenous relations, both coastal and Nuu-Chah-Nulth people, but as well as other relatives from other Indigenous Nations. And so here at camp, it's so much about making meals together, learning how to, you know, use chainsaws, learning how to cedar bark harvest, and salvage from the cap locks, and be able to return that to the people who belong to this territory, the Ditidaht, and ensure that we are witnessing and reporting accurately what is happening in these territories and not to be not to be acting out of out of term as people that are here on someone else's territory. And for myself, I am not Ditidaht by blood, I have Ditidaht family that have been adopted into my Tsuk side, to the George family in Tsuk and I recognize the Edgar and Tate families in Ditidaht just as close as other any other family that I have. And just getting the chance to introduce myself and to hear the songs of these territories and to hear the stories and familial connections that Ditidaht has to our Pacheedaht family, to our Tsuk family, to the Cowichan family and then all way up to the coast of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth and down to the South of Makah.
Like this camp, being close to where the Ditidaht reserves are, which up here on the island and where is considered British Columbia in Canada, the Native people here are segregated still to this day to Indian Reservations or Indian Reserves and that is not anything to do with Indigenous sovereignty or or or Indigenous laws, Indigenous systems, the Indian Band Councils stem from the Indian Act, which was imposed on our Indigenous peoples, when the colony of Vancouver Island and then at large, the province of British Columbia imposed on these lands and imposed on our peoples in order to dispossess land in order to take away our children and also to ensure that we were being starved, to ensure that if you left the reserve that you would be incarcerated. And so those are still the same systems that apply to the lands today, so when I say this camp is close to the Reserves, I mean that I want to recognize that the Ditidaht and all of our Indigenous peoples on these lands are still segregated and they’re govenerned, and I mean that loosely, by the Band Councils - who have no place to be making decisions on behalf of the ancestral territories of where we're from, because their power only exists within the realm of Canada as a state and as a as a body that has the jurisdiction, which they gave themselves from the Crown, from the British Crown to make decisions on behalf of the land.
And so again, this camp, to have it be Indigenous, to be quuʔas, and to have that leadership just by the notion of having relationships with each other and we have the ability to say who can come into this camp in the sense of upholding those laws, upholding that respect, where they're directly accountable to the people that are here. But then we're also directly accountable to the people's territories in which we're on. And the reason why I'm here is to ensure that I can have relationships with quuʔas that want to be a part of these actions, be a part of this larger movement, I guess you could say, in all of our territories here. Because there are very few places where Native people can be seen and and held by each other, where they're not centering men, not centering the patriarchy, not centering other ways of leading and having relationships, which are outside of our laws. And we talk about land back, we talk about Indigenous sovereignty, and we talk about reconciliation, or reclaiming identity and all of those things are nice to talk about, but what does it actually mean in practice every single day, where you yourself and your peers, or your family, or even new people that you've met, how do we hold each other accountable to making sure that these spaces aren't just a theory? These spaces aren't in a container outside of ourselves, but what we're choosing every day is to practice and be quuʔas, practice and be [?] , practice and be [?]. And that is what having a space like Sassin offers, and we're giving that love to the land while we're giving that love to ourselves.
So, in short, it's just being who we are in a space where we're not filtered and we're not being held to someone else's standard, we're able to learn ourselves, how to be in relation in a respectful way, and bring what we've learned here to other spaces. Because even if we use examples of Indigenous resistance or actions, they're still examples, and ways that colonialism comes through, without us necessarily being aware. And as quuʔas we need to be aware of how we're learning and how we're talking and how we're moving together. And as young people, it's our turn to be addressing, you know, gender based violence, sexualized violence, it's, it's our turn, to uphold the laws to say, we would like to practice holding people accountable to those violent actions towards the land and to our people. We want to practice what it means to be outside of colonialism. That isn't just something that you're reading or something that you're thinking about. But it's something that we can base off of our experiences together and transform.
There's a car coming, so maybe we'll pause for a sec. This is like, really, it's really funny to be at camp and try to be quiet. I guess we could have gone to the woods, but yeah, gone to the bush. And that's the other thing about being here at Sassin, like Naas Bush Cafe is the central hub and if anyone speaks Nuu-Chah-Nulth, I hope that you’ll be able to hear how satisfying it is to have that laughter and to have all of those jokes and to keep our spirits high in that way too.
Unidentified I’m gonna go back, you can see them felling trees right now-
xʷ is xʷ čaa Motherfuckers-
Unidentified In the back of the Caycuse, so I’m going to go fly my drone.
Maia Wikler Kati, do you want to go?
xʷ is xʷ čaa Yeah, we will take this on the road, motherfuckers be felling all our ancestors.
Maia Wikler So we just paused recording because we got word that there was active felling. Do you want to share a little bit about that and how you're feeling?
xʷ is xʷ čaa Yeah, so we're in Ditidaht, unceded, unsurrendered, sovereign, in Ditidaht territory which for those of you that are listening and you’re not familiar with the island, it’s some of the most southern Nuu-chah-nulth territories on the west coast of what’s now known as Vancouver Island. And we were just able to hear from someone that was getting some firewood that they were actively felling old growth in the Caycuse Valley, which is only a little bit down the road from where Sassin camp is. This is like where I spent the most time in the past month was within my relatives territory in Ditidaht, along the Caycuse River and even just yesterday, I was able to spend time with a family, like a relative who had her four kids in the back, her newborn baby and she came out to cedar bark harvest and it's a very small window of harvesting cedar in our territories. And so she came out, she visited the camp and we said we'd go with each other to go look at the new logging roads that are just off the main one here, near camp which, if you're - what I'm looking at right now, we’re on a main logging road called Haddon, and if you stop a few minutes from camp you will be able to see across the Caycuse Valley where there are massive cut blocks of where old growth used to stand. And that's where we were forcibly removed from, and myself I was pretty violently arrested by a number of RCMP officers, one of which was actually from what's called the integrated First Nations unit. That was the first person who laid hands on me.
And so in Caycuse Valley, the river is not only a fish-bearing river, but the entire ecosystem, the entire valley, the entire life force that is related to our DNA, that is related to our ancestors and specifically to Ditidaht peoples that have been on these territories since the beginning of time. So for a relative to come out to look for enough cedar just to harvest cedar bark for weaving, for jewelry, how hard it is to find enough cedar bark to be able just for herself or her family to work with, and that's a humble amount that's not even a large production of of any sort of cultural material.
We had, as coastal people, cedar bark for our clothing, for our regalia, for baskets for so much of our life, and to even find large enough cedars, to be able to have č’apacs, to be able to have canoes and looking out over this valley, I'm reminded that only a week ago that we were going to go in and carve č’apacs with our Indigiqueer, with our queer quuʔas, led by an incredible person an incredible Nuu-chah-nulth leader, and that log could have been transformed into another ancestors, to two č’apacs, was stolen from this land, stolen from the Ditidaht, stolen from our peoples and that opportunity to have that cultural action was robbed.
And so as much as this fight is about old growth logging, it is so much deeper than just an industry, it’s so much deeper than one singular forest, one singular tree, or organism of any sort. It has everything to do with what is beneath the soil and what is being carried by the water. What is the entire cycle of the life that exists on these territories, and that includes our relationship to the land and how we get to practice who we are as quuʔas, as coastal people, as[?]. And how, as relatives, we need to stand for each other's territories and stand against colonialism, invading people's territories, for the sake of very small profit in comparison to the actual value of the land, the value of our ancestors, the value of our culture, and language and spirituality. And so I've been back there, I've been to these places where they're stealing ancestors, they're stealing from these territories and robbing future generations, not even just robbing the people that are living right now and so to lead it back to like the families that are within these territories, for them to have to look so hard down so many logging roads to be able to harvest what is their birthright, but also their responsibility, all of our responsibilities to pass on our cultural knowledge, to pass on the language, and to ensure that we show our [?], show our children, that we can still be who we are, no matter what time it is, no matter what context it's in, we always have to be who we are. But how can we be who we are if we have no land left, if we have no place to go?
And so this is just one part of one territory, where the people have not lost who they are. We still have so much wealth in these lands. Just because another tree has been taken does not mean we give up the fight, does not mean that we back down. And in our relatives' territory, in my mother's ancestral place of Pacheedaht, where I've been able to develop a relationship with my uncle, Bill Jones, we've spent so many nights and so many days and mornings just being able to talk and you know, mostly for me to listen to the colonialism that he's experienced over his 80 plus years. But then also the wealth and the love that he's experienced with the land and with his family that was able to pass on some fundamental laws about how to be quuʔas, how to be a [?]. And some of his first memories are in the č’apacs, are on the land, looking for elk, or learning the language before he was taken away to Port Alberni Residential School. And how that disruption in our lives as coastal people has targeted our spirits, and how the dispossession of land and the lack of access is a direct target on our spirits as quuʔas, as [?].So it's not only genocide of our bodies, and our and our hearts. It's a genocide against our spirit as peoples, and the constant push of assimilation, to keep us docile, to keep us down, to keep us in a place that can be accounted for versus sovereign on our land. And that was sassin actually, that you just heard pass us by, sassin the hummingbird that just flew right through our hands.
And so that's also it, is that the land gets to know us. I am so honored to be in all of my relatives' territory, getting to know the land in which would have been visited and cared for by all of our families here. And not only that, but it would have cared for us and it still is right now today. So taking that break to come here and try to get the documentation of the violence against the land which again is violence against our spirit, violence against who we are as Indigenous people. It's important to hold on to who we are. And it's also important to ensure that we're witnessing. And we're speaking, and action that's being taken is within and based upon the laws of these lands. And I can't say that enough, because the laws are not something that just can be written and read, they have to be practiced every single day that you wake up and choose to live every single day that you wash your face, every single day that you practice, who we are, as quuʔas, should be in those laws. And it's not to say that we've been able to do that every day because of these disruptions of colonialism. But it means that we have the opportunity every day, to be learning more. And that applies to everyone, that does not apply to just people of these territories, that applies to everyone to be accountable to the laws of the land. Because we all have a purpose, we all have to be accountable. And we all have to ensure that we're not standing alone, that by everyone being accountable to the land, in a way that the laws were created, to demonstrate how you can have respect as the land has respect for everything a part of it.
It's no mistake that there are ancestral laws, and that they still apply today. It's not just a coincidence that the laws and the culture and the spirituality have the answers that we're looking for, to move forward as a people's as, as humanity. Because these lessons have already been taught by our coastal people here, we have stories of destruction of land and breaking the laws of these territories, and what happens to the people and what happens to the land. And this is just another lesson that we all have to learn. But at this point in time, if we're able to be conscious, and to be actively oriented towards transforming, and listen to what has already happened here on these territories and not repeat the same mistakes, then we do have a fighting chance. But it's up to each and every one of us to be able to recognize that. And so again, like I'm looking out here and to the valley, and I just yeah, I feel so grateful to be able to know these lands. And to be able to say that, xʷ is xʷ čaa, and have even just a few moments to introduce myself to the ancestors here.
Maia Wikler That was powerful and now the sun is coming out. I remember that's what someone said to me about the difference between an old growth forest that's alive and a tree farm that's dead is that sunset, an old growth forest is like an orchestra and the tree farm is silent.
xʷ is xʷ čaa That makes me think about our languages, and how they are derived from the territories that we're on and the dialects and the relationships to our families and the land where our languages are. They're the land, it's the sounds of the territory, the breath that you take and, and have emphasis on. Each sound has been made from these lands before, my name is of the land. And that's why it's so integral to us as quuʔas, as [?], to be able to have our birthright, to know our languages, to know our names, and to have that identity where, and why these colonial projects target our language, why it was one of the first things that they stripped from our children and our families was making it illegal to speak our Native languages.
Because the colonial projects here, by the time they got here, they had practiced their tactics of genocidal action, and targeting language, targeting land, and targeting women. And for us, those things aren't separate. And so for me, like Tsuk, the language of the Tsuk, the last speaker was my grandpa and unfortunately, he wasn't able to pass any of that on because of those experiences with residential school and what was passed on by his parents. So that like white supremacy and colonial mindset that has been passed on in all of our families, and so for me, there's no one to learn that from and that's an entire people's, an entire territory's language.
So for me as a young quuʔas, a young [?], learning it from recordings, reviving it, and also not giving up that Tsuk, is an independent people, independent language doesn't mean it's not related to languages like SENĆOŦEN, Malchosen, Lekwungen, as Coast Salish people it is related, however, also like Tsuk is where the territory, the ecosystem’s transition from a Garry oak meadow ecosystem to a temperate rainforest. And so it also shares many sounds and many words with Ditidaht and Nuu-chah-nulth. So it is, as myself as a coastal person, like both through my like DNA and my blood from my family, and both Coast Salish and Nuu-chah-nulth, the language and like my place as Tsuk is also that, and in that long lineage and long relationship with all of the types of peoples in the lands where they come from. Like is, is reflected in our culture as well. And so I guess I just need to even remind myself of how important that language is and in my life where my name is, of that territory, is of that language that isn't spoken every day. And so how powerful that is to ensure that I speak that truth. And I honor the families and the nations that are very strongly advocating and practicing their languages and that's an extremely powerful example from Ditidah in our family that is doing all of that work with the youth and so none of the like land back and Indigenous resurgence and sovereignty, you know, can't be separate from our culture, can't be separate from the land. So it's how to bring all of that together, all of the actions together. And so there's so much to come out of this.
And even Sassin, where young quuʔas can meet and talk and as coastal people, especially build those alliances across this big island, and all of our territories here to ensure that we can be supporting each other we can be upholding each other through our laws and also through our experiences which I, which I have mentioned before, and how laughter and joy is brought out, when we get to come together and get to know each other and just share, as as coastal people, and just how, as me as a person has never felt more and more at peace and more, I've never been this ready before, to be exactly where I need to be and act in the way that I believe, to be honoring those laws. And perhaps I sound so serious when I talk about that, but it, I take it that seriously, but I also don't try to take everything as seriously as that in the sense that I need to remember to laugh and to express myself in ways that allow myself to be vulnerable, and demonstrate that we can be all parts of ourselves while we do this work. And there have been many generations before us that have fought for land and for the generation right now and to be able to transform a lot of the lessons. Like we have transformation stories as coastal people, that is exactly who we are and I really believe in that myself, as me transforming and transforming with other people and transforming with the land, as we're in relation to it. Because there's not really a beginning or end, it's just so many cycles of transforming. And so this is just one iteration of that.
Maia Wikler How does it feel to have been out here for so long now, you know, you've spent weeks upon weeks being in these forests that are threatened, and meeting new community, returning to old community, what has that felt like for you? And what does this movement mean to you beyond, you know, the less than 3% old growth that remains and all these statistics and ways of quantifying colonialism? What does it mean for you on more of a relational level and then kind of the bigger picture of this movement that's beyond the big tree activism?
xʷ is xʷ čaa Yeah, in spending as much time as I have been able to in both Ditidaht and Pacheedaht territories, it's allowed me to have and formulate my own relationship with these territories outside of work, outside of school, outside of institutions. And as someone who has been a part of institutions for the majority of my life, as a relative to be here as someone that can either represent family or represent a territory, it is so empowering. To be a sovereign Indigenous person, to be a quuʔas, to be a [?], to be a[?], in this time and recognize it as it unfolds, is so powerful. And I've been working extremely hard on having that spiritual balance, on having an emotional balance, while being able to carry forward with everything that my heart wants to do, and my [?], my spirit is carrying me forward. So in these actions, to lead with that, and not lead with a construct of action, like activism is so important for me to recognize within myself, but also to really foster and recognize that and other people.
We hear a lot about how people can join together and create action and change. And these larger movements that have so many different facets from environmentalism, to social justice, to this or that, that are categorized like you were saying, to be quantified, or even through qualitative perspectives that are from an outside perspective versus a internal perspective in relation to the land and when you personalize that, when you have that relationship through your [?], through your [?], to the Nism̓a, to the[?], to the land, that’s what that means, like when you say, like if we’re Indigenous, you’re of the land, of the lands that you come from.
And so a movement, or an action doesn't always capture the entire story, the entire truth. In this sense, we have to be able to link it to our past, our present, and the future of what we're experiencing, and the knowledge itself. Because, as quuʔas, as [?] our knowledge systems, our legal systems, our education systems, all of the systemic parts of who we are in our societies, and and in relation to the land, those do not have an expiration date, those do not get to fade into the past, or be forgotten. And that's what I mean, when we practice who we are every day is that we acknowledge all of that time in one place.
And so, when colonial systems have been introduced and imposed, and violently erected in our sovereign territories, not only is that declaration of war, on the land and on the people, but it has been sustained and funded and legitimized through state occupation by claiming that Indigenous people or the “Indian problem”, or First Nations or Aboriginal people or whatever definition that is made by the government of Canada or the government of British Columbia, which are acting on behalf of the British Crown. We do not need to be recognized by any of the colonial bodies to exist. But the falsehoods, and this fantasy that these governments and the state and the British Crown, vomit over everyone, to distract people from the truth of sovereignty to distract people, away from these truths of genocide and assimilation, is respectability politics is this recognition politics, even me talking in this way to define what these mechanisms are, that are imposed on Native people is a part of the problem as well, like should I even need to explain it through this colonial tongue to talk about oppression, versus just accepting it as a truth, accepting it as a fact. However, taking the time to do it, and for me to demonstrate that a colonial system is the complete opposite, the antithesis of Indigenous society and systems, which is why the land and our women and queer people and our children and these matriarchal systems are targeted so heavily by sexualized violence by gender based violence, by violence against the land and ripping our children away from our peoples.
Why we need to talk about that is because we need to talk about the colonial reality, that falsehood, having real life consequences, and intergenerational consequences on these lands and on these people. And then we also need to talk about the parallel reality of Indigenous sovereignty, Indigenous society, which has never ceased to exist and why we don't need to be recognized by any state or provincial, or foreign monarchy is because we have always existed and we will continue to exist in our sovereign way and the fact that we are required through systems like the Indian Act, and the Band Council system or treaty systems, Treaty band nations/treaty nations, so that these governments can interact with Native people in a contained environment, which can be controlled is a part of a colonial narrative. That's a colonial reality.
And so for this environmental movement, for standing up for old growth for these actions I like to call them versus a movement, because a movement implies there's force and energy and people behind it in a sense where that is the movement where it is where we need to go or be carried by. And what I really have to say is that it is so limiting. And we can't look to a future that has limitations around transforming or having that change. And transitioning away from colonial reality, we talk about just transitions for energy, we also need to talk about how we're going to transform and transition away from systems and the entire, whether it's a political one, or an economic one, or a social one, which are categorized in these colonial Western ideologies, we need to be asserting and uplifting Indigenous sovereignty in the ways that it is going to be, as it already has been, the past, present and future of this planet of this world. And that is what needs to be upheld, as a “movement.”
We need to all get behind this idea that there's not going to be many solutions for a broken system. We can't fix the police, we can't fix capitalism, we can't fix colonialism or imperialism. The solution is to either abolish, absolve ourselves by choosing something different by removing ourselves and rebuilding. Because the thing is, we can't just have just total destruction, and be left with the same biases, with the same problems that we've always had in relation to Western ideology or colonialism. There has to be something else, at the same time that we're building up. And so for me, in these moments of interpersonal relationships, or in this larger scale, movement that people have been investing time into, is just as is just to say that we need to be imagining and dreaming of a future that doesn't include oppression, and the raping, and the colonizing of Indigenous people, whether that's here on the island that I'm from, or from an island across the Pacific or across anywhere, there is sovereignty in relation to the land. We need to be able to acknowledge the land as sovereign. We are not the sovereigns and the sooner we get behind that, the sooner we're able to acknowledge our limitations and how we impose that on the land versus continuing to try to be righteous to continue to try to have the moral position to rape the land, the sooner we'll be able to have a chance of surviving together and with that ability to say that we transformed in time.
Maia Wikler A lot of the last couple of weeks since the injunction and enforcement of the injunction has been colonial state actors doing whatever they can in their power to impede the ability to witness. Can you speak a little bit about why witnessing is important? And what have you been witnessing since being out here and a part of this larger movement that goes beyond the Fairy Creek Blockades?
xʷ is xʷ čaa Yeah, I think leading up to the RCMP enforcement on the sovereign lands, there wasn't the ability for many folks to see themselves in how the enforcement would go. And as a Indigenous person, and as a woman, and a young young person who has held different experiences, both myself and then in relation to other people around police, and state sanctioned violence and witnessing what's been happening in other territories across the world and in so-called BC, that there was no doubt in my mind, the type of violence and the type of force that the RCMP are always prepared to use against Indigenous people, let alone people standing in the way of industry and profit. And so to try to talk about that, within the camps that were established before the enforcement was very difficult for people to believe that the police aren't your friend, to believe that you'd be treated differently because you're a settler or a white person or that this is a movement where the police could respect these direct actions and civil disobedience.
And most of those people had an alarming wake up call when the enforcement started to happen where there was an exclusion zone and there still is an exclusion zone, illegally erected by the RCMP on these territories and that type of force was used against me and as like someone who was racially targeted, but also someone who did not stop speaking, while I was being arrested as a sovereign Indigenous person, how the RCMP has no jurisdiction on these lands, to forcibly remove anyone, let alone sovereign Indigenous people and then, the more and more violent that the police got on these territories, including the tree sitters that were in the Caycuse territory behind us here, where they threatened tree sitters with rubber bullets and tear gas and where they repelled down from a helicopter to drop into tree sits and also remove someone from a tree set just by a piece of rope. And in addition to behind the exclusion zone, what happened at the exclusion zone, again, were young Native queers were targeted by the police and were some of the first people arrested at an auction at the exclusion zone on Caycuse main logging road. And then a second time where a mass arrest happened, where they arrested every single person on site except for a couple media people. And this was the day where there was the largest amount of Indigenous youth that showed up. There were over 50 people. And so there is no law that the RCMP follow, except for the one that has the most force and typically, that has the most violence and a sad reality is that, you know, if there wasn't a media person documenting my arrest on the first day, I have no doubt that would have been more violent. You know, that day, actually, I was charged with - when they first were announcing that they were arresting us, which they didn't tell us, they only told us after they grabbed us, was that we were being arrested for obstruction of justice. And then later on, at that point I was practicing my right not to speak until my lawyer was present, they were charging me allegedly with assault of a police officer. Those are charges that I could be charged with if they find a case. However, if you look at that footage, it is very clear that I am the one being assaulted. And even while I was being arrested, this police officer had to be examined for any physical injuries and so the medic, I guess, was asking him if he had any injuries and he replied, “Only my pride.”
So you know, you're asking about, yeah, my experience, both behind the illegal exclusion zone, and in front of it, and it's no different. And, you know, even with my friend that was driving other young Natives out here, he was arrested on the spot, just in the town, in a parking lot for being a racialized Native man. So, no matter as Native people, if we're standing in front of the police in some sort of exclusion zone, or if we're just walking in our hometown, there's always that potential for violence, and, you know, they're armed, and they are employed to use lethal force. And we are unarmed, sovereign Indigenous people.
And so with this larger movement, and how we engage with the police, it's been a steep learning curve with so many privileged white people who believe that getting arrested is fun, or a family activity, or something that, you know, you can check off your list. And unfortunately, they've had to see and witness and be a part of the violence against Indigenous people out here and that is what it takes for their wake up call is seeing violence against our bodies. And, you know, we can see this echo in so many different parts of the world where, you know, trauma porn is something I've heard it being called, where people only wake up when they get to see that violence. And that's sickening. Where, you know, as someone, an oppressed person, and another oppressed person, through a system of oppression, we can acknowledge that violence without even needing to hear in graphic detail that it's real and so our takeaway from any of this really should be the ability for us to hear or know about stories, without us needing to know graphic details to be legitimized.
And so for me, as a witness out here, that day that I was arrested, I was a legal observer. But at the same time, with these movements, or with these actions, as Native people, we can't be separate from who we are when we're participating in action. So we can't just put on a face or be a token to be used for this greater movement and be sacrificed. We have to be exactly who we are in our entire form when we're doing this work, because it's not just some sort of civil disobedience, it is 100%, practicing who we are as sovereign peoples, and being accountable to the laws that are of the territories that we're on. And so as a witness, it's not only as a legal observer, or someone that can vouch or participate in some sort of Canadian legal system. To me, it's so much more important to be accountable to the laws of the land and witness and report to the peoples whose land this is and to ensure that those peoples, those ancestors, those families know what exactly has happened. And so it's a witness for them, it's a witness for my own family, in all the territories and lands that I'm a part of and then also for the future generations, so that they can know what has happened here today. And that's on all of us and that's through our coastal systems, we have witnesses for all of the work, because our oral history is what has survived, it's still a part of who we are. So this storytelling and the narratives, it's just going to be as important as a piece of documentation.
Maia Wikler You being on the land and upholding your responsibilities is also a form of truth telling, because you found the deactivations of critical roads, for community that was done by the logging companies, can you speak a little bit about that, and what that experience was seen that in the just the extent that they're willing to go to deactivate roads?
xʷ is xʷ čaa Yeah, that's a really good example of witnessing and reporting to the people's territories it's on, because where we are out on the coast, there's really only one way in and one way out, and they're logging roads. And as I was learning more from our Ditidaht family is that the more and more like the unpredictability of deactivating roads, by logging companies, for the sake of stopping actions to to prevent logging, and the type of old growth industry that is raping these lands, they're severely putting everyone else in these communities in these remote coastal communities at risk. Where there is flooding, that often happens on a main road and if all the other roads, the logging roads are deactivated, where they make massive craters, or trenches, or lay massive logs across the road, then that means that the peoples whose land that we're on they're stranded and segregated again on the reserve. And so for the disregard, and the lack of foresight, done by these industries, again, for sacrificing everything for profit, including for the peoples in which they say that they're benefiting from these industries. They're not acknowledging the everyday impact that these logging industries and these road building companies have on the peoples that have the birthright to be on these lands. So in addition to it being an unsafe environment for everyone to be here, and the destruction on the land, they're also just doing what they want, when they want to ensure that their profit is in some way protected.
Maia Wikler Well, I don't know, do you want to tell me how you reconnected with your Uncle Bill Jones, who is an elder that has been a huge source of leadership for countless people in this movement to protect these forests?
xʷ is xʷ čaa Yeah, so I've known my uncle for a couple years now in the ways that I know him in relation to the land. And, you know, but I've obviously connected with other aunties and uncles, like his siblings before and have a nice, long standing relationships with them. And so with my Uncle Bill, he's been doing work around our territories, and specifically old growth for over a decade now, in a similar way, he's doing work with Fairy Creek. And Fairy Creek to him is a spiritual place where he grew up and with his family, including many of his grandpa's, and where he learned the laws of the territory, and so connecting with him, my mom has asked me to check in on him for as long as these actions have been taking place in our territory in Pacheedaht. So I have checked in and, and sat and listened and also just shared a little bit about myself each time and see, you know, starting last summer, and even the year before that, I was I was doing similar work and we, you know, got to talking in another meeting about old growth and yeah, I guess I'll start with a relationship instead of all of the politics.
In March and April, like I knew my uncle's health, he was seeking quite a bit of support and help for that and I wanted to ensure that I checked in on him just as his niece and as someone that takes the work that he was doing to heart and how proud I am of my uncle coming into his own, his own power, his own spirit and his own relationship with the land at this part of his life, like he's 81, just a little over 80. And, you know, his journey from when he was a baby until now. And so how many experiences he's had as being quuʔas, as well as being someone so close to colonialism for so long as someone who was stripped of their language, stripped from their home, and this past year, even for me, spending a lot of time with uncles, which I grew up so closely with elders and aunties and mums, and cousins and sisters, so not so much spending time with men or uncles. And, you know, especially in this past year, talking about and learning more about the impacts of sexualized violence and gender based violence in our communities, in the sense of like, I've always known and I was very much protected as a child from so many of those circumstances and situations, where as an adult, it's been impressed upon me about what type of action and the type of person and type of responsibility that I can have for that change, and to be that voice or to be that support. And so, the reason I'm sharing that is because spending time with men and especially men in our communities, hasn't necessarily been at the forefront of my learning, whether that's traditional teachings, or with just experiences, and so with my uncle, as someone who wears their hearts so, so openly. And it's, it was quite uncommon for me to spend that much time with an uncle, great uncle, and so even that vulnerability for both of us as me as like a young, coastal queer woman, and him as an old coastal man, so we were able to talk a lot about politics and our experiences. And I entered into his life at that point in the spring as someone like a caregiver, and you know, groceries and laundry, and just stuff around the house and cooking. And, you know, it reminded me that I need to do more of that for myself. But also, like some of that, that reciprocity that comes from when you develop that type of relationship with your family in that way, and how, right it is to be able to spend a lot of uninterrupted time listening and developing relationships with elders, that isn't just in a meeting or outside the home or for some sort of external purpose other than just wanting to get to know your family. And I feel like because of all these colonial disruptions, that that's something that also has been taken away from us.
And so for me to feel at ease to, yes, spend that much time with my uncle, and, you know, to hear about our family, that's a big part of what I spent time talking about and listening, like my uncle talk about was, our coastal side and the history of the Jones family on this coast, in relation to Pacheedaht, but also the true history of the family there, which has relations to Klahoose territory further up the coast and then before that they were folks in Klallam territory, and even before that, they were closer to La Push and Makah. And so for someone of his age and his experience to be able to talk about that truth so openly, where he wasn't looking or searching or trying to assert power over a territory, he was telling the truth as he learned it as a child all the way until his age now, both from oral history and from his own research about our family. And so how much of a gift that is for me and more knowledge that I'm equipped with about my own family lineage and the impacts we've had on the land or our people, for better or for worse. And so I just, you know, that early time that I was able, you know, we woke up in the morning and had coffee, and just started sharing and talking, and he's such a social person and, you know, especially with him taking on these roles later in his life, like after, you know, his 60s and 70s, being very vocal about what's happening in the territory, the corruption within the Band Council system, and even the journey and lesson that he's learned, and his mistakes as a human being, and how he's returning to himself, returning to the land into the people. And he says that he's, this is his fight, that he will die on. And so to be a young person, a young relative in his life, that he can pass all of that on during this transitional point, this transformative point for him and for myself. It has been incredible. And so that love and that care, you know, he thinks of me as precious, as a gift for him, in the sense of like, for our people, like for him to depend on. As in that I am, he recognizes my sovereignty as a person, he recognizes my consciousness, and he recognizes the power that was passed on to me by his grannies, our grannies, and how I remind him of the old people and so that to me, really warms every part of my [?] spirit.
And, you know, some things have been challenging and challenged by other people interacting with our relationship as, as family within the movement where mamaałni or [?] think that they can interact or interfere with the relationship that we've established because of an organizing preference or decision making when it needs to be recognized as elders and young people's, whether they're acting as warriors, or cultural speakers, or caretakers, we have different roles. And the way that me as a sovereign person is gonna carry myself is gonna look different than how my uncle as a sovereign person is going to carry himself. And so learning how to also ensure that I am addressing things in the moment, even with my own family, if something comes up, especially around leadership, or ways of talking about colonialism, or addressing racism, or homophobia. And so ensuring that my uncle and I had that communication and, you know, our relationship stands strong, even in the pressures of taking direct action or some sort of environmental movement. And that's definitely a lesson that I'm carrying forward too, is to ensure that I'm not afraid of keeping that open communication and approaching my family with the truth and maintaining that integrity throughout that process.
And so that's even just sharing those small aspects of my relationship with my uncle and other family on the coast where it's reciprocity. And to hear both of us being vulnerable about our experiences with colonialism, and how we're striving to be our fullest self in relation to the land, with, you know, him experiencing 16 more years of colonialism than I have, and him to be able to see in me and in my peers and in our relatives, the future that we're going to be creating together based on knowing each other at this point in time. And so I feel so grateful and humbled to have known all of our ancestors through him in this short period of time. And it's been hard because the more and more that I'm on on the front line and on the territory's unfortunately, I haven't been able to spend as much time in the last few weeks, especially since being arrested, to be with my uncle, and just to even have that time to, you know, have coffee in the morning together, or just to, you know, hear his stories again, so I can remember on my own. And so as much as I recognize this important work, it's also a reminder that, unfortunately, I'll be spending time away from my family, because not everyone can be in the same place at the same time. And to recognize that that is, the reason that we're fighting for this is so that we can have our family on the land that we can have these stories being told in the cultural work happening on the land. But when there's colonial destruction, and enforcement and violence that happens here, it is not safe for our people to be here all the time, we can't take care of the people that we need to take care of, while we do this work. And so for my uncle to be on the front line when he can and bust through those police lines and lead our people and show that inspiration to peoples everywhere, that we are able to take up the space and assert our sovereignty in the face of that violence. That true act of transforming in real time, is what I've experienced and witnessed with my uncle. And we've been able to do that together. And whether that's sharing words or sharing our spirit or sharing our consciousness.
So I love him and I love all my family and I love all of the people that have invested in me, whether that's through education, or through the [?], the teachings, from all my coastal relatives from the Nuu-chah-nulth to the Coast Salish, and even our Kwakwaka’wakw relatives to the north on the island, we're all interrelated through our systems here. And I just can't wait to meet more and more of my relatives, and to continue knowing my uncle and live out our days fighting for these territories together.
Ayana Young If you have the means and have been impacted by this conversation, please donate to the gofundme set up to Support Indigenous Land Defenders at Fairy Creek. You can find this link through this episode’s page on our website.
Francesca Glaspell Thank you for listening to For The Wild Podcast. The music you heard today was by Lake Mary, Forest Veil, The Range of Light Wilderness, and Ali Dineen. For The Wild is created by Ayana Young, Erica Ekrem, and Francesca Glaspell, and a special thanks to Maia Wikler for coordinating this episode.