Qualla: Fairy Creek Old-Growth Logging Protests

Fairy Creek Old-Growth Logging Protests: Introduction

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

By the time the RCMP finished counting, 1,188 people had been arrested in a single watershed on southern Vancouver Island. The Fairy Creek protests of 2020-2021 surpassed every previous act of civil disobedience in Canadian history, eclipsing even the 856 arrests during the Clayoquot Sound "War in the Woods" nearly three decades earlier. What drew grandparents, celebrities, Indigenous elders, and young activists to chain themselves to logging equipment in a remote valley northeast of Port Renfrew was both ancient and urgent: yellow cedar trees measuring more than three metres in diameter, some estimated at nearly 2,000 years old, standing in the path of chainsaws held by Teal Jones, a forestry company with provincial cutting permits.

Fairy Creek Old-Growth Logging Protests: Sacred Ground, Contested Ground

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Fairy Creek watershed lies in Pacheedaht First Nation territory, and the protests exposed deep tensions within and between Indigenous communities about land use and sovereignty. The Pacheedaht elected leadership distanced itself from the blockades in 2021, citing their right ...

Fairy Creek Old-Growth Logging Protests: A Forest Worth Fighting For

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The ecological stakes at Fairy Creek were not abstract. Confirmed sightings of endangered western screech owls prompted a government announcement in May 2021, and radar surveys that July documented over 240 sightings of endangered marbled murrelets in the watershed and surroundin...

Fairy Creek Old-Growth Logging Protests: Blockades, Badges, and Broken Rules

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

RCMP enforcement at Fairy Creek cost nearly $19 million between April and December 2021 alone, and the tactics employed drew condemnation from courts and civil liberties advocates alike. When B.C. Supreme Court Justice Douglas Thompson refused to extend the Teal-Jones injunction ...

Fairy Creek Old-Growth Logging Protests: The Roots Hold On

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Fairy Creek protests left a legacy that extends beyond the watershed. Two protesters went missing during the blockade -- Gerald "Smiley" Kearney, whose body has never been found, and Kevin "Bear" Henry, who survived a winter stranded in the woods on beans and snow before logg...