Qualla: Meares Island

Meares Island: Introduction

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Darren Kirby from Penticton, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1984, the chainsaws were supposed to arrive on Meares Island. MacMillan Bloedel, the forestry giant that had logged much of Vancouver Island's old-growth timber, held rights to harvest the ancient cedar and hemlock covering this island in Clayoquot Sound, just minutes by water taxi from the village of Tofino. What happened instead was a blockade, an injunction, and a legal precedent that the province of British Columbia had never confronted before. For the first time, a court ruled that a First Nation's unresolved territorial claim could halt development on contested land. The trees still stand.

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Image: Darren Kirby from Penticton, Canada | CC BY-SA 2.0

Meares Island: An Island of Layers

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kristina D.C. Hoeppner from Wellington, New Zealand, CC BY-SA 2.0. Meares Island sits at the heart of Clayoquot Sound, one of the many islands surrounding Tofino. Named in 1862 by Captain George Henry Richards in honor of the British fur trader John Meares, the island carries a much deeper history than its colonial name suggests. Opitsaht, the p...

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Image: Kristina D.C. Hoeppner from Wellington, New Zealand | CC BY-SA 2.0

Meares Island: The Blockade That Changed the Law

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Millifolium, CC BY-SA 3.0. When MacMillan Bloedel announced plans to log Meares Island, the response united two movements that did not always see eye to eye. The Nuu-chah-nulth people, specifically the Tla-o-qui-aht and the Ahousaht, asserted that the island was part of their traditional territory, never c...

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Image: Millifolium | CC BY-SA 3.0

Meares Island: Trees, Spiked and Standing

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kristina D.C. Hoeppner from Wellington, New Zealand, CC BY-SA 2.0. The legal victory did not end the conflict so much as transform it. According to accounts documented in the environmental manual Ecodefense, opponents of logging spiked thousands of trees on Meares Island, driving metal into the trunks to make them dangerous to saw. Tree spiking ...

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Image: Kristina D.C. Hoeppner from Wellington, New Zealand | CC BY-SA 2.0

Meares Island: Conservancy and Continuity

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hardo Müller from Bonn, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0. Since June 2024, large portions of Meares Island have been covered by two new protected areas: the Wanacas-Hilhuuis Conservancy and the Tulpic Conservancy, adding formal provincial conservation status to the de facto protection the island has enjoyed since the 1984 injunction. Th...

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Image: Hardo Müller from Bonn, Germany | CC BY-SA 2.0