I like to think it was a grandmother ...

I like to think it was a grandmother who came up with the idea, a grandmother like Betty Krawczyk who was fed up with standing on B.C. logging roads, tired of being splattered with mud, and sick of local jail cells. The real-life Betty is an eighty-three year old great-grandmother and is in the picture below.  She is with Harriet Nahanee, a native elder who was sick, arrested at a protest, and then died shortly after in jail.  As The Tyee put it: "We idolize Mahatma Ghandi and jail Betty Krawczyk and Harriet Nahanee. Some democracy." (http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/03/05/Eagleridge/)


Harriet Nahanee and Betty Krawczyk arrested, 25 May 2006. Photo: Christopher Grabowski.

My story begins before Betty's time at Eagleridge Bluffs.  It's not historically accurate but it's my story.  To paraphrase Roch Carrier who once said in response to a child's question at Hopewell Avenue Public School,  "If you're going to tell a story, make it a good one; make it about that big fish that got away."

Let's give our heroine a practical, old-fashioned name.  I picture Granny Ruth surrounded by the ruts of large logging trucks deep in the old-growth forest of the west coast.  It's the forest of Emily Carr paintings with darkness and reverence.  When her eureka moment comes, there is Ruth, covered in mud and standing in a dark, cold B.C. rain.  And she says to herself, "There has to be a better way."

Because Ruth has lived long, she has watched life long and she's figured out a thing or two.  She perceives that change is often about a few people coming together who see a wrong.  Ruth knows they often face great odds against greater obstacles.  She understands that to get the logging companies to negotiate, they have to want to be at the table; they have to want something from the negotiations.  And Ruth appreciates that it's about more than simply being right, it's about tipping the balance of power.

Ruth and a few friends talk about this and they know they don't have the resources to fight the companies in court and they realize they'll need many people to help them make their point to the logging companies.  After much discussion, they come up with a plan to stop the logging companies from cutting down the old growth forest.

Ruth heads for Europe, to the place where products of B.C. logging companies are sold, to help organize a boycott.  She and her friends talk about old growth forest and they talk about the trees with reverence.  They talk to the Europeans about ethical forestry practices and they ask them to stop buying products made with B.C. wood and timber. European consumers listen and large numbers support the boycott.  Lo and behold, Ruth and her friends are at the table successfully negotiating agreements to preserve large reserves of B.C. old-growth forest.

Of course, this is just a story.  I have no way of knowing how the boycott came about but I do remember snippets of the news from that time.  I'll come back to this story later.  In real life, it didn't happen this way and it doesn't always end with success but this time, it did.  By 2008, according to Joe Foy of the Watershed Sentinel (http://www.watershedsentinel.ca/content/heroes-who-faught-bc-forest-protection), besides Gwaii Haanas National Park and the Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park of Betty Krawczyk, there were 10 new provincial parks and 70 new conservancies in British Columbia.  Not bad for a grandmother with a good idea and a few friends!


The views expressed in this blog are my personal views only.  Tomorrow -- Let's talk about good teachers and why fair negotiations are important.