
The distant thud-thud of helicopter blades sliced through the sky, growing louder as a crowd began to gather on the beach at C’is-a-qis Bay on Meares Island. A logging company called MacMillan Bloedel was set to commence work on a clear-cut operation of 90 percent of the island’s old growth forest.It was November 21, 1984. Tensions over the plans had been growing for months. Members of the Tla’o’qui’aht First Nation had been camped out in the bay since fall, constructing a cabin and scooping out the innards of red cedar logs to craft a series of traditional canoes.
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The fight is far from over, however. Today the nation faces new challenges, namely in the form of the proposed Fandora gold mine slated for the Tranquil Creek watershed, 14 kilometres northeast of the hippy surfer mecca of Tofino. A landbase rich in minerals and bristling with stands of towering cedar, hemlock and Sitka spruce, the Clayoquot Sound—territory of the Tla’o’qui’aht and four other First Nations within the wider Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council—is a treasure chest ripe for plunder by a resource-hungry world.
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This sentiment is complex, however, and subject to a variety of interpretations. Since the Haida court case in 2004, which established the Crown’s duty to consult and accommodate with First Nations, there have been more than 200 cases alleging the Crown has failed in these duties—the majority of them in BC, said Douglas White, a lawyer and former chief of the Snuneymuxw First Nation who specializes in indigenous law.
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Masso pointed out that their stance is not simply one of opposition: the nation have already invested millions into their own detailed sustainable development plans and projects, with an eye towards providing employment for generations, not just “10 years of jobs and then 500 years of impact” from the mine.In an hour-long land use plan presented to Energy, Mines and Natural Gas Minister Bill Bennett last fall, Masso said he invited the province to refuse the mine project in favour of the nation’s $290 million stewardship-oriented vision for the land.“They’re either going to have to get with it or get out of the way,” said Dorward with a chuckle.The Tribal Parks“It was the best job I ever had in my life,” said Charlie, of his tenure as a Tribal Park guardian. We’re in the sunny, south-facing village of Opitsaht on Meares Island. He’s illustrating the occasionally-sketchy aspect of the job with a story about how campers in the Ha’uukmin Tribal Park on Kennedy Lake had fallen asleep under the canopy of a giant 500-year-old cedar tree, only to wake and find they had set the entire thing ablaze from the inside. It had to be felled, still burning, by a grizzled tree faller flown in from the Canadian Forest Service.
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