Blockade

In the early 1990s, ancient temperate rainforests on Vancouver Island became the stage for mass blockades against clearcut logging in Nuucaanul territory. Until the more recent struggles at Fairy Creek, Clayoquot Sound hosted the largest act of civil disobedience in Canada. National news coverage at the time showed mothers with their babies, grandparents, business people, and many other unlikely activists standing on the logging road or locked to makeshift structures, risking arrest to defend these rare, evolved ecosystems. Drawing from her daily journals recorded at the time, Lowther recounts the vibrant and tense atmosphere of confronting police and loggers with nonviolent civil disobedience. She vividly describes creative direct actions— themed blockades, lock-downs, nighttime barricade building, occupations of ancient trees and government offices. Blockade contemplates the stark realities of the movement, including threats of police violence and the disturbing collusion between the RCMP and extraction corporations, and is a rallying cry of hope for all those who stand up for the natural world and a roadmap for future generations of defenders.

Christine Lowther resides in Tla-o-qui-aht ha’ huulthii in Nuucaanul (Nuu-Chah-Nulth) territory on Vancouver Island. She is the editor of Worth More Standing: Poets and Activists Pay Homage to Trees, and the author of four poetry collections, most recently Hazard, Home. Her memoir Born Out of This was shortlisted for the 2015 Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize. She won the Federation of British Columbia Writers’ 2015 Nonfiction Prize and was shortlisted for the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize. Christine served as Tofino’ s Poet Laureate 2020– 2022.