Witness to Wilderness: The Clayoquot Sound Anthology

Alice Kidd is an editor with The New Catalyst editorial collective in
Lillooet, B.C.

“The misty, pre-dawn image of women and men and children holding hands
in front of logging trucks at the Kennedy Lake bridge has circled the
world. Who were these people? Why would they get up before dawn to
confront logging trucks and the law?” The rainforests of the world are
increasingly home to major controversy—to cut or not to cut. How did
this come about? What are the key questions, the important issues, and
how shall they be resolved? How can we choose between ensuring
people’s livelihoods and threatening the continued existence of other
species— to say nothing of endangering the very health of the planet?

The editors of Witness to Wilderness have created a marvelous collage
of writings, photographs, and cartoons that help to answer these
questions. There are poems and prose about oneness with nature, about
being in the wild, and about spiritual experiences. Individual memoirs
and journal entries are mixed with historical tidbits from sources as
diverse as the Magna Carta and the Royal Proclamation of October 7,
1763. Accounts of events leading up to the Kennedy Lake bridge blockade
alternate with analysis of the role of the media, courts, and
government.

Although the book is clearly in support of those who would stop
clearcut logging in Clayoquot Sound, it is not a polemic; many points of
view about the situation are presented.