Have you ever listened to a silent forest? Have you ever felt the eerie disquiet of a broken and incomplete ecosystem?
Recently, I experienced this for the first time. Walking among the dry grey husks of decaying trees, I heard neither birdsong, nor the scuttle of smaller creatures underfoot. There was only the sharp sound of dead branches snapping beneath the weight of my boots.
In B.C., there are hundreds of square kilometres of silent forests. Thesehave been devasted by swarms of mountain pine beetles that swept through lush forests, leaving them barren.
Years ago, when we experienced colder winters, most pine beetles could not survive the harsh frosts and posed no threat.
With the warming of our climate, this is no longer the case.
The particular half-dead forests I witnessed stand on traditional Wet’suwet’en First Nations territory, between Kitimat and Prince George. I travelled to this region, to Unis’to’ten Camp, from Victoria on an ancient green school bus dubbed the Action Bus.
Unis’to’ten Camp is a permanent camp located in the paths of the proposed Northern Gateway and Pacific Trail pipelines. For the past five summers, an action camp has been held on this territory, drawing hundreds of activists from Canada and the US.
I remember feeling my heartbeat pound in my ears as I hugged my dad on the sidewalk before climbing aboard the bus. As a 17-year-old girl, it was not the first time I had travelled without my parents, but it was the first time I had done something so bold.
I’ll be honest — I questioned my sanity. Why couldn’t I be content with staying in Victoria, licking ice cream and sunning myself at Willows Beach? It was my desire to learn, and my resolve to fight against the jeopardizing of my future that compelled me to seek more than a sunny day by the sea.
When I felt nervous or lonely at the camp, I simply had to recall all of the times at my high school where I was prompted to talk about my future plans. Where I wanted to study, where I wanted to live. I remember always voicing my intention to live in B.C., where the air is fresh, the trees grow tall and the water runs clear.
Tied to this desire was my fear that these qualities I value so much about B.C. would vanish in a future stained by an oil spill.
And now the leaking of the contents of a tailings pond into Polley Lake and the surrounding waters further darkens my perception of our province. This incident threatened to poison the Fraser Valley watershed. An oil spill would poison our coast.
When will we stop taking our incredible surroundings for granted? I believe the air should be treated as our lungs, the water as our blood.
For without these, how could we survive? What would “Beautiful British Columbia” become?
My love for our province is shared by the hundreds of supporters who convened at Unis’to’ten Camp. The action camp only served to validate and strengthen our resolve to protect this land.
We refuse to stand idly by and watch, as British Columbia becomes a province of silent forests and poisoned rivers. We refuse to witness the tarring of our coasts. Will you join us?
Tessa Owens is a student at Lester B. Pearson College of the Pacific.
