The mist clings to centuries-old cedars as Will O’Connel walks through what may be some of the last intact old growth forest on Vancouver Island. Above him, massive canopies stretch toward a gray September sky, their branches heavy with moss and lichen that have accumulated over hundreds of years. The forest floor beneath his feet is a living carpet of emerald moss, accented by streams that trickle through the delicate ecosystem.

Any day now, police may arrive to tear down the wooden fortress that O’Connel and about two dozen other forest defenders have built along Tree Farm License Road 44. 

They know the drill — it happened not far from here, at Fairy Creek, just a few years ago. Over 1,100 people were arrested there, in what became the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history. But this time feels different. This time, says O’Connel, feels final.

As one land defender I spoke to said, “it’s time to prepare for war.”

Sacred ground under siege

The upper Walbran Valley represents something increasingly rare on Vancouver Island: a glimpse of what the entire region looked like before industrial logging transformed the landscape. Here, in Pacheedaht First Nation territory roughly two hours west of Lake Cowichan on rough gravel roads, giant Sitka spruce and western red cedar trees tower above an ecosystem that has taken millenia to develop.

For 85-year-old Pacheedaht Elder Bill Jones, these forests represent far more than trees — they are sacred ground, his sanctuary for practicing culture and religion. Jones played a central role in the fight for Fairy Creek, and despite his age remains a spiritual leader for forest defenders out here. 

“It’s not just about the trees,” Elder Bill Jones explains. “This is our sanctuary. This is where our spirits connect to the land.”

I caught up with Jones at his assisted living facility near Victoria. His flowing white hair reaching past his shoulders and wide brown eyes peering through thin-rimmed glasses as he describes the current battle as just the latest in a lifetime of resistance.

“It’s not just about the trees,” Jones explains, his voice carrying the weight of decades of activism stretching from surviving the Port Alberni residential school through the anti-war movement of the 1960s and the American Indian Movement of the 1970s. “This is our sanctuary. This is where our spirits connect to the land.”

Back in the forest, O’Connel runs his hand along the deeply furrowed bark of an ancient cedar. He was recently named as a defendant in the logging company’s successful application for an injunction against forest defenders blocking their logging roads. 

“These are thousand-year-old trees,” he explains. “And there’s a lot of knowledge around what it actually means (to be) a thousand-year-old tree — the ecosystem in the branches is different than that of a 500-year-old tree. That extra 500 years actually changes the community of organisms that only lives up in those branches. There’s no community in a 60-year-old forest.”

The 34-year-old school teacher who grew up just outside of Victoria has been coming to the Walbran for a decade, watching as logging operations systematically dismantled the ancient forest piece by piece. What he’s witnessed has changed his understanding of what’s at stake.

“I used to just long to be part of a movement like this because it felt like I missed the boat,” O’Connel says, referring to the earlier War in the Woods protests that helped protect parts of Clayoquot Sound and the Walbran Valley in the 1990s. “Because 10 years ago, that type of thing just wasn’t happening. You just couldn’t block a road. It just wasn’t in people’s minds that you could do that.”

The official position

Standing in front of the Pacheedaht band council office, elected Chief Councillor Arliss Daniels presents a starkly different perspective from the forest defenders camped in her nation’s territory. Declining to be photographed and offering only a brief interview, Daniels makes the nation’s position clear: the land defenders are not wanted and have been asked to leave.

“Pacheedaht is a logging nation,” Daniels explains. “That is our main economy, our source of income. We support logging.” She says the nation has its own plans to protect old growth forests but worries about the protesters leaving trash on the territory, and fears for their safety in the wilderness.

“I’m here for the protection of the Old Growth. I’m here for the ones who can’t speak up… I’m here to speak for the animals, for the ecosystem, for the healing of future generations.”

Regarding Elder Bill Jones’s opposition to the logging, Daniels suggests he is being influenced by environmentalists — a claim Jones vehemently disputes. “I am acting of my own volition,” he told me when I relayed Daniels’s comments.

The divide between the elected leadership and community members like Jones illustrates the impossible positions created by what Jones calls the colonial system. While Daniels emphasizes economic necessity and legitimate governance authority, the forest defenders see deeper issues of coercion and the loss of Indigenous sovereignty over traditional territory.

This tension between economic survival and environmental protection reflects the broader challenges facing Indigenous communities across British Columbia, where resource extraction often represents the primary source of revenue, while simultaneously threatening the cultural and spiritual connections to the land that define Indigenous identity.

Building a fortress

The blockade began in mid-August when O’Connel viewed satellite imagery online. He saw that logging was about to commence in areas the defenders had been monitoring for years. What started as a single day of protest — constructing and placing a massive wooden cougar sculpture in the middle of the logging road — has evolved into something more permanent and more desperate.

The defenders have built an elaborate maze of fortifications designed to slow any police advance. A 10-foot wooden gate made from forest scrap blocks the road, flanked by a 30-foot lookout tower where sentries maintain constant watch. Often perched at the top is “Uncle Ricco,” a 42-year-old mixed Cree land defender with long silver-brown hair covered by a black and white bandana. She’s been on frontlines like this before, and plans to get arrested again — standing ready to yell defiant words at industry if they arrive.

Beyond the gate lies a network of defensive positions, tree-sits, and sleeping platforms built into the canopy itself. On a large blue tarp spread across the forest floor, O’Connel demonstrates the climbing equipment needed for tree sits — the tactic where activists live in trees to block logging by making it too dangerous to cut them down. He shows volunteers how to tie knots and clip safety gear, giving crash courses to those willing to hoist themselves hundreds of feet into the air.

Among the volunteers is “Windy,” a 27-year-old tree planter who arrived a week ago after learning about the blockade online. He’s never protested before, but now he’s preparing to sit for hours or even days on a platform suspended against a tree trunk until police reach him. “I’m feeling a mix of anxiety and readiness,” he says. “I called my mom to tell her I’m okay, that I might not talk to her for a bit if the police arrive soon.”

The camp is made up of a collection of characters from all walks of life, each using aliases to shield their identities since what they’re doing is illegal in the B.C. justice system. There’s “Gimli” — who looks like a cross between a dwarf from Lord of the Rings and Hagrid from Harry Potter, with long, red, dreadlocked hair and a red beard. He’s wearing a kilt, with his trusty rottweiler-mix by his side. “Grandpa” is a woman in her 40s who is a medic and has worked with the armed forces. “Moon Bear,” a young woman with long brown hair tied back with scarves or knitted hats, wears flowing clothes and walks around with a bag of acorns, cracking them open with rocks to share. “Dragon Fly,” a woman in her 50s who dresses eccentrically, serves as camp cook, preparing three meals daily and playing the role of tough camp mother. “Thistle,” a therapist by profession, leads the group in calming breathing exercises before meetings they call “circles.”

As darkness falls, the defenders gather in their makeshift kitchen — wooden poles and tarps sheltering a camping stove and donated supplies. Around a camping table lit only by tea candles, they hold what they call an “arrests meeting.” They discuss what to expect when police arrive, their rights, and whether force will be used. They assign roles: who wants to get arrested, who will provide support, who will follow to the police station afterward.

Sometimes they sing together — songs about nature or revolution to boost morale. Sometimes they share stories about the cat-and-mouse chases with the RCMP at Fairy Creek, though they also speak of having PTSD from those experiences. Someone is always on gate watch, even through the night, because police can come at any time. They say they are ready for war, though they have no weapons — just their bodies and strong wills.

At the heart of the camp sits a tiny cabin that looks like something from a fairy tale, built specifically for Elder Bill Jones, on whose traditional territory this latest chapter of the “war in the woods” is unfolding. Though Jones, at 85, lives in an assisted living facility near Victoria, his presence looms over the blockade. Named as a defendant alongside O’Connel on the court injunction, Jones represents a unique figure in this conflict: an Indigenous elder opposing his own band council’s decision to permit the logging.

“I don’t think I’m important,” Jones says from his care facility. “It’s my values that are important. Values of life, to protect what’s ours. Like the forest. (We need to talk about) the suicides. There’s three or four this year on my reserve, you know? And there’s probably about 30 or 40 suicides in recent years — all because of the oppressive system. All because of what they’ve taken, what they continue to take from us.”

Voices from within

The complexity of Indigenous positions on logging becomes even more apparent with the arrival of Hasakis, a 45-year-old mother and grandmother from the Huu-ay-aht First Nation. Her nation owns a 35 per cent stake in the very logging companies preparing to cut the forest, yet she drove through the night to join the blockade.

“I’m here for the protection of the Old Growth. I’m here for the ones who can’t speak up due to fear of losing their job or any kind of assistance getting cut off,” Hasakis says through tears. “I’m here to speak for the animals, for the ecosystem, for the healing of future generations and even people that are here now.”

Her presence represents yet another dimension of the conflict — Indigenous people opposing their own nations’ business decisions. 

She fiddles with the chains wrapped around her hand — the same chains she plans to use in a “sleeping dragon” device to make her arrest as difficult as possible when police arrive.

The dragon device she’s preparing, made from PVC pipe, chains, and carabiners, is designed to hinder arrest and can result in additional criminal charges. 

Yet for Hasakis, the risk feels necessary.

“I’m here to bring people together. To show love, to show unity. To show respect for Mother Earth. I’m here for my ancestors. I’m here for love, and I’m here just to be able to be the voice for the ones who can’t speak, because they’re afraid, because they know what we can lose by speaking up,” she continues, her voice breaking. “I have nothing to lose though. Nothing at all. Only love to gain and strength to go forward. And I’m happy, I’m thankful to be here. I’ve never felt so much love. I’ve never felt so much joy in a long time.” 

“I don’t think we’re going to save the cut block behind us — that hope died a while ago, but this is an act of defiance still.”

The community that has formed around the blockade includes Indigenous land defenders like Hasakis and Jones, former Wall Street businessmen, teachers, firefighters, and others united by their belief that these particular trees are worth risking arrest to protect. 

Uncle Ricco, who calls Elder Bill Jones “Uncle,” says she takes direction from him and is fighting for the next seven generations. “He is very, very concerned about the land here and the old growth trees and the medicine,” she explains. “He realizes that we’re in a time right now that if we don’t stand for this, if we don’t start looking into forestry management sustainability and (protect) the very little amount of old growth that we have left, we’re going to have nothing left.”

Later, chained into a dragon device alongside Dragon Fly atop the tower overlooking the blockade entrance, Uncle Ricco finds some unexpected peace as she waits for arrest. “I feel freer than I have in a long time. I’m feeling pretty good about this,” she says, her arm chained inside a metal pipe with Dragon Fly’s hand attached in the middle. “If I don’t put it on the line now, my son has no future and every part of my being is for my son. No matter what happens, I’m here for my family.”The forest defenders’ battle takes place against a backdrop of provincial government inaction that conservationists say has persisted for five years, ever since B.C. promised to overhaul how old growth trees are logged. In September 2020, the government released “A New Future for Old Forests,” an independent report calling for a “paradigm shift” in forest management that was supposed to take three years to implement.

Five years later, conservation groups say the 14 recommendations meant to dramatically change logging practices remain largely unmet. “By avoiding these critical steps, the results are devastating — giant, thousand-year-old trees continue to fall, and public frustration is reaching a breaking point,” said TJ Watt with the Ancient Forest Alliance, who is known for his before-and-after old growth logging photographs.

The province claims it has deferred logging on more than two million hectares since November 2021 and secured $1 billion in federal-provincial conservation financing. But conservationists argue this progress is insufficient given the urgency of protecting the estimated 1.36 million hectares of the best remaining old growth still at risk of being logged.

The government maintains that about 11.1 million hectares of old growth forest exist in B.C. — 20 per cent of the province’s publicly managed forest areas — with most protected or uneconomical to harvest. However, forest defenders dispute these figures, with their own research suggesting only three per cent of ancient forest remains intact.

A complex web of coercion

For Jones, the current battle represents the intersection of environmental destruction and what he sees as the systematic oppression of Indigenous communities through debt and intimidation. On September 9, he took the unprecedented step of filing a federal court application for judicial review against his own nation, challenging the Pacheedaht First Nation’s approval of new forestry activities in his traditional territory without consulting him or other members.

According to court documents, the Pacheedaht First Nation consented to roadbuilding and logging in the Upper Walbran Valley on June 2, 2025, without consulting Jones — a band member under the Indian Act. He only learned about their agreement on September 4. This followed a pattern: the nation had already entered into a revenue sharing agreement with British Columbia on May 6, 2024, again without consulting him or others.

Jones is arguing through lawyer Ben Isitt that the Pacheedaht council “exercised its powers under the Indian Act unlawfully” and violated principles of natural justice and procedural fairness. He’s seeking a declaration that the council acted beyond its jurisdiction and an order setting aside their decision.

The financial pressure is compounded by what Isitt calls “economic coercion” built directly into resource revenue sharing agreements. The Province of B.C.’s agreement with the Pacheedaht First Nation includes a clause that essentially muzzles opposition, stating that the “Pacheedaht First Nation agrees it will not support or participate in any acts that frustrate, delay, stop or otherwise physically impede or interfere with provincially authorized forest activities.” The agreement further requires the nation to “promptly and fully cooperate with and provide its support to British Columbia in seeking to resolve any action that might be taken by a member of (the) First Nation that is inconsistent with this Agreement.”

Isitt called this economic coercion something he’d never seen before in such agreements — a stark example of how the colonial system creates impossible positions for Indigenous nations, forcing them to choose between economic survival and the protection of their traditional territories.

Jones, who survived the horrors of the Alberni Indian Residential School, views this through a decolonial lens. He doesn’t see his Indian Act-elected band council as legitimate — he sees it as part of the enforcement system imposed by colonial Canada to control Indigenous peoples. “About 86 band councils (in B.C.) are under order-in-council governance right now,” Jones explains. “It’s a perfect setup for the government because they have these elite people who don’t have to account to their people. They only have to account to the government.”

The cost of resistance

Yet Jones was pleased when his band council sent a letter to government officials criticizing the land defenders and demanding their removal from traditional territory. “I was pleased because here’s my chance — now she (Arliss) says something that I can dispute in court,” he explains. The letter provided further legal grounds he needed to challenge the band council’s authority, leading to his current federal court case asserting charter rights and freedoms.

The situation reveals the complex tensions within Indigenous communities facing resource extraction pressures. Jones describes a community where dissent is discouraged through economic control — where “the band council controls all the jobs” and those who oppose the leadership find themselves excluded from employment opportunities.

Yet Jones sees hope in unexpected places, including the presence of non-Indigenous allies like O’Connel. When asked about the possibility of his own people turning against the logging, he points to connections being forged between settlers and Indigenous activists at the blockade.

“There’s a big thing going on here with figuring out relationships between settlers and Indigenous people,” Jones observes. “It’s so awkward sometimes, but we don’t know how to live together because so many of our communities are just totally divided from each other, and our realities are so different. We’ve gotta make those connections between us to be together.”

“We’re in a time right now that if we don’t stand for this, if we don’t start looking into forestry management sustainability and (protect) the very little amount of old growth that we have left, we’re going to have nothing left.”

Despite the daunting odds — facing both government and corporate power while opposing his own band council — Jones is unwavering. 

“Protecting and liberating the old growth forest goes hand in hand with liberating my nation,” he states simply.

The legal battles now facing the forest defenders underscore the complexity of their position. On September 11, a B.C. Supreme Court judge granted an injunction request from two logging companies — Tsawak-Qin Forestry Limited Partnership and Tsawak-Qin Forestry Inc. — who argued that the blockade is causing “irrevocable harm” to their business operations. The companies claim potential loss of eleven full-time jobs, over $3 million in revenue and warn the “situation is spinning out of control again” as it did during the 2021 Fairy Creek protests.

Both O’Connel and Jones are named as defendants in the injunction application. The companies’ lawyers insist that the “protestors’ real complaint is with government policy,” since they hold legitimate logging licenses from the province. Now, police are preparing to move in and enforce the court order, likely deploying the same Critical Response Unit that handled the Fairy Creek arrests.

For O’Connel, who has never been arrested before, the prospect brings both fear and resolve. “I’m really not afraid of being arrested,” he says. “But I’m a little afraid of jail… I’m also a little afraid of a lawsuit.”

The stakes extend far beyond individual consequences. O’Connel estimates that over his decade of forest defense work, the scale of intact old growth forest has dramatically decreased — even in that short time span. Where he once walked through cut blocks filled with consistent 12-foot-across cedars being felled, “now you just cannot find that. You can’t, as a forest defender, you can’t find that stuff to defend. It doesn’t exist anymore.”

An hour’s walk behind the blockade, O’Connel leads four other forest protectors down a steep hill into the raw heart of what they’re fighting to save. The forest floor is a chaotic web of life — massive fallen logs, dense brush, and moss in every shade of green imaginable. After fifteen minutes of clambering through this primordial landscape, they find their target: an ancient cedar, probably 400 years old, that sits squarely on the cutting block.

The team moves quickly, unpacking ropes and gear from their backpacks. They shoot a throw line high into the canopy, securing it to a sturdy limb, then attach a wooden rectangular platform big enough to hold one person. Using pulleys and levers from below, they haul the platform up while O’Connel buckles into his harness, attaches his foot loops, and begins his ascent to secure the tree sit.

“I called my mom to tell her I’m okay, that I might not talk to her for a bit if the police arrive soon.”

Windy follows soon after, getting his first taste of what awaits him when police arrive, and he must scramble up for real. “After a minute or two the adrenaline slows down and you get used to it,” he says, after hanging hundreds of feet above the forest floor.

From their perch, the contrast is alarmingly poignant. Directly across from them, another mountain hill looks strikingly different — it has been mowed down, a graveyard of fallen trees waiting to be hauled away. The stark difference between the intact forest around them and the clearcut wasteland beyond captures everything they’re fighting against.

After completing their mission, the defenders sit in silence on the gravel road near the cut block, watching a stunning sunset paint the distant mountains. This moment — surrounded by thousand-year-old trees under an ancient sky, the silence, the crisp, clean air, the aroma of the forest, the feast of beauty they’re taking in — that is what they’re here for.

When the forest dies

The urgency comes from witnessing what happens when ancient ecosystems are destroyed. O’Connel describes the aftermath of logging with tears forming in his eyes: roads carved into steep hillsides without proper engineering, massive erosion events that choke downstream waterways with sediment, and the death of complex hydrological systems that have taken centuries to develop.

“One of the most important parts of an old growth forest is how it holds water,” he explains. The thick humus layer and complex root systems create what he calls “a big sponge on the bottom of an old growth forest.” When that system is destroyed, “instead of having the forest that holds the water, it runs really rapidly down these slopes” causing floods in spring and fall, and drought in summer.

The emotional toll of watching these ecosystems disappear has marked everyone involved in forest defense. O’Connel describes his experience at the Cayacuse blockade, where defenders fought relentlessly for two years before ultimately watching the ancient trees fall anyway.

“It was an end of hope. It wasn’t just the loss of the forest. It was a loss of some sort of belief in us and in human will,” he recalls. “I didn’t break down about it then, but I did later, which was weird. It was like a week later and I broke down.”

Late one evening, sitting in the cabin built for Elder Bill Jones, O’Connel’s exhaustion shows. Despite his resolve, the weight of what they’re facing becomes clear.

“I don’t think we’re going to save the cut block behind us — that hope died a while ago, but this is an act of defiance still,” he says, his voice breaking. “And it’s an act of showing the government how far we will go, how much we believe in this and that we won’t stand down until the end. We know that we will lose. There is only one grove, that grove. There is only one ancient forest there — there’s not another headwater to the Walbran Valley in the world and it will be cut down.”

He pauses, struggling to continue. “There is just too much power against us. The government has already made agreements with logging companies. They’re not undoing their agreements. And they’re also not even changing future agreements, changing regulations or protections. They’re not pivoting in any way. They’re just doing their best to control the media, make it look like we’re ungrateful environmentalists and bring in a heavy hitting police force to take us out of here.”

It’s a moment that captures both the futility and the necessity these defenders feel — knowing they will likely lose while believing they must still try.

The last stand

“Once we are burnt out to a crisp, this movement will subside and there won’t be the ability to just make a stand like this,” O’Connel says. “We still have the knowledge and the energy to do this.”

As police prepare to move in and the defenders prepare for arrest, O’Connel reflects on the legacy he hopes to leave. He thinks of his mentor, Peter Cressey, who was arrested in the Walbran 34 years ago and continues advocating for the forest today.

“I would hope to be like him. If that doesn’t tell you anything about where we are as humans and how much we need this,” O’Connel says, describing how Cressey’s heart breaks when he leaves the valley. “Our spirits and our bodies feel it. We feel what’s happening with the death of the forest. We don’t have very many of these special places to go to anymore and we need them.”

The cold September nights are getting longer, and the defenders know their time is running short. But for now, in the misty light filtering through emerald colored branches, they continue their work of fortification and preparation, believing they are fighting not just for trees, but for something essential to the human spirit that cannot be replaced once it’s gone.

“I feel so blessed to care about something, to have something I love like this,” O’Connel says. “And to have an opportunity to show it. As much as it’s a tragedy that we have to do this, it’s such a potent thing to have love and have it also be tested like this.” 

In the coming days, that love will face its ultimate test as police arrive to dismantle the blockade and arrest those who refuse to leave. Whether the ancient cedars of the upper Walbran will still be standing afterward remains an open question — one that may determine not just the fate of these particular trees, but the future of old growth forest defense in British Columbia.