The BC NDP government is on the brink of enacting its “Working Forests” legislation which threatens millions of hectares of ancient forest in the province.  ancientforestalliance.org

Image credit: Ancient Forest Alliance.

I planted dicentra in my garden years ago as a joke against myself as their common name is“bleeding heart”. From certain viewpoints it summed up an aspect of my personality. Now, approaching my own old age, if, with my cries for humans to end their destruction of our ecology, I am labelled “bleeding heart”, “tree-hugger”etc… I own such labels with pride. 

Ancient old growth trees stand in forests undisturbed for many hundred of years. It’s mind-boggling to think of the diversity of life they support from fungi to insects, birds and mammals. They are some of the richest ecosystems in the world. How, in any sane world would these trees be logged? Obviously for profit. More of the destruction of this rich and bountiful planet we call home for the sake of enriching those who already have plenty.

Some of my closest relationships have been with trees. Trees reach out branches like protective arms toward us. I grew up in south Manchester at a time when the new council estates were being built to re-house folks from the slum dwellings of the Industrial Revolution. My mum told me that she and my dad thought they’d been moved to Paradise. So much green. Fields, lawns in generous gardens. And trees lining every street.

Trees to climb. Oak, ash, beech, the stalwarts of the British countryside. I particularly remember a huge willow which Mum loved and wrote about more than once herself. I know Mum felt their protection and it was undoubtedly from her that I inherited my love of trees.

Living forty years on the west coast of Canada brought me close to trees of a different kind. Gone, for the most part, were the deciduous woods I’d grown up with. Now, it was an entirely new landscape of conifers and I needed a new vocabulary to recognise and name them. My education inevitably started with the BC forestry industry, living as I did in Prince George, a “logging town” in northern BC. My first day in the town introduced me to the characteristic sulphurous stink of the pulp mills. It was a nauseating smell which hung like a pall over the bowl of the town and even crept into our houses. Logging trucks rampaged through town and onto the gravel “logging roads” built to get into the vast tracts of forest waiting to be clear-cut and brought out to sawmills and pulp mills to feed the province’s largest industries of wood and paper production.

My awareness of the BC First Nations relationship with trees grew slowly at first, as I began to travel around the province and as I learned of the province’s rich indigenous cultures. The Canadian government, during my immigration process, had told me nothing of the people who had lived on the land, beside the ocean and in the forests of BC for more than ten thousand years. 1980’s Canada was steeped in colonialism, some residential schools were still open and racism towards First Nations was blatant. Trees hold deep spiritual significance for BC’s indigenous peoples as well as being a fundamental resource for their way of life. Protests, demonstrations and encampments to demand preservation of ancient forests have been led or supported by First Nations and numerous environmental organizations for close to fifty years now.  11.1 million hectares of ancient forest currently exists in BC, down from 25 million hectares before the logging industry was established. 

On Vancouver Island, over 80% of the productive old-growth forests have been logged, including well over 90% of valley bottoms, where the biggest trees grow and the richest biodiversity reside. (Ancient Forest Alliance, September 2026)

My objections to their plans for “Working Forest Zones” and call for a more balanced approach to logging is on its way to the BC government. Because when an old growth tree falls in the forest I AM LISTENING.  

On Galiano

I have seen arbutus
reaching up like dancers
painted red with the stain of silent ritual.

This tree stands
like a fork of lightning
grabbed by the earth,
it shouts of all I could hold,
the entire sky,
if I would open up my arms, stretch
if I would let the air smooth my skin,
let it peel, know
there are stronger layers beneath.

Guardian pine

Nights, I've shut out the dark
real or imagined voices
filtering from beyond the window,
pulled a shawl around my need
for warmth, blanket
to my chin, grateful for latches,
locks and blinds.

This night, the blinds taken down,
the pine looms. Feathered-edged
its silhouette presses toward the room
black as the pupil of the watchful spirit
legend tells crouches in its branches
arms stretched over the living 
and the dead.

I have listened to the chatter
of souls in the snap of seeds
breaking from cones in spring.
Now, winter's deep and silent well
has me submerged, I turn
entreat that dark-eyed spirit
watch over me.

Previously published in 'Passing Stranger' (Inanna Publications, Toronto 2014).