By 7:30 a.m., the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue Society is already bustling. The morning sun pours in under the canopy tent as volunteers hose down rows of blue tubs, most holding a rescued harbour seal. As one pup wriggles and rolls in the spray, another attempts to suckle on the side of her tank. Others bark, mew and cry, sounds that in the wild help mothers identify their babies. 

It’s mid-August, nearing the end of pupping season, and the rescue has more than 60 seals in its care. Most wound up here after becoming separated from their moms, unlikely to survive on their own. There’s Proteus, found emaciated at Holland Point Park in Victoria. Newborn Lily, found hidden beneath a dinghy at the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club. And Truffles, who was still wearing his lanugo coat of fine, soft hair when he was found — a sign he was born prematurely. 

The seals are kept in individual tubs for at least two weeks after they first arrive at the rescue, in part as a quarantine measure to make sure they’re not carrying an infection they could pass to other seals. It also makes it easier to hand feed the pups. Most of the rescued seals are under five days old when they’re brought in, Lindsaye Akhurst, the rescue centre’s senior manager explains.  

In the wild, pups will nurse for a month to a month and a half, gaining about 400 grams a day. At the rescue, where seals are tube fed a formula that approximates the fatty, nutritious milk of mother seals, it can take two-to-three times as long to gain that same amount of weight. 

Five times a day, staff and volunteers wearing aprons and long rubber arm protectors lift each seal from its tub and place it on a cart. As a volunteer holds the seal still, a staff member inserts a long tube into the pup’s throat, listening at the other end as they guide it into its stomach. Using a large syringe, another volunteer pushes the formula into the seal’s stomach. 

Tube feeding allows the team to know exactly how much food the seals are getting and it requires less handling, Akhurst says. Plus, “they’re not really good at suckling on bottles,” she adds.

Once the seals are about three or four weeks old, they graduate to fish school. The rescue team slowly weans the pups from the formula and introduces herring into their diet, initially feeding the small, oily fish to the seals by hand until they’re confidently eating on their own. At that point, the seals are moved to a larger communal tank, where they interact with other seals and compete for food. They’re here until they weigh at least 23 kilograms and then if all goes well, they’re released back into the ocean.

Once hunted for their pelts, seal population on B.C. coast has rebounded

While the marine mammal rescue society responds to sea lions, sea otters, small cetaceans like dolphins and even sea turtles in distress, it’s mostly harbour seals that wind up here. There’s a healthy population of harbour seals on the south coast in areas that also have large populations of humans, Akhurst said. That can sometimes lead to conflict between people and seals. But it also means a seal in distress is more likely to get noticed and reported. And, “harbour seals are great candidates for rehabilitation,” Akhurst says.

She noted rescued seals regularly end up at the centre because of human interference. Sometimes moms are scared away from their pups by the big crowds of people at busy beaches other times seals have been brought in with injuries from boats. And, by caring for dozens of seals each year, the rescue centres team of staff and volunteers are also trained to respond to major environmental emergencies that humans sometimes cause — like oil spills.

Harbour seals were hunted extensively for their pelts and bounties from the 1870s onward. By the 1960s the population in B.C. had declined sharply to an estimated 10,000 seals. After hunting was banned, the population recovered to more than 100,000 by the early 2000s. The latest estimates from 2019 peg the population at about 85,000, with the highest concentration of seals found in the Strait of Georgia, according to Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

Harbour seals feed on a variety of fish including pacific hake and herring. But it’s their predation of salmon that’s a source of concern for some, who worry seal populations are a significant hurdle to the recovery of declining salmon stocks. In recent years, Indigenous, sport and commercial fishing groups have urged Fisheries and Oceans Canada to open commercial seal hunting on the west coast to control the population. 

But some experts warn reducing seal populations may not be a panacea for the recovery of salmon, which are also threatened by extensive habitat loss, climate change and water pollution. Speaking to a 2023 parliamentary committee examining seal and sea lion management, Andrew Trites, a professor with the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, said seals are more likely to catch slow or diseased fish, which can make fish populations healthier. Biologist Kilian Stehfest, who worked for the David Suzuki Foundation at the time, told the committee seal predation of pacific hake, which in turn eat herring, could have indirect benefits for salmon, by leaving more herring available for juvenile salmon to eat.

A major decline in seal populations could also have consequences for threatened Bigg’s orcas, also known as transient killer whales. These orcas saw rapid population growth alongside the recovery of seals — their primary prey — between the 1970s and 1990s, according to the latest assessment by the scientific committee that advises the federal government on at-risk species. 

Sea otters and injured seals face barriers to release

Baby seals typically spend about four to six weeks with their mothers before they learn to forage on their own. And even during those early weeks, mother seals will leave their babies for extended periods to find food. It’s this natural life history that makes it comparatively easy to rehabilitate baby seals for release.

Sea otters, by contrast, spend six to eight months with their moms, and for much of those early months, mothers cradle their pups on their bellies, briefly wrapping them in kelp to keep them safe while they dive for food. So when a sea otter pup comes into the rescue, it requires around the clock care: feeding every couple hours and frequent grooming. “You’re constantly handling them,” Akhurst said. But the rescue team can’t teach the young otters the survival skills they would have learned from their mothers in the wild, a major hurdle to their release.

There’s a surrogacy program in California where babies are paired with older otters to hopefully learn some of those skills, which can improve their chance of returning to the wild. “It’s a program we’d love to do at one point, but it’s very expensive,” Akhurst said. The rescue is a registered charity and while the Vancouver Aquarium covers a portion of its budget, it relies heavily on grants and other donations as well as a dedicated team of more than 230 volunteers to operate. 

The rescue has a strong track record of rehabilitating seals, but every now and then a seal comes in with injuries so severe, it’s not possible to release them back into the wild. 

Crinkle was admitted to the rescue on July 21 with severe injuries to her face that left her blind. It’s suspected she was shot with plastic birdshot. “When you’re shooting an animal with birdshot pellets, that’s not to kill, that’s to maim — and it’s cruel,” Akhurst said.

Three weeks after she first arrived, the rescue had to surgically remove one of Crinkle’s damaged eyes: it was bulging so much that she couldn’t close her eyelid around it. 

The procedure went well, and a week after her surgery, Akhurst was feeling cautiously optimistic that Crinkle would survive. 

“She’s got a long road ahead,” Akhurst said. “We’re just hoping that she makes it at this point.”

The rescue centre will work with Fisheries and Oceans Canada on a plan for Crinkle’s future, but it’s unlikely she’ll be released back into the wild. More likely she’ll be placed at the aquarium or another accredited facility.

A spokesperson for the federal agency said it could not comment at this time as Crinkle’s case is still under investigation. But Akhurst is confident that most of the other seals recovering at the rescue centre will be released between late August and the end of November.

“They’ve made it through some big hurdles medically and physically,” Akhurst said, so to see them returned to the wild, “it’s always quite exciting.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Lightning causes nearly half of all wildfires in Canada, but what if you could stop the strikes before they hit?

A B.C. company, Skyward Wildfire, is testing cloud-seeding technology it says can prevent “up to 100 per cent of lightning strikes” during periods of high wildfire risk, potentially eliminating lightning-caused fires before they start.

Cloud seeding, a geoengineering technology that relies on dispersing particles into the atmosphere to change weather patterns and cloud behaviour, has been around for decades. Alberta uses it to reduce the potential damage from hail storms, often by spraying silver iodide into storm clouds from the wings of airplanes. The particles cause water to condense, freeze and fall as smaller, harmless hailstones instead of the potentially golf-ball sized ones that can occur naturally, and sometimes cause billions of dollars in damage.

It has also been used to increase precipitation in the U.S., and there are long-standing claims it can be used to suppress wildfires. In 2021, Russia said it was using cloud seeding to trigger rain over enormous wildfires threatening a power plant in Siberia. The same year, research in the peer-reviewed Environmental Science journal claimed China used cloud seeding to trigger rain and reduce air pollution in Beijing. 

But Skyward isn’t claiming the ability to turn the heavens into a giant water bomber. Instead, its website says it uses “government-approved methods” to neutralize the potential electric charge in storm clouds during periods of high fire weather risk, reducing lightning strikes — and the fires they can cause — in the first place.

The company website claims it has partnered with “Canadian Wildfire Services” to test its technology. But wildfire response is organized by provinces, not the federal government, and the company won’t say which provinces it has worked with. In an email, CEO Sam Goldman declined an interview and said he and his staff were not available to comment until the fall. He did not answer questions about the company’s technology, which government agencies it has partnered with or provide information about possible environmental impacts from the use of its technology.

The Alberta Wildfire Service did not respond to The Narwhal’s repeated requests for comment. The B.C. Wildfire Service said in a statement that it is aware of Skyward’s efforts, but has no formal partnership agreement with the company and has not provided any funding. It did not say whether it’s aware of any possible testing in B.C.

Wildfire technology expert Mathieu Bourbonnais, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia Okanagan, said any time weather modification or geoengineering technology is tested or used, the public deserves to know about it.

“We’re talking about fundamentally changing how our weather works when we’re doing these kinds of things. … It’s pretty important that people are aware that it’s happening and why it’s happening,” Bourbonnais said.

Skyward’s website says its technology is “proven safe and effective” and that its “methods and materials are safe and comply with all U.S. and Canadian federal requirements.”

It uses proprietary modelling technology driven by artificial intelligence (AI) to forecast high-risk lightning storms with the potential to spark wildfires, according to its website. It can then “safely neutralize the electrical potential in clouds, using government-approved methods, thus preventing cloud-to-ground lightning strikes over vulnerable areas,” the website says. 

While the term cloud seeding does not appear on Skyward’s website, a March press release announcing the company is a finalist for a $200,000 wildfire innovation prize describes the technology as “cloud seeding with safe, non-toxic materials.”

Can cloud seeding help prevent wildfires?

Throughout the 20th century, two main strategies drove attempts to suppress lightning with cloud seeding. Beginning in the 1950s, a U.S. Forest Service effort called Project Skyfire seeded clouds with silver iodide particles, injected both from aircraft and from cannons positioned on ridge lines and mountain tops. It found cloud seeding with silver iodide nuclei could reduce the frequency of cloud-to-ground lightning strikes by more than 50 per cent, and made strikes that did occur roughly 25 per cent less powerful.

Meanwhile, a 1973 technical report published by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration described tests using “needles” of aluminium-coated glass fibres, a material similar to what’s known as radio frequency chaff, which is commonly deployed by military aircraft to disrupt enemy radar. These tests seemed to confirm elements of the theoretical science behind the idea, but found “a number of questions must be answered before chaff seeding becomes an effective tool for lightning suppression.” In 1976, researchers reported they observed about a third fewer lightning strikes from storms that were seeded with this technique.

Beyond proving that the science was sound, the biggest hurdle these technologies faced, Bourbonnais said, was accurately predicting when and where to deploy it. 

“Identifying which [storm] cells and systems are going to be problematic is incredibly difficult even as a starting point,” Bourbonnais explained. “It kind of got abandoned after a handful of trials and maybe a dozen attempts.”

If Skyward has solved that problem, it could be a game-changer, especially for Canada. Lightning is responsible for around half of all wildfire starts in Canada and an even higher percentage in the west. In B.C. roughly 60 per cent of wildfires are caused by lightning. What’s more, lightning-caused fires are responsible for the lion’s share of area burned; roughly 85 per cent nation-wide.

Given the challenges past technologies faced, Bourbonnais is skeptical of Skyward’s claims it can stop up to 100 per cent of lightning over a given high-risk area.

“I have a hard time believing that’s true,” he said, pointing out that some storm cells during high-risk fire periods are capable of delivering tens of thousands of strikes over a period of hours or days.

A wildfire tech boom

Bourbonnais, who worked as a wildland firefighter for six years, studies how new technologies can be used to help manage wildfire risks. He said there are significant advancements being made in everything from the use of artificial intelligence to improve fire behaviour models to autonomous firefighting drones. One project he helped develop in partnership with the BC Wildfire Service uses remote sensors to automatically detect wildfire risks on the landscape, allowing faster response times and better resource planning. 

Given the severity of recent wildfire seasons, Bourbonnais does see a possible use for cloud seeding to stop lightning, though only with careful guidelines around its use.

Imagine a situation like August 2023. Canada’s wildland firefighting resources were stretched far beyond capacity, even with thousands of firefighters flown in from other countries to help. Multiple communities across B.C. were being hit hard, with hundreds of homes destroyed and another major wind storm on the way. 

A big lightning storm in that scenario could be devastating, Bourbonnais said. That’s when technology like what Skyward says it’s developing could play a significant role. 

But cloud seeding is a controversial technology. Critics caution that using it to trigger precipitation could have unintended consequences. A 2022 article in the peer-reviewed journal Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists warned that rather than creating precipitation, cloud seeding may simply shift rainfall and other weather patterns — and risk — from one place to another.

There are also some concerns about the cumulative impact of spraying cloud seeding materials into the atmosphere. In 2024, conservation groups in Arizona sued the U.S. Air Force for access to records related to a proposed expansion of military training operations. The plans included the use of radio frequency chaff, which the groups said could endanger wildlife, the environment and public health. Research by both the U.S. and Canadian departments of defence determined radio frequency chaff particles are too large to be inhaled, and are distributed at such small concentrations that the risks to humans and animals are minimal.

A review of available data around chaff in military training near Goose Bay, Nfld., produced by Canada’s Department of Defence found the “overwhelming majority of the available data indicate that it is highly unlikely that chaff releases during training exercises will have a significant adverse impact on either ecosystem functioning or human and wildlife health.”

But that might not be the only risk. According to a 2023 report by the U.S. Department of Defense, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (known as PFAS, or “forever chemicals”) are a component of the propellant used to launch aviation chaff into the atmosphere. If not disposed of carefully, PFAS can contaminate air, water and soil for about 1,000 years. Studies have shown exposure can cause reduced seed germination, stunted growth and reduced photosynthetic activity in plants. The chemicals can then bioaccumulate — build up in the organs of living creatures — in the food chain and are implicated in a host of health issues. 

Lightning-caused wildfires have a role in many forest ecosystems

Even if we could eliminate all lightning-caused wildfires, the better question, Bourbonnais says, is should we? “I think fundamentally, it does sort of precipitate this idea that fire is just bad, and that’s not the case.” 

Wildfires are a natural and necessary part of many forest ecosystems. They can help prevent forests from becoming overgrown and help create space for beneficial plants like berries and others that animals rely on. Under the right conditions, wildfires also — paradoxically — help protect communities from larger, more destructive wildfires. Western Canada exists in what Bourbonnais calls a “fire deficit,” a result of aggressively suppressing all fires for almost 100 years, which has left forests unnaturally loaded with fuel.

Continuing to exclude wildfire from our landscapes just compounds the problem. That means every lightning fire we avoid today just kicks the fire debt further down the road. Eventually Mother Nature will come to collect, often with more devastating consequences.

We should instead focus on relearning how to live with fire, Bourbonnais said. This would mean investing more in strategies that are time tested but critically underfunded, like forest thinning to reduce wildfire fuel build-up, prescribed and Indigenous cultural burning and more aggressive firesmarting — removing flammable materials, managing vegetation and using fire-resistant building techniques to reduce wildfire risk — around homes and communities.

Instituting cloud seeding now is “kind of like slapping a Band-Aid on it, saying, ‘Hey, we can’t have lightning fires right now,’ ” he says. “Fair enough. But what are we doing to reduce that risk in the longer term?”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Note: This story discusses mental health and suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, there’s 24/7 phone support available with Talk Suicide Canada: 1-833-456-4566, or text 45645 for help between 4 p.m. and midnight ET. Additional mental health services can be found here. 

In June, as the winds howled through the largest wildfire in British Columbia’s history, 50-foot-tall spruce trees, burnt and blackened from the flames, came crashing down within metres of Rose Velisek.

Velisek, a third-year wildland firefighter with the BC Wildfire Service, was told by a superior to “keep her head up … but keep working, keep hosing down the fire,” so she swallowed her fear and did as she was instructed.

“There’s this sense of pressure and anxiety towards getting the job done,” Velisek says. “It doesn’t matter if your safety is going to be compromised, you still gotta be out there doing it.”

The day left her uneasy — a feeling that would grow over the next two months, as her crew worked 16-hour days on back-to-back deployments on three major wildfires in northern B.C.

It would soon be described as Canada’s worst wildfire season in recent years, a new trend as climate change drives wildfires to be more intense and more frequent. But Western Canada’s wildland firefighters say they’re struggling to cope with another out-of-control inferno: a crisis of burnout and post-traumatic stress syndrome, driven by extreme working conditions, low pay, high turnover and — in Alberta — government cutbacks.

The BC Wildfire Service says it’s working hard to improve the culture of wildfire fighting, to ensure safety is a priority. Meanwhile, firefighters in Alberta say they’re being pushed to new extremes, both by the intensity of the work and the length of their shifts.

The Narwhal spoke with 18 current and former wildland firefighters, who in total have more than 160 seasons of frontline wildfire experience. Many asked to keep their names confidential because they were not authorized to speak to media and feared losing their jobs or contracts. All spoke of the extreme physical and mental toll of the job.

That toll is largely not quantified, according to Nicola Cherry, an occupational epidemiologist and professor in the department of medicine at the University of Alberta. 

“We know very little indeed about what happens to wildland firefighters over many years of working on fires — what effect that has on their long-term health,” she says. “There’s really no data in Canada about the effects.”

An early fire season left governments scrambling, with serious consequences 

The physical and mental challenges of the job first inspired Velisek to take to the line of duty as a wildland firefighter in 2021. The daughter of a logger who used horses instead of heavy machinery, she grew up on her family’s farm in Slocan Valley, B.C., and is “no stranger to hard labour.”

Wildland firefighters often carry more than half their body weight in gear — hose packs, water pumps, chainsaws and Pulaskis — through muskeg and forests and up mountain slopes, where they face intense heat and “eat smoke” to extinguish wildfires.

“You’re pushed to your limits,” Velisek says. But born from the experience, there’s also a “deep sense of camaraderie, almost like a family relationship” that develops among crew members, she adds, which is what pulls many back to the fire line year after year.

Yet when fires exploded in Western Canada this May, B.C. and Alberta wildfire services scrambled to find enough firefighters, equipment and gear. 

Alberta Wildfire said it “exhausted all resources” before importing 4,000 firefighters from seven countries, including the U.S., Mexico, South Africa and New Zealand, to aid in the efforts.

BC Wildfire needed more than 3,000 firefighters from around the world, almost twice its usual workforce.

“They were ill-prepared,” Velisek says. “A lot of us felt that way. They should have that awareness by now that seasons are going to be incredibly busy, longer and things are going to get worse.”

Given these challenges, Velisek and many others felt an impending sense of dread.

“I felt so unprepared because the fire season usually starts in June — the fire season hadn’t even peaked yet,” she says.

Velisek’s crew was working on the Stoddart Creek fire northwest of Fort St. John, B.C., when it got the call about being relocated farther north to the Donnie Creek Fire, which would become the largest fire ever recorded in the province. The crew implemented a back-burn that evening on the Stoddart — a technique that creates a belt fire has difficulty crossing — and raced to get ready to depart the following morning. “I think most of us got only four hours of sleep,” she recalls. “Everyone was a bit delirious.” 

En route to the fire camp, thick, smoke-infused fog rolled across the highway and the crew, convoying in separate vehicles, crashed in a three-truck pile up. Velisek was airlifted to Fort St. John where doctors told her she had a concussion and whiplash. She was given two weeks off to rest, but decided to rush back, she says, anxious to help her crew.

The injury wore on Velisek and the fires didn’t let up. By early July, the crew was pulling 16-hour shifts and arriving back at camp at midnight.

“It felt like we’re treated like machines instead of human beings,” she says. 

Then, in July, Velisek received the devastating news that Devyn Gale, a 19-year-old firefighter from Revelstoke, B.C., had been killed by a falling tree. The news hammered home the risks she’d seen firsthand, including when those burned spruce trees had fallen so close to her just weeks before.

Days later, 25-year-old Adam Yeadon, a wildland firefighter from the Northwest Territories, was fatally struck by a tree near his community of Fort Liard. Then came word that 41-year old Ryan Gould, a helicopter pilot, crashed while fighting a fire in northwestern Alberta. In late July, 25-year-old Zak Muise, a firefighter from Ontario, was killed when his all-terrain vehicle rolled off a steep drop near the Donnie Creek fire. 

Four of Velisek’s peers had died within the span of two weeks. “I remembered thinking, if this isn’t a wake up call to BC Wildfire, I don’t know what is,” she says.

On Sept. 20, tragedy struck again, when four contract firefighters were killed in a head-on collision with a transport truck on their way home from a deployment near Vanderhoof, B.C. In a statement, RCMP said investigators believe the collision occurred near Cache Creek at about 2 a.m., after a Ford F-350 failed to navigate a bend in the road and crossed the centre line.

B.C. Premier David Eby and Bruce Ralston, minister of forests, released a joint statement the morning after the deaths.

“Our hearts are broken by news of the death of four wildfire fighters who were travelling home after a tour of duty,” the statement read. “This is devastating news in what has been an immensely difficult wildfire season. We stand with wildfire fighters and all BC Wildfire Service personnel as they mourn the death of colleagues and co-workers yet again.”

‘They’re kids’: high turnover leads to inexperienced wildfire fighters on the frontlines

In September, the union representing B.C. wildland firefighters published an open letter calling on the provincial government to address the “crisis” causing significant safety risks on the fireline. “[Wildland firefighters] are putting their lives on the line to protect our communities from devastating fires,” the letter reads. “But they are doing it for the low wage of around $26 to $29 per hour.”

Wildland firefighters whom The Narwhal spoke with said it time and time again: high turnover contributes to a lack of experience, pushing crews into increasingly dangerous situations. This ratchets up the risk: veteran firefighters say less-experienced crews require closer supervision, which in turn drives fatigue and burnout, increasing the risks of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among both veteran and rookie firefighters. 

BC Wildfire says it had 1,350 crew-level firefighters this year, roughly 25 per cent of which were new hires. The service says an average of 217 people have chosen not to come back to their jobs each year for the past seven years (which includes the four worst fire seasons on record). This year there were 339 new firefighters hired from a pool of 836 applicants. In recent years, annual applications have hovered around 1,000, the service says, a decline from the late 1990s and early 2000s.

In December 2022, firefighter recruitment, training and turnover landed on BC Forestry Minister Bruce Ralston’s desk, with his mandate letter from Premier David Eby highlighting the issue as a priority for improvement.

“Over the remaining period of this mandate I expect you to prioritize making progress on … options to improve training, retention and recruitment in BC Wildfire Service,” Eby wrote.

The service is dealing with the impact of a tight labour market, David Greer, director of strategic engagement with BC Wildfire, says. Layer on the impacts of longer, more extreme fire seasons, and the job becomes one that fewer and fewer people want to do, he adds.

While sources say Alberta is facing a similar recruitment crisis, Melissa Story, community relations co-ordinator with Alberta Wildfire, told The Narwhal the annual retention rate for firefighters in Alberta is “roughly 70 per cent” and the average firefighter has 3.5 years of experience on the frontlines. 

“Obviously, we would like to see that number be higher, but it’s pretty sufficient for what we see here in the province,” Story says.

However, veteran firefighters The Narwhal spoke with throughout the summer describe turnover on some frontline crews in both Alberta and B.C. approaching 50 per cent or higher. 

“I’m dealing with an army of rookies,” a crew leader who’s worked eight seasons with BC Wildfire told The Narwhal. “They’re kids. They’re not ready for this.”

Lack of supports leads to burnout and high turnover

As wildfire crews face unprecedented pressures, a larger crisis looms: climate change is making fires more frequent and more intense, and the nature of the work itself harder. 

“Wildland firefighting is a grind,” Harold Larson, a former wildland firefighter who fought more than 300 wildfires in his 20-year career in Alberta, B.C. and Australia, tells The Narwhal. “You’re wearing yourself down physically, but also mentally because you’re trying to fight this giant opponent that doesn’t seem to stop.”

In 2016, the year a wildfire destroyed a large portion of Fort McMurray, Alta., Larson and his crew worked 16-hour days for 52 days out of 57. At the end of one 15-day shift in that stretch, his supervisor told him they’d been extended to work another nine days, without a break. Larson refused, citing crew exhaustion, which poses serious risks. 

“Pushing a crew that’s already run down is only going to lead to disaster,” he says.

Larson has witnessed huge losses over his career as a wildland firefighter. In 2009, he was in Australia on the frontlines of the deadly Black Saturday bushfires that killed 173 people and burned more than 2,000 homes.

“It was a very scary and life-altering moment for me,” he says. “I wish at that time there was a debriefing system in place, but it was just, ‘go home, get eight hours of sleep and get back to work the next day.’ No one really talked about it, so it was something I had to push away for years.”

Like many wildland firefighters, Larson left BC Wildfire in 2019 to work for a municipal fire department that offered better pay, a more robust pension, a stable work schedule and better health benefits, in particular, mental health support. 

Through counselling services offered by his new job, Larson began to unpack the accumulated trauma from 20 years as a wildland firefighter. He realized that he couldn’t spend time hiking or camping without his mind immediately searching for escape routes or wondering “what is this going to look like when it burns?”

Mental health services for wildland firefighters should be a priority, not only to address specific traumatic incidents, but also to address cumulative fatigue and trauma, he says. So should ensuring people get adequate rest between shifts.

“What would have kept me, to make it a career, is benefits, a pension and sick days,” Larson says. “I didn’t leave wildfire because I didn’t like it. I left it because I wanted a different life.”

Mental health toll ranges from PTSD to suicide 

Over his 20-year career, Larson has lost four colleagues related to wildfire. While one of those deaths occurred directly on the fireline, two were a result of suicide and another was related to substance abuse.

Preliminary research in the U.S. found wildland firefighters face higher rates of substance use and suicide than the general population.

There’s no data on the link between wildland firefighters and suicide in Canada, but veteran wildland firefighters have seen firsthand the link between the stress of the job and suicide.

Joe Gilchrist, an Indigenous fire specialist, started his firefighting career when he was 15 and worked for 17 years with BC Wildfire. He points to the prevalence of accumulated fatigue syndrome. On the line, crews must be hyper vigilant of weather, fire behaviour, dangerous trees and exit routes. Even when they’re not working, crews are on standby, constantly checking their devices and waiting to get called back out.

“That alert level is really hard, after many days and nights of fighting fires,” Gilchrist says. “It gets to you over a long time, especially if you don’t get the proper rest for the winter — and it continues as the years go on.”

When the fire season wraps up, it can be difficult for wildland firefighters — working seasonal contracts of four-to-eight months — to transition back into society, Larson says.

“Being in an environment that is dangerous, it kind of becomes your new normal,” he says. “When you get into your off season, there’s nothing out there that’s giving you that sense of adrenaline like it is on the fireline. It can be a very hard thing to adjust when you get back into the real world.”

Quantitative research emerging from the U.S. found the prevalence of probable post-traumatic stress disorder for wildland firefighters is 14 per cent, four times greater than for the general population. The same research found less than 50 per cent of those experiencing symptoms had actually been diagnosed — suggesting post-traumatic stress disorder remains under-detected among wildland firefighters.

Tiffany Traverse, who worked eight seasons with BC Wildfire, describes the yearly fire cycle as a “meat grinder.” She resigned after the 2022 season — burnt out, exhausted and grappling with complex post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Even now, I see a storm system coming in, or smoke, and instantly it all comes rushing back,” she says. “I think it’s going to take years for that to disappear.”

BC Wildfire acknowledges challenges, Alberta continues to push firefighters

Greer, of BC Wildfire, says a cultural shift is needed to ensure firefighters are comfortable pointing out dangerous situations and are better supported in finding solutions.

“When I hear that someone feels unsafe in a zone, I need them to speak up at that time, and I need someone to listen to them when they speak up,” Greer says.

He says the service expanded the size of unit crews from 20 to 22, and initial attack crews from three to four, in part to allow more flexibility when people need to take time off.

The BC Wildfire Service is also working to become a year-round “all-hazards” response service, meaning more than 700 jobs are now year-round, with permanent benefits and pensions. 

Greer says he’s clear-eyed about the road ahead and is working on developing new systems to ensure firefighters see a safe future. 

“Yes, there’s challenges, but we’re not driving blind here.”

Greer says starting this fall, seasonal BC Wildfire staff will have year-round access to the same employee and family assistance programs as full-time employees, which includes emergency support, a mental health crisis phone line, counselling services, family support services and financial and legal advice.

Several firefighters The Narwhal spoke with referenced other work the BC Wildfire Service has done to address challenges, including providing some health benefits, shorter shifts, sick days, a mental health awareness training program called ‘Resilient Minds’ and recall rights, meaning seniority for seasonal firefighters when crews are chosen for future seasons. Many said BC Wildfire — while far from perfect — provides more support than Alberta Wildfire.

In Alberta, crews were pushed to work 24-day shifts this year. 

“Ideally, we would love to see our deployments only be 18-day stretches,” Story, from Alberta Wildfire, says. “Unfortunately, sometimes they have to go on a touch longer.”

Firefighters in Alberta also lack recall rights, health benefits and sick days. And they face shorter contracts due to budget cuts. 

“We recognize that this has been a very unprecedented season and wildland firefighters can face issues ranging from trauma, isolation, lack of social support as well as physical and emotional exhaustion,” Story says. 

Alberta Wildfire provides firefighters with mental health debriefing support for specific traumatic events as well as counselling services through a family assistance program, but these services are not available after their contracts are terminated at the end of every fire season.

“Anytime we have unprecedented fire seasons, we go through a seasonal review,” Story says. “We’re always looking to learn and grow and make enhancements to the welfare management program.”

‘Dealing with hell’: as wildfires intensify, firefighters want reforms 

Many of the firefighters The Narwhal spoke with say their concerns often go unheeded, despite efforts to provide constructive feedback to management. 

Some described a perceived disconnect between expectations from management and the realities of fighting fires on the ground, particularly in the face of climate change.

Many superiors cut their teeth at a time when fires were less intense, an eighth-year BC Wildfire firefighter says. “They’ll say ‘Oh, I fought fire for 40 years.’ But if you haven’t fought fire on the ground since 2017, you don’t know what we’re dealing with,” they added.

“We’re dealing with hell.”

Greer disputes the assertion that BC Wildfire leadership isn’t listening to its firefighters.

“We are listening to our crews. We have been out on the line talking to them,” Greer said in an email, adding that many of the concerns highlighted by The Narwhal are not reflective of what he hears when he talks to crews on the ground.

But as climate change continues to fuel bigger, hotter, more dangerous wildfires on the landscape, firefighters like Traverse wonder what it will take to implement real changes to better support those on the frontlines of the crisis.

“It just constantly feels like it’s the crews and employees who are basically picking up the slack of poor practices, planning and old policy that people haven’t looked at in 20 years,” Traverse, who has also worked as an operations officer, says. “What’s the point in doing an after-action report if no one’s going to do anything with that information?”

“Do we have to have more people die by suicide or by getting burnt over? I don’t know what it’s going to take,” Traverse says.

She hopes speaking out will bring awareness to the lack of support for voicing mental health concerns: often, she says, the cultural response is “toughen up” or “be a man.”

A similar sentiment — “stay hard, do the job” — prompted Velisek to take a step back.

“It got on my nerves because you can’t stay hard,” she says. “You have to break down every once in a while because something is too hard.”

By July, Velisek was physically and mentally exhausted, so she did what many others have contemplated: she quit.

“Maybe it was the trauma from the incidents, but I no longer felt safe being out there,” she says.

Updated Sept. 20, 2023, at 3:00 p.m. PT: This story was updated when The Narwhal learned four firefighters died in a collision on their way home from a deployment near Vanderhoof, B.C.Updated Sept. 20, 2023, at 5:02 p.m. PT: This piece has been updated to correct a reference to qualitative research that was in fact quantitative. A previous version of this article reported that research out of the U.S. found 14 per cent of wildland firefighters experience post-traumatic stress disorder, four times greater than the general population. But in fact the research found the prevalence of probable post-traumatic stress disorder for wildland firefighters is 14 per cent, four times greater than for the general population.

Updated Sept, 26, 2023, at 2:56 p.m. PT: A previous photo caption described B.C. crews working 16-day shifts all summer. While we heard from firefighters who say their crews were pushed to work some 16-day stretches, a standard deployment for B.C. wildfire workers is 14 days. The caption has therefore been updated.

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Al Ritchie has been a firefighter for nearly a decade. He actually quit for a while, and went into private business with a buddy. But now he’s back, working for the Princeton Sierras’ Unit Crew.

“I missed it too much,” he says, as he carefully hones the teeth on his chainsaw blade after a day on the fireline south of Vanderhoof, B.C. 

The Sierras are one of the BC Wildfire Service’s rare live-on-base unit crews. That means for most of the summer, the team of 20 firefighters live and work together nearly 24 hours a day for weeks on end. They’re often tasked with holding the line against fires that have grown too large for the more nimble initial attack teams. It’s dirty, difficult and often unglamorous work, but the bonds they form are nearly as tight as their carefully-rolled shirt sleeves.

As one of the Sierras tree fallers, Ritchie specializes in assessing and cutting down dangerous trees to allow other members of the crew safe access to work areas. Even more than flames, falling trees are one of the biggest risks crews face: two Canadian firefighters have been killed this year by tree strikes.

As B.C. faces its worst wildfire season ever — and the worst in Canada — crews like the Sierras are being tested like almost never before. Resources are stretched thin, and thousands of firefighters have been called in from around the world. The Canadian military has been called out to help.

Last year at this time, crew member Connor Clouston says, the Sierras were just rolling out on their first fire. This year they’ve already seen four deployments, including to Alberta, and are expecting to see seven or eight before the season is over.

In mid-July on the Bulkley Nechako fire complex near Vanderhoof, there were firefighters from at least four different nations: the BC Wildfire Service crews, as well as firefighters from Mexico, Australia and both hotshots and smokejumpers from the U.S.

Backed up by contract firefighters, heavy equipment operators, helicopters, air tankers and a buzzing operations and logistics centre, the battle against the Bulkley Nechako fires is just one small front in a much larger campaign across the province. And at only mid-July, there is still plenty of fire season left to go.

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The snarl of chainsaws was replaced by the dull whomp of rotor blades as an RCMP helicopter circled overhead.

Activists craned their necks, pointing cell phones at the hovering aircraft. Some of them waved. The flyover this past Thursday was the first real action in days; the first sign of police presence at the newest old-growth logging blockade on southern Vancouver Island.

Across a swath of land between Lake Cowichan and Port Renfrew known as Tree Farm Licence 46, roughly 200 people have been digging in for an expected showdown with police. 

“We’re here to defend the last tracts of old-growth rainforest left in the province,” said Hilary Duinker, who came from Lasqueti Island to be at a blockade to prevent access to the Caycuse watershed adjacent to Fairy Creek.

An injunction was granted on April 1, authorizing the removal of anyone obstructing logging crews’ access to the cutblocks and worksites of Teal Cedar, a subsidiary of Teal-Jones Group.

Since the injunction, public support for the effort has swelled, with hundreds of individuals arriving to face arrest at a growing number of blockades near cutblocks in the area.

After an initial flurry of activity with the new arrivals, life at the blockades has settled into a steady rhythm: the blockaders rise before dawn and prepare for police to arrive. They sit for hours in tense vigilance before a car horn eventually blares the all-clear signal for the day. They make dinner, go to sleep, rinse and repeat. 

Since the injunction was granted, the police have shown little sign of themselves on the ground.

An RCMP helicopter performs aerial surveillance over the Fairy Creek blockade near Port Renfrew, B.C. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

In a response to questions from The Narwhal, RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Chris Manseau confirmed police are monitoring the situation “from the ground and air” and are “focused on facilitating dialogue between the two parties.”

“Our main priority is to maintain the safety of everyone, which includes protesters, company employees, police and the general public,” Manseau said.

The Fairy Creek watershed lies in the territory of the Pacheedaht First Nation. A statement released Monday afternoon by Pacheedaht Hereditary Chief Frank Queesto Jones and Pacheedaht Chief Councillor Jeff Jones says the nation is working on a plan that will identify areas for conservation.

“To provide our community with the time necessary to develop our Stewardship Plan, we have secured commitments from tenure holders and the government of British Columbia to suspend and defer third-party forestry activities within specific areas identified by the Pacheedaht,” the statement reads.

Chief Jones and councillor Jones also addressed the blockade on Pacheedaht territory.

“All parties need to respect that it is up to Pacheedaht people to determine how our forestry resources will be used. We do not welcome or support unsolicited involvement or interference by others in our Territory, including third-party activism.”

I've had many conversations with constituents regarding the controversy surrounding #FairyCreek in Pacheedaht territory on southern Vancouver Island. Here is a letter released today from Pacheedaht Heriditary Chief Frank Jones & elected chief Jeff Jones. #bcpoli pic.twitter.com/LEElhqRPZE

— Nathan Cullen (@nathancullen) April 12, 2021

The Narwhal reached out to the Pacheedaht First Nation, as well as the Ditidaht First Nation, in whose territory the Caycuse watershed falls, but has not yet received comment.

Numerous encampments have sprung up as offshoots of the original Fairy Creek blockade, including an information headquarters off Pacific Marine Road and sites located at River Camp, Eden Camp and Camper Creek Camp — all designed to prevent fellers from accessing rugged logging roads and Teal-Jones cutblocks.

A map shows the locations and driving directions to various logging road blockades on southern Vancouver Island. Since an injunction was granted against the protesters, more people have flocked to the area to join blockades and face potential arrest. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

As the RCMP helicopter departed last Thursday, the chainsaws started up again — not to bring down ancient trees, but to build defences to help protect them, the blockaders explained. In recent weeks activists have built giant kitchen tents, blockade fortifications and an outhouse made of discarded old-growth cedar.

The movement, first started nearly nine months ago by 12 people seeking to stop road construction and logging in the headwaters of the nearby Fairy Creek watershed, has grown recently as people pour in from across Vancouver Island.

While many assumed the Fairy Creek blockade headquarters, known as River Camp, would be the first battleground, activists discovered tree falling crews at work cutting old-growth in the nearby Caycuse watershed; another blockade was set up in that area.

Mobilizing late at night after logging crews had left, about a dozen activists occupied a key bridge that crosses the Caycuse River. They have been holding the bridge for more than a week as their numbers have grown, steadily improving their camp and building defences, including a gate.

A logging crew made up of local contractors returned twice to the area over the last week hoping to gain access to the cutblock, only to be turned back.

The total number of blockaders in the forest is hard to pin down. In the days after the injunction was announced, their ranks swelled significantly, including forestry workers, scientists, students and children as young as 12 asking what the process of being arrested might be like.

A blockader supervises and mentors kids who have come up to visit the encampments. Among other activities, the visiting kids helped the activists build a wooden gate at the Caycuse camp. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Members of a group of blockaders calling themselves the Rainforest Flying Squad stay warm around a fire in the early morning after setting up a new blockade in the Caycuse watershed. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Blockaders gather around a fire for an evening meeting. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Blockaders gather to discuss impending police enforcement of an injunction against the blockades. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

B.C. promised ‘paradigm shift’ for old-growth management

In September, the government released a long-awaited old-growth strategic review, which it touted as a “paradigm shift” for how B.C. manages its old-growth. The report provided recommendations for updating an old-growth management strategy that was written more than three decades ago, but was never meaningfully acted upon.

Citing the “high risk to loss of biodiversity,” and “widespread lack of confidence in the system of managing forests,” the strategic review’s authors made 14 recommendations, including immediately deferring all old-growth logging in at-risk ecosystems. John Horgan’s government accepted all 14 recommendations.

The strategic review was led by two foresters, Al Gorley and Garry Merkel, who recommended immediately deferring development in old forests “where ecosystems are at very high and near-term risk of irreversible biodiversity loss.” 

In response, B.C. launched temporary old-growth logging deferrals for two years in nine areas, announcing 353,000 hectares of old-growth were “protected.” 

But as The Narwhal previously reported, subsequent mapping by Veridian Ecological Consulting revealed that much of the deferral areas contained no forest, had already been logged or were already under some sort of protection.

Read more: B.C. old-growth data ‘misleading’ public on remaining ancient forest: independent report

In response to questions about the injunction and ongoing blockades, B.C. forestry minister Katrine Conroy said in a statement: “We want to make sure people can appreciate old-growth trees for years to come, while supporting a sustainable forest sector for workers and communities.”

Many old-growth advocates hoped that, based on the review panel’s recommendations, more would be done to protect B.C.’s last remaining ancient forests. But more than seven months since the report was issued, Wilderness Committee national campaign director Torrance Coste said it’s clear the government has not acted on much of its commitments.

“They haven’t addressed the most time-sensitive of the recommendations, which is the deferrals in at-risk ecosystems,” Coste said. “If they had, there’d be no need for these blockades.”

A famed, solitary old-growth Douglas fir named Lonely Doug stands in a clear cut not far from the Fairy Creek and Caycuse watersheds. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

An old-growth stump remains in an old clearcut in the Caycuse watershed. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

On Monday, the David Suzuki Foundation added its voice to calls for wider logging deferrals and a shift away from cutting old-growth.

“We’re not opposed to all logging, but the frustration expressed in recent protests and blockades is understandable,” said the foundation’s Western Canada director general Jay Ritchlin. “It’s well past time to stop cutting old-growth and shift to second- and third-growth to support a sustainable forest economy.”

The forestry ministry did not respond to The Narwhal’s questions about logging deferrals or about areas the province says it has already protected.

Logging equipment sits quiet in a freshly cut block of the Caycuse watershed. Blockaders have prevented logging crews from accessing their equipment in active cutblocks. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

A blockader counts the rings in a recently cut old-growth cedar tree above the Caycuse watershed. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

In response to questions the ministry provided Minister Conroy’s previous statement to media, in which she states, “We know that some are calling for an immediate moratorium, but this approach risks thousands of good family-supporting jobs.”

“We know others have called for no changes to logging practices, but this could risk damage to key ecosystems.”

The Veridian Consulting mapping also casts doubt on how much old-growth forest the province says is actually left.

The latest government reports say there are just over 13 million hectares of total primary forests still standing that are considered very old or ancient. Rachel Holt, who holds a PhD in forest ecology and is one of the Veridian report’s authors, said she and her colleagues agree with B.C.’s 13-million figure but added, “the vast majority of that — about 80 per cent — consists of small or very small trees.”

Holt, who was previously vice-chair the B.C. Forest Practices Board, said some areas covered by the government’s 13-million-hectare figure are at elevations so high that they are little more than rock and ice — not the kind of high-value, living-room-sized trees most people think of when they hear the term old-growth, she said.

Old-growth trees poke through the fog near the Caycuse blockade. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

A blockader surveys freshly fallen snow in the early morning at the Caycuse blockade. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Only roughly three per cent of B.C.’s forests have the necessary conditions to support such giant trees, she explained. Of that total area, about 2.7 per cent is left standing, she said.

Holt says the government’s statements about ensuring people can continue to “appreciate” old-growth trees misses key points about the importance of these forests, especially for maintaining biodiversity and helping sequester carbon.

“We’re in the midst of a biodiversity crisis, and a climate crisis,” Holt said.

“But we’ve never had a biodiversity strategy that said ‘keep the most important forest,’ ” she said. “We’ve always had a biodiversity strategy that said keep the forest where it doesn’t impact timber supply.”

The situation is now so dire, Holt said, that the moratorium the activists demand is needed in order to put a pause on logging and allow some breathing room to figure out a new way forward.

“If we don’t stop cutting it now, we will talk and log our way to it all being gone,” she said.

A blockader takes notes during a meeting at the Caycuse encampment. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Only an estimated three per cent of old-growth forest remains in B.C. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

‘I have nothing against the loggers’

Logging company Teal-Jones Group says its plans for cutting in Fairy Creek have been mischaracterized, and the trees it wants to cut are critical for supporting hundreds of jobs.

“Most of Fairy Creek is a protected forest reserve or unstable terrain and not available for harvesting,” company vice-president Gerrie Kotze said in a statement.

The company’s planned cut is a small area at the head of the watershed. Teal-Jones will harvest the trees with care “and mill every log we cut right here in B.C.,” Kotze said.

But sitting next to a campfire at the Caycuse blockade checkpoint, Duinker said the blockaders’ fight isn’t with the logging crews or even Teal-Jones itself. It’s with the B.C. government.

“I have nothing against the loggers,” Duinker said. “I live in a wood house. I burn wood for heat. They’re just trying to make a living, and I respect that.”

“The problem is with the government,” added fellow blockader Shoshanah Waxman. “It says right there in the strategic review that if they had only followed their own plans 30 years ago we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“I’m here because my life depends on the viability of the ecosystems that sustain me,” she said.

Updated April 12, 2021, at 5:51 p.m. PT: This story has been updated to include comments issued in a statement by Pacheedaht Hereditary Chief Frank Queesto Jones and Pacheedaht Chief Councillor Jeff Jones.

Updated April 13, 2021, at 8:54 a.m. PT: This story was updated to clarify Rachel Holt was previously the vice-chair of the Forest Practices Board and not the chair as previously reported.

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This story is published courtesy of the Guardian as part of the ongoing series This Land is Your Land.

Hundreds of activists are digging in at logging road blockades across a swath of southern Vancouver Island, vowing to stay as long as it takes to pressure the provincial government to immediately halt cutting of what they say is the last 3 per cent of giant old-growth trees left in the province.

The situation echoes the 1993 “war in the woods” in nearby Clayoquot Sound, which saw nearly 1,000 people arrested at similar logging blockades in the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history.

Tensions are rising. Just this weekend, the activists stopped a team of old-growth tree cutters — called fallers — from entering a logging area in the Caycuse watershed.

“You know this is illegal?” said Trevor Simpson, a logger, who told the Guardian he’s been a faller contractor for 29 years and relies on cutting old-growth trees. “This is my livelihood at stake.”

A blockader named Owen, one of about two dozen on the scene, told the loggers through the window of their pickup truck: “The fact is, if we want our planet to be sustainable, we have to protect these ecosystems.”

Another logger said: “We have to work. Are they [the blockaders] going to pay our wages today? If we don’t work, we don’t get paid.”

Blockaders are presented with an injunction, signed by a B.C. court on April 1, 2021. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Contractor Trevor Simpson was denied access to a cut block by blockaders. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

The blockaders refused to let Simpson’s team pass, and eventually the frustrated crew left. They returned on Tuesday to hand-deliver a court injunction ordering the blockades taken down and setting the stage for arrests. Similar scenes are playing out at strategic blockades across the area.

After the loggers left the Caycuse blockade, activists went to work building fortifications, a giant kitchen tent, and even an outhouse made entirely of discarded old-growth cedar.

The movement started more than eight months ago, when an impromptu blockade of 12 people sprang up to stop road building into the headwaters of the Fairy Creek watershed, one of the last untouched watersheds in the region.

Read more: The Fairy Creek blockaders: inside the complicated fight for B.C.’s last ancient forests

But what started as a campaign to stop logging in a single watershed has grown thanks to widespread frustration with the British Columbia government’s broader approach to old-growth logging.

Activists and forestry experts say a tiny fraction of the province’s giant old-growth trees are left standing, and an immediate moratorium on cutting them is needed. Meanwhile, forestry companies and the government say the cut must continue in order to protect jobs in an industry that has experienced steep job losses and mill closures in recent years.

Hundreds of blockaders with a group calling themselves the Rainforest Flying Squad are camped out at several locations to prevent contractors from accessing logging roads. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

The logging company Teal-Jones Group says its plans for cutting in Fairy Creek have been mischaracterized, and the trees it wants to cut are critical for supporting hundreds of jobs.

“Most of Fairy Creek is a protected forest reserve or unstable terrain and not available for harvesting,” said Gerrie Kotze, the company’s vice-president.

Kotze said Teal-Jones’ planned cut was a small area at the head of the watershed. The company would harvest the trees with care “and mill every log we cut right here in B.C.,” he said.

The government is caught between its election promises to protect old-growth forests and what it says is an undue risk to jobs in the forestry industry.

“We want to make sure people can appreciate old-growth trees for years to come, while supporting a sustainable forest sector for workers and communities,” said the forestry minister, Katrine Conroy, in a statement.

Old-growth forest in Avatar Grove, a protected area near the Fairy Creek watershed. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

In September, the government released a long-awaited old-growth strategic review. Citing the “high risk to loss of biodiversity” and “widespread lack of confidence in the system of managing forests,” the report’s authors made 14 recommendations, including immediately deferring all old-growth logging in at-risk ecosystems, all of which were accepted by government.

But critics say after more than six months, the government is not moving fast enough while chainsaws continue to snarl and ancient trees continue to fall.

Rachel Holt, an independent ecologist, argues that the government is drastically overstating how much giant old-growth still exists. The latest government reports say just over 13 million hectares of total primary forest considered very old, or ancient, is still standing. Holt and her colleagues agree.

“But the vast majority of that — about 80 per cent — consists of small or very small trees,” Holt said.

Giant, ancient trees are the bones of coastal temperate rainforests. Whole ecosystems can reside within their vast, moss-covered branches. To think of them as just pretty things to look at missed the point, Holt said.

Kids learn how to rig a rope and pulley system from one of the blockaders. The kids came out with their families to visit the Caycyse blockade on April 8. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

A blockader helps build a camp structure at the Fairy Creek encampment. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

The new blockades are international. On his computer in Washington state, 17-year-old Joshua Wright has followed the developments closely. Despite working remotely, the young film-maker is a key organizer with the movement, which calls itself the Rainforest Flying Squad.

Wright, who spent time on Vancouver Island as a child, said it took seeing the situation in the U.S. to realize how rare B.C.’s remaining old growth is.

“If we don’t stop logging now, in three to five years there’s not going to be any old-growth left,” said Wright.

Updated April 9, 2021, at 11:35 p.m. PT: This article was updated to clarify that Joshua Wright spent time on Vancouver Island as a child but did not grow up on the island as previously stated. 

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