Play with this; use the image as a prompt. This tree is located on an island in the archipelago Barkley Sound, The islands are part of a national park in British Columbia in Canada.
What stories she could tell! Set a timer for ten or fifteen minutes and freewrite and see where it takes you. Then consider what you have just made. Is it for just for fun, or does it feel it needs development? Does it welcome a form?
Rules of the freewrite, after Natalie Goldberg, from Writing Down the Bones; keep your hand moving, don’t stop or cross out, don’t worry about spelling or grammar. Don’t think, just write, follow the words, just see what comes.
Image by Matt Jackisch who says,
“On a tiny island West of Vancouver Island exists this giant cedar tree. I had heard the myths and legends and followed a trail of broken hints in a kayak to find it. I’ve visited several times now and really loved the low hanging light in the forest this day.”
Have fun with the process of writing. once you have finish your freewrite be curious about what you have made. Not all writing is for submission or publication, sometimes it’s enough to exercise that writing muscle. You may feel you wish to develop the piece or take it in a different direction, if so you may want to consider this additional information.
Close to Barkley Sound on Vancouver Island a courageous struggle has been taking place on indigenous land to stop logging of similar old growth trees.
Image by Jesse Winter/ The Guardian
Contractors and police have been vicious in their treatment of people that want to save trees such as this. The largest protest has been at Fairy Creek. Last year a protester commented,
“We’re now at the point where River Camp, which has been occupied for the better part of seven months … has now been aggressively cleared out and there is machinery waiting at the bottom of the hill to cut down thousand-year-old trees,” said Luke Wallace
The action is organised by the Fairy Creek Blockade, “a volunteer driven, grassroots, non-violent direct action movement,” committed to protecting the last stands of globally significant ancient temperate rainforest on Vancouver Island.
https://laststandforforests.com/
Last September it was reported, “With 882 arrests so far, the old-growth logging protest at Fairy Creek has now surpassed Clayoquot Sound as the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history, according to B.C. Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau.” As of February this year more than 1100 people had been arrested and charged.
The struggle against Teal Cedar Ltd continues, on the land and in the courts. This video contains some inaccurate information about the protest, which has been nonviolent throughout, but gives some idea of the scope of the issue.
A blog post by Anne Enith Cooper
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