Grief, Hope, and the Call to Protect Forests

October 15, 2024

It is hard to describe the feeling of reverence we felt while being guided through a beautiful estuary at a Kwagu’ł village site, feasting on tsagał (thimbleberries) and tsalxw (crab apple), learning true names and histories from the people who have called this place home since time immemorial. That was just one experience of being guests at a truly inspiring gathering, one that left us feeling renewed and energized – while also opening us up to real, transformative grief.

As the head of Awi’nakola, Yakawilas Coreen Child, explained to us about our presence on her land: “This is an open invitation to come out to the land to experience healing together; the ability to witness those natural laws together; and to imprint in our own heart and mind what we’re going to commit to our work.”

The annual Tree of Life gathering brings together people with big hearts at the confluence of Indigenous knowledge, scientific research, the arts and transformation. This year‘s gathering left us feeling radical hope amidst cascading global crises and injustice. 

We spent a week learning from and building power with local knowledge holders and leadership on Kwagu’ł territory, other First Nation teachers and land defenders from Haida to Tŝilhqot’in, forest ecologists and wildlife biologists, digital media artists, composers, storytellers, body workers, and so many more. We took part in presentations, roundtable discussions, movement and sound workshops, learning about everything from soil carbon to art installations to histories of resistance. We walked through clearcuts and old growth stands, peering into deep dark earth and thick mycelium networks that reflected our own efforts at connecting with each other to imagine and build something better. And we listened to the Awi’nakola team speak about their collaborative visions within a 500 year plan to begin to heal the land and people – a testament to it being Indigenous led.  

The gathering closed with a Sała, a traditional mourning ceremony that was unique: rather than being held for a particular person, it was held for the forest and all life forms that depend on it in Kwagu’ł territory, which has been ravaged by colonialism and industrial logging. 

We spent the day before in the T’sakis (Fort Rupert) big house – with words, songs and dances riveting from wall to wall. The crackles of the fire grounded us as we watched the smoke swirl in the light pouring down from the opening in the ceiling. 

In that space, Ma’amtagila chief Makwala Rande Cook prepared us with these words, “We mourn in our culture to honour our ancestors. We mourn to honour our loved ones. And it’s a process of grievance – it’s a process that we have to go through. But we’ve never been able to stop and mourn for our forests. We’ve never been able to stop and mourn for our resources – all of the things that have been taken away from us…

We’re at the brink of losing our language, but now we have language revitalization programs. We were at the brink of losing our songs and dances, but we had elders who stood strong to teach us those songs and dances and now our big houses are thriving. Now we have to get out of the big houses and onto the land to do the same work for our forests, for our rivers and for our oceans so that those will thrive too.” 

The next morning, we gathered on a logging road surrounded by a clearcut — bleached stumps marked the places of ancient trees that had been stolen from the land; so many plant beings left there just to be scorched on what was once a rich forest floor teeming with life; a bear den in an old cedar tree just in front of us – once hidden to keep a family safe, now exposed; the homelands of many creatures eradicated in mere hours, after years of creation. We’d been in similar settings many times across this province to document the destruction of industry and government. We always had a felt sense that we were walking through a graveyard of unnatural death – of colonial violence. Our bodies recognized this viscerally, but until now, we hadn’t been in a space to process all the loss of the land and communities that have stewarded these forests for millenia. 

“We have a ban that’s been put on our culture to stop us from potlatching. To stop us from speaking our language and practicing our ways. To stop us from connecting. To stop us from this – gathering on our lands. And we’re at a time now where those of us who care are coming together to simply just ask what our future is in regard to our culture. Because what kind of culture are we going to have without our forests and our resources? How can we go into our potlatches and feast when we have nothing to give?” Said Rande Cook

Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw chiefs layed eagle down on the ground whilst drumming and singing an old mourning song to open the ceremony, inviting in softness to meet the depths of sorrow. Women and femmes were called in to channel the grief – dressed in black cloaks and hemlock around their heads to hold it in their tips. Children wearing mourning masks sat at their feet. And a river started flowing from our collective tears. 

Photo credit: Agathe Bernard Studio and Wilderness Committee

When the emotions of grief aren’t processed, we can become overwhelmed or paralyzed. Being in ceremony as a community allowed us to process the wider loss at this point in history, which is colossal, and build deeper connections with each other. What is too big to hold alone, we hold together. Being conditioned in a hyper individualized western society, we can forget that grieving has always been a collective practice. We feel it to transform it and strengthen our capacity to co-create new worlds. The Sała was left open to recognize all the work we still have to do together to defend and heal the land and people. As we parted after the ceremony, we were given a strong directive to share what we’d heard with our wider community of people dedicated to this collective labour of love. 

Even in that destroyed landscape with so much grief around us, feeling the strength in each other – and seeing the fireweed bloom around us – was a deeply hopeful experience.

There’s something powerful beyond words when you bring people together from many different lands, worldviews, cultures, and professions to a place in need of healing. Trees are the pillars of a forest, but there’s so much more to it – the tiny microbes, the moss, the insects, the fungi, the bears, the lichen, the salmon, and of course the people – everything works together to build and steward a rich ecosystem. Just like a forest, we all have something to bring to safeguard the land.

As Kwakuitl Chief David Knox Gig̱a̱me’dzikas told us, “without our old growth, we cannot be us. Without our salmon we cannot be us. We’re at a point in a paradigm shift where all Nations are gathering together with beautiful people – all who we have been meeting over the last decade. We will celebrate one day when the government listens to the people of the land.” 

It is challenging to fully capture this experience in English words as so much was felt with the heart and spirit. We’re incredibly grateful to be invited onto the land and into kinship with the growing Awi’nakola community time and again. And we’re grateful to you, to all of our wider Stand.earth community for acting with courage and compassion to do the hard, essential work of answering the call to heal our relationships with each other and with the land. We know that returning land and management to Indigenous Nations is the cornerstone to this. We’re sharing this story with you to offer a vision of the possibility for our collective future – one that is abundant and just and joyful. We know that we can cultivate it, together.

Gilaskla (thank you) to our incredible hosts and their territories, and thank you for opening your heart. 

With grief and hope,

Desiree and Tegan