Penticton man travels to see Fairy Creek forests, ends up cementing his arm into the logging road in protest

Photo: Camilo Ruiz

Troy Schalm cemented his arm into a logging road in the Fairy Creek area in protest last week

“Before I knew it, I put my hand in and clipped myself in and that was that, I was now officially part of the protest.”

A Penticton local headed out with his family last week to the Fairy Creek watershed, inspired to see and experience some of the old growth left in B.C. that is currently the site of heated controversy over logging.

What Troy Schalm didn’t expect was to join in the protest himself.

“We just decided we had to go see that for ourselves, so my wife, my daughter and l all went and spent a week at the blockades, which was just an unreal experience,” he said.

“I can tell you when you get back into that country, there's so little old growth left, it's actually hard to fathom how there's so little left and when you're in it, it's absolutely magical. There's just nothing like walking around in a forest with 1000-year-old trees.”

Schalm described different groups of protestors working to stop the logging in the Fairy Creek watershed, whether it’s because of habitat for the spotted owl, or has to do with Indigenous rights and respect to the land, all "trying to basically stop the madness."

“It's gotten to the point where it's just brave people, just basically putting their hands in what they're calling hard blocks, your hands or arms, and trying to essentially slow down the advancement of the industry in the loggers up the logging roads.”

One night, Schalm hiked up with a group of people to bring food and provisions to those who were set up in one spot, unable to move.

“It all happened pretty fast...The word was on the logging road, if there weren't any blocks on the road that the loggers were going in.

“I guess I was open to being arrested. I'm a middle-aged white guy who has recently retired and I have the ability to maybe take some risks in my life.”

Schalm saw that the last remaining protester was being brought down by police, and decided it was his time to step in. He quickly moved to cement his arms into the logging road and block traffic.

“I was the last block,” he said. “While I was laying on the ground, with my hands, cemented into the logging road, the 20 or 25 police officers around me, and I'm talking to them, like telling them how ridiculous this is that I'm sitting here doing this, that I feel the need to do this. And the vast majority of those police are hating their jobs. I'm just worried about their mental well being, because they're doing this every single day.”

While Schalm said he didn’t experience any excessive force from police officers upon arrest, the number of them feels "completely over the top," especially since it’s a non-violent protest.

“There are so many police officers and the fact that they're not allowing media...media was being pushed back and out of what they call this exclusion zone. And I mean with the exclusion zone, the police are citing public safety. And then at the same time, they're digging me out with a backhoe, like right beside my arm and my head.”

Police used an excavator to dig a hole along the one side of Schalm’s cemented arm, along with pry bars to knock away the rest of the concrete. Schalm’s arm was inside of a steel tube, which was measured and cut off at the end with a grinder. The chain he used to secure himself was cut away with bolt cutters.

“It wasn't the most comfortable situation. But the concrete hadn't set fully so I was only probably able to hold them up for maybe two hours. The intention is to try and hold them for a day, if you can,” he explained.

“It's really a traumatic time. But they continue to get volunteers that are willing to put themselves in harm's way and risk of criminal charges. I mean, I went to jail for the night and then I went to court in Nanaimo in leg shackles, if you can believe it, because I was trying to stop old growth logging.”

Earlier this month, the provincial government approved the request from three Vancouver Island First Nations, who wanted old-growth logging deferred in their territories for two years, but the protests are continuing.

Enforcement was handed down from a B.C. Supreme Court injunction ordering the removal of blockades and protesters at several sites on May 17, which RCMP continue to carry out.

So far, 254 people have been arrested in violation of the injunction.

Schalm was released on a condition to not go back to Fairy Creek, amongst others. He said he will be back in court in Nanaimo sometime in September to answer to the charge of disobeying the injunction.

“I mean, all I can do to relate this back to how people might understand this in the Okanagan. It's like, what would people do if they woke up one morning and 97 per cent of Okanagan Lake was gone? But say, you know, Coca Cola had the contract to take all the rest of the water out for the California market, what would you do?

“Where do you decide to jump in and do something?”

He encourages residents to write to their MLA, the Ministry of Environment & Climate Change Strategy and read the old growth strategic review.

Photo: Camilo Ruiz