Clayoquot Sound, B.C.

The Clayoquot Sound is a 100-km wide inlet off the west coast of Vancouver Island. It is home to the communities of Tofino and Ucluelet. The Clayoquot Sound is best known for the anti old-growth logging protests that took place in the area predominantly in the 1980s and 90s in response to MacMillan Bloedel logging practices. In the early 1990s, thousands of protestors gathered in the remote areas of the Clayoquot Sound in what was one of the largest acts of civil disobedience in Canadian history. Hundreds of protestors were arrested for blockading logging roads, and refusing to leave when presented with a court injunction. The conflict has since become known as the War of the Woods.  The protests that took place in the Clayoquot Sound resulted in the creation of a number of forestry films, and the area is featured in several of the films examined in this project, including MacMillan Bloedel’s The Clayoquot Compromise, which has been preserved by the Vancouver Public Library, the CBC’s Clayoquot Sound: Trees of Jobs?, which has been preserved by the University of Fraser Valley Library, the CBC’s MacMillan Bloedel fails in the Clayoquot Sound, which has been preserved by the University of British Columbia Library, and the non-industry Fury of the Sound, digitally available on YouTube.