Reading on Wednesday, April 22 2015 – 6:30-9pm
Come down to RAVENLADY and meet Betty Krawczyk, who will be sharing a couple choice readings from her first book “Clayoquot: the Sound of my Heart”, plus a few more from her latest books.
At age 86, Betty is currently working on her sixth book and preparing material to start a video blog aimed at Canada’s current government and other crimes against nature. “The Raging Granny” hopes to see old friends and even old antagonists. Good conversations & exchanges keeps her blood flowing!
1801 Bay Street, Ucluelet BC.
I was five years old in 1993, and while I may have been young the issues surrounding Clayoquot Sound were explained to be on a family visit to Tofino as I marveled at the stands of old growth that were at the heart of the controversy. Although I did not know Betty Krawczyk personally, her work as an environmental activist in those early years would become a lifelong inspiration for me, as it has been for many others.
To believe in something so strongly that you forfeit your personal freedom is a powerful act, reminding us of the true value of our old growth forests and of the role civil disobedience plays in shaping the future of our country. It is thanks to the stand taken by first nations groups and environmental activists that the Pacific Rim National Park was created, that the Clayoquot Sound was designated a Unesco Biosphere Reserve; that there exists pristine watersheds of old growth timber on Vancouver Island.
The story is by no means finished; despite the Clayoquot sound being designated as a Biosphere Reserve logging continues to this day, albeit done by a locally owned and First Nation’s coalition managed logging company, only in areas previously logged and not in what the Nuu-chah-nulth refer to as “eehmiis”, or very, very precious places. The challenge is to balance the short-term needs of local communities for employment with the long terms goal of preserving old growth stands and sensitive watersheds; a story that cannot be told in short. A story best told from the mouth of one who lived through what at the time was Canada’s largest civil disobedience movement, setting the foundations for the preservation of the remaining old growth forests of Vancouver Island.
Coincidentally Betty Krawczyk is the mother of Mike Camp, the artist currently exhibiting over 40 years of wilderness landscape painting at the RAVENLADY gallery, as well as constructing a new public sculpture titled the “Wanderer’s Tree” destined to grace the RAVENLADY outdoor space.
Written by: Alexander McNaughon