In the Valleys of the Noble Bey - John Zada Page 0,27

brazen about his manner.

“We’re gearing up for a multiday expedition to monitor a pod of fin whales that appeared on our remote cameras,” Ian says.

At a table covered in marine charts, he finishes telling me about his involvement in the anti-logging protests at Clayoquot Sound, on the western coast of Vancouver Island, in the late 1980s and early ‘90s. Those demonstrations, known as the War in the Woods, received worldwide media attention and propelled Ian into his current role, fighting for the Great Bear.

“After Vancouver Island, we thought for sure that when the public saw this place, it would only take a few years to protect it. But it didn’t work out that way. It took some really heavy hands to get the government to even recognize that this was a special place. They spent an incredible amount of time trying to convince the public that it didn’t exist.”

“In what sense?”

“In an official sense. They’re on record as saying, ‘There is no such place as the Great Bear Rainforest.’ So we responded, ‘Well, then there’s no such place as the Great Barrier Reef—or the Grand Canyon.’ People have names for places. And they’re not necessarily gazetted or legal names. Fortunately, the idea that Canada was destroying this fabled wilderness full of spirit bears, salmon, and towering trees in order to sell products to Europe and the United States was totally unacceptable to the public,” he says. “And so we managed to force an agreement.”

“It’s a big achievement.”

“Yeah, except we’re now back to square one.”

“The pipeline?” I say, referring to the Northern Gateway project.

“Pipelines. Plural. Several have been proposed. They effectively want to drive hundreds of supertankers carrying liquefied natural gas and bitumen condensate right through the very heart of this rain forest. The impact would be catastrophic if one of these fully laden tankers slammed into a reef. Statistically it will happen.”

“What do you plan to do?”

“What we’ve done before. Dig in. Fight till the end.”

“You have your work cut out for you.”

“Well, there are a few conservationists, like myself, roaming about. We’re hardly an army. And the communities here are some of the smallest and most isolated in Canada. If you consider the sympathetic and highly motivated provincial and federal governments, the resources of China, and every major oil company in the world that’s heavily invested in the Alberta tar sands, it’s pretty hard to come up with a bigger level of opposition. It’s a pure David-and-Goliath situation.”

Ian turns to look at his assistant, and I can tell he is impatiently gauging how much time he has left to give me. “So, you’re here for some other information,” he says, moving the discussion forward.

I tell Ian about my interest in Sasquatch. I feel almost silly doing so, in light of the seriousness of the conversation we’ve just had. I expect Ian, a de facto biologist and a practical, hands-on man, to make a dour or mocking face. But he maintains his well-honed professional, almost diplomatic, composure. He seems to mull his next words before speaking.

“Are you a believer?” he asks.

“I’m trying to decide where I stand.”

He nods, sympathetically. “Well, I haven’t seen anything myself. And I’ve been everywhere on this coast. I don’t entirely discount the existence of such animals. Parts of this place could easily support them. On the other hand, a bear standing on its hinds on a foggy morning reaching for crab apples can look incredibly humanlike. I’ve seen it myself.”

I nod.

“With all the remote-camera sites in estuaries and creek mouths, and with all the academics doing fieldwork around here, you’d think there’d be some better evidence.”

Everything he says is compelling—in the way that Mary Brown’s story was compelling. There’s weight and authority to his words. But I’m left with a pang of disappointment—as well as the stirrings of bewilderment.

In the world of Bigfoot, there are stories. And then there are stories. The former involve encounters of the run-of-the-mill variety. They are the brief, unexpected, and often perplexing brushes between man and beast that occur with little fanfare and end all too quickly, leaving a trail of questions in their wake. The discovery of tracks, the screams, the glimpses of fur and form, the sound of footsteps around the tent at night—these are the more common, dime-a-dozen experiences. Had my early exposure to the phenomenon been limited to a few of these sorts of accounts, Bigfoot perhaps would not have left its indelible impression on me.

The bigger and brasher tales—the classics, as they’re called—are what fueled