GE: Oh ya so I got a fucking concussion. It was about a 16-foot high apparatus; it was three poles and they were building this tripod for two people. I was helping build the sleeping dragons. I went up in the night on maybe the 28th, may 28th, and I snuck past the RCMP campout. They have like a little blockade up there. And it was just a security guard with a generator and a flood light and I walked past them and went up to Waterfall. Just spent like 2 days there helping make the camp better and put up some hard blockades. The person who was supposed to be in the tripod, they got intimidated so they left the camp as the police presence got more and more intense and so when I show up literally there was like 30 people at HQ on their way up to Waterfall and then we get to Waterfall and nobody actually wants to go up there, like nobody wants to do the 9 km hike. It’s like 1130 and so like I’m all gung ho I’m like we gotta get these chains we gotta get cement and shovels up there. We need to put more dragons in, like we’ve got the dragons built we just need to get the holes dug. So I go up there.

At this point I had been, this is the end of over a two week stint of just being around HQ helping coordinate, build, cook and clean and all the shit that needs being done. And so I go up to Waterfall, I’m like ooh so stoked finally I’m going to get to lay down for once. I’ve been pulling like 36 hour and 40 hour shifts. Because this is really important to me and there's a lot of lazy people so if you want something done, do it yourself. And like I’m eager to lay down on my little like comfort rest mat and stick my hand in the earth but then there’s not enough dragons. Like all the people that were up at Waterfall camp as arrestables, who actually like got their asses up there and stayed there, real die hards, they had already filled out all the sleeping dragons. So I figure, if I’m going to be part of this blockade as an arrestable the only useful spot would be to climb up and take the nest, the little seat, in the tripod. And so there’s a 17 year-old kid, he’s chained to me, and the arm that I was chained up in, when the structure was tipped over we were still chained together with our arms encased in one of those like it was a sail boat mast actually and so my arm is sleeved and chained to the other guy who’s beneath me. His ass is probably about 9 feet off the ground and he’s probably 5’10 at least. He got hurt as well cause he was underneath the A-frame so the logs fell on him. That’s gotta be at least a few hundred pounds of force. He’s a really tough guy. He’s a big guy. And he got rope burn and shit cause of how fast the structure collapsed. What is it, 6.8 meters squared, the gravitational constant. I was a top student in my science class. My science teacher told me I was the best student he ever had. I don’t think the officers have a basic understanding of grade 8 science. They were using a black tarp to keep somebody protected from the sun who was in a sleeping dragon. My Mylar shade protector thing, I had a little blanket, it got blown off by the wind and for 8 hours I was up there and they wouldn't let me have it because they’re like no you could use it to strangle yourself. I’m like I’m sitting there getting skin cancer getting a sunburn and like I’m fucking Vietnamese, I’m south Vietnamese too, you notice I’m pretty dark, I have dark skin.. dude I have fallen asleep in the sun, I have to be in the sun for a long time to get a sunburn but I am still peeling from being out in the direct sun without cover. That was over 3 weeks ago. That was 24 days ago that I got arrested and I still have bruises and like there’s a scar on my head, fucking it was crazy having to like relearn some of the skills that were just like super simple things I took for granted.

So ya like see how high those trees are (*point to some nearby trees)? That’s how high the guy below me was sitting and they sawed the legs off the tripod using a chainsaw. And then kicked them out. They were trying to scare us down, they were trying to use mental tactics when their minds were way weaker than ours. Me and my buddy, we’re artists, we were like freestyling at the cops for like 6 hours and the cops were just blown away by it and we were Tibetan throat singing and beat boxing and that’s why the cops are fuckin’ super embarrassed cause we're there being peaceful exercising our rights and I doubt those police officers even know the criminal code. They’re not prosecutors. They’re fucking security guards. They're the Queen's henchman. They collect taxes and poorly respond to mental health calls. Like if you want someone to respond properly: be the change you want to see in the world, just like Ghandi says. Don’t count on some dipshit who drinks the government Kool-Aid all day. Man those cops, I feel bad for them, they’re so intergenerationally damaged by their own belief system. And it’s like they feel powerless, they just have to follow orders. Some of the officers that day, they were like: I am totally on your side I just have to follow the rules. I’m like ya just nodding along like they’re just following the law, like the holocaust was legal.. that’s a really funny thing, its like I’m part Jewish my great grandparents were bankers, none of that money is in the family, we donated it all to the church. My grandparents became Hare Krishnas.

It’s super fucking weird that we want to sacrifice one of the greatest resources we have for just a couple of million dollars. Like I’ve been watching the financial market and I know that we're supposed to have an economic boom. I don’t see why, like I know were heading for the dirty thirties, but I don’t know why people are artificially increasing the price of lumber so high. The value isn’t even in the wood. The real reason these forests need to stand is because of the mycelium networks that have existed for millennia and there is so much information contained in the mushroom species that has yet to be identified here and we can cultivate the local plants that exist. We have so much biodiversity. I lived in Port Renfrew for over a year before I moved to Saltspring and now I’m moving back to Renfrew. This is where I live now.

So ya essentially um why they had to rush the day, I assume it’s because they were like 3 hours in to overtime and they had like 14 people onsite and they were just annoyed at how well we engineered these dragons were because we learn as we go. Cause like they took 20 minutes to take our first dragon out in like April and so we’re like shit the cops are getting right through our dragons. So we just started changing the design and improving them and putting in like 9-inch nails. And I’m familiar with the tools they have to use; our tools are better and we’re continuing to evolve so I’m gonna put my bid in, I guarantee we’re going to win. All of my money’s on the side of mother earth cause she evolves. And man, they are not the sharpest crayons in the pencil box over at the RCMP. My uncle, he was a mommas boy, lived in his grandma’s basement until he was 37. I love him, he gave me his GI Joe collection and a bunch of Swamp comic books. But he worked at Future Shop for 10 years before he became an RCMP officer. I think he couldn’t cut it in the military. He had to apply 3 times to become an RCMP officer. The first time he didn’t get in it was the physical. The second time he nailed the physical but he was too smart. It turns out you have to be under 135 IQ to be an RCMP officer. They don’t want any fucking shit disturbers y’know changing their institutionalized racism private boy clubs.

I also used to live in the lower eastside of Vancouver, so I’ve lived with people who worked on the Pickton farm and they talked to the cops and the cops did shit all. There’s a lot of people of weak character who are being given positions of power and its not right. I have weak character, that’s why I’m not in a position of power. I’m a janitor and I cook food; I’m a fry cook. I also take care of children and write songs. What am I doing wrong? Why do I have to get all of my shit thrown away by the cops and my phone smashed and dropped from over 12 feet onto my head. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to, I couldn’t talk to my mom for like a week cause I was so afraid of worrying her.

I’m a third generation islander. We love the forest. As frontline workers, all my family works in healthcare pretty much. We go camping at the end of our long shitty jobs. Caregiver burnout is such a real thing and you need the woods to come back to. It’s a spiritual renewal centre. You get cleansed, you get topped off and it makes everything feel okay. Like I struggled to find religion for like the first like 22 years of my life cause I come from a non-secular family and then I moved out here to be on my own to Port Renfrew and I finally connect with the Spirit out here, because its pretty undeniable when you’re walking around these old growths. Like anyone who lives for a full year, like spend a winter out in Renfew: some magical shit is going to happen. There’s a reason this was picked as a holy site. I’ve been to all the holy sites I can find in BC and I’ll say there’s a reason they get consecrated as sacred ground. It’s a weird thing to admit. There’s something going on with spacial dynamics that science definitely isn’t aware of because there’s magic in the air here at Fairy Creek and anybody who hasn’t been here, they’re not gonna believe it cause they don’t see it.

There were over 1000 year old yellow cedars. Yellow cedars smell like marshmallows. Like they’re amazing, they only grow in like alpine swamps. There’s not a lot of area for them to be cultivated, also there’s like a specific ion of nitrogen that allows those trees to get that old. It’s super fucked up that they’re going to cut some of them down. It was when the road grader, which looks just like a tree buncher, it’s pretty much the same thing, was going past our camp. We hadn’t even gotten everybody out of the ground but I was like on the side of the logging road and once I heard that big machine coming up the mountain I knew what it was going to do. And that’s when I let some tears roll. Last time I cried was, probably not that long, I cry like every week. I cried during the new Alladin movie, the live action one. Princess Jasmine makes her dad really proud of her. I thought that was cool. Asian dads, they’ll fuck you up. I hope you don’t have an Asian dad.

Me and my friends, some of them were teenagers who sweat and bled and gave up weeks of what could’ve been their spring and summer time just so they could be there to make a difference. And the best that we could do was just slow them down and let them beat us up and make fun of us. They threw garbage all over our camp too. And it wasn’t like we didn’t know. We were totally aware they were going to treat us like shit but what really hurt was knowing that those over 1000 year old trees are going to be cut down and they’re spiritually so powerful. It was inhuman to hold back my tears in that moment. I was crying right after I got dropped the 14 feet onto my head and I tore some ligament in my shoulder. My rotator cuff is all fucked up and like the concussion was like probably, like looking back on it I think that was the most severe concussion I’ve ever had. Like I’m a skateboarder, I snowboard like I love to go fast I love the adrenaline. I was having a great time chanting, singing them songs, getting the cops on my side. The cops were like you should be a preacher you’re really good at that. I’m like my best friend since I was 4 years-old is a preacher. I’m not going to take his job. It was really crazy to see the tears well up in the officers eyes. And then they just suck them back like it’s not okay to show emotion. And really it’s emotion is what makes up human. Those trees are so much more important than people realize. People are just really dumb. I’m only 24 and like I’ve started to realize like people are really dumb. They don’t understand how science works. It’s fucked. I barely understand how science worked. I took a week off, I was just sitting at home watching documentaries about how mushrooms work. Which I’ve probably spent like a 100 hours researching how mushrooms work. And I’ll spend 1000 more.

KR: I just wanted to ask you one question about how the media have been kept out? Like there was supposed to be support and media there for you right?
Ya there was and they were all forced to leave and they were threatened if they didn’t leave they were going to be arrested even though that made no sense. They were literally just standing on the side of the road holding cameras and like going to be there to offer us water. They were there for our safety. Our arrest support, they weren't allowed to be there for our safety. What beats the shit out of me worse than the RCMP: they removed them. They arbitrarily removed the exclusion zone another 30 meters back for just shits and giggles. I guess they didn’t want anybody videotaping their workplace fuck-ups.

My friend, he knew I was going up to that camp the day I went up there and he got a whole bunch of media people. There was a caravan of like 5 people with cameras. So there is footage from the line that they were pushed back to. And someone from Vogue had like a really good telephoto zoom lense and got a photo of me up in the tripod. But I guess we’re going to have to wait for the RCMP to relinquish any footage. They like have to by law to give up the tape that they have when I file a complaint about my arrest. I think that’s the reason why they dropped the charges so that like on paper I didn’t even get arrested. Cause they knew that they fucked up. And like if I make a formal complaint then the court makes an acquisition order to get that tape and like somebody in this corrupt police force is probably going to have pay some prosecutor to keep that tape private. It’s just a waste of our tax dollars that they've siphoned away somehow. I don’t know where these cops get all their bribe money but they're dirty as fuck. That whole Thin Blue Line thing, that’s a gang. The cops are just a gang. And they’re not even good gangsters.

KR: What’s your camp name?
Grounded Eagle, because I’m too full of shit to fly.

*A sleeping dragon is a pvc or metal pipe cemented into the road or a log or pretty much anything and then rigged so a person can attached themselves to the inside.

I first met Grounded Eagle when I was walking up Granite Main late one night to do a full moon ritual. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be out there and then I saw headlights making their way up the winding road. He appeared in a LaBaron and gave me a ride.

DUDE I GOT ARRESTED IN A HOUSECOAT, FUCK YA!