A National Film Board of Canada Production

Drawn from more than a hundred hours of archival footage and audio, Christopher Auchter’s riveting new feature doc recreates the moment when the Haida Nation took a stand for the future.

On a misty morning in the fall of 1985, a small group of Haida people blockaded a muddy dirt road on Lyell Island, demanding the government work with Indigenous people to find a way to protect the land and the future. In a riveting new feature documentary drawn from more than a hundred hours of archival footage and audio, award-winning director Christopher Auchter (Now Is the Time) recreates the critical moment when the Haida Nation’s resolute act of vision and conscience changed the world.

On a misty morning in the fall of 1985, a small group of Haida people blockaded a muddy dirt road on Lyell Island (then known as the Queen Charlotte Islands).

After a century of colonialist rule, Haida culture was nearly obliterated, with language and traditions fading, and the land stripped of its resources. But a committed group of Haida and their supporters took a stand, demanding a stop to clear-cut logging practices that had destroyed salmon habitat and ravaged old-growth forest. In the face of overwhelming pressure from the RCMP, private logging interests and even the media, the defenders called for the government to work with Indigenous people to find a way to protect the land and the future.

In a riveting new feature documentary drawn from more than a hundred hours of archival footage and audio, award-winning director Christopher Auchter (Now Is the Time) recreates the courage, tenacity and tension of this critical turning point. From furious showdowns between television pundit Jack Webster and Haida leader Miles Richardson, to the support of then-NDP MLA Svend Robinson, The Stand captures the struggle as it unfolds on a moment-to-moment basis.

As a complex battle played out on remote logging roads, in the legal system and in the court of public opinion, authorities staged a steady propaganda campaign, alongside stalling tactics and a police presence, to undermine the Haida cause. With the whole world watching, would the Haida hold fast to their strategy of peaceful resistance, or would violence erupt?

The parallels between past and present continue to resound, as the Lyell Island blockade laid the foundations for current land-claim treaties across Canada. From the Haida Nation’s resolute act of vision and conscience emerged an unbreakable commitment to justice, solidarity and Indigenous sovereignty that echoes forth to this day.

1. The action undertaken in 1985 arguably shifted the course of history, not only for the Haida People but also the rest of Canada. In returning to this moment in time, were there things that surprised you about how events unfolded?

I was surprised by the amount of open dialogue and mutual respect between the RCMP and the Haida. The communication between the two parties was incredible. They even sat down to have coffee together, laughing and smiling as they traded stories and discussed any updates each was hearing from the government and courts over the dispute at hand. I’d be hard-pressed to find an example like this today.

2. You described the action as being motivated by the need to be a human part of the world and not above it. Where did the idea for the blockade come from?

There are Haida stories, accounts of battles, disputes being settled in ways that some may consider strange. Both of the examples I’m going to give are stories my uncle Mike (Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas) told me.

The first is about how an invading party from the mainland came to Haida Gwaii. War canoes came to the Haida village and the invaders’ champion jumped out of the canoe and challenged the village’s best warrior. With the people of the village and the people from the canoes gathered on the beach, the Haida champion stepped forward and faced his challenger; both were dressed for battle, with daggers in their hands. Unblinking, they faced each other, staring each other down, waiting to see who would make the first move. The tension was so intense. Then a black fly flew in between their faces and the Haida champion blinked. An Elder yelled, “You blinked, you lose!” The two warriors started to laugh, and the invaders on the beach started to laugh, and the Haida people in the village laughed as well. The tension had lifted and the dispute between the Haida and the invaders was settled peacefully.

The second story my uncle told me was about a dispute between two Haida villages. The invading war canoes came into view, heading toward the village. The people quickly gathered in front of their village and sent a welcome party to the beach just as the war canoes were about to land. The welcome party started to drum and dance on the shore. Not to be outdone, the people in the war canoes did a dance in response. Each side took turns responding to the other’s dance, and this went on all day. When night came, the two sides were exhausted, and the village put on a feast for the canoes that came to make war with them; here again, the dispute was settled peacefully.

These examples illustrate a sense of creativity when settling matters, and the ability to refrain from violence. I think we can look at these two oral accounts and see what happened on Lyell Island, and they fit so seamlessly together. There was a threat of violence in these stories; it could have gone badly at any moment, but in both cases, the two sides came together to settle the disagreement. Violence only creates enemies, and how can we move forward from that?

3. Taking inspiration from peaceful actions like the civil rights movement in the US, were the Haida determined from the outset to refrain from violence? Do you think the people involved had a sense of how much would ultimately be changed by their actions?

With Lyell Island, the Haida leadership went through many scenarios, including using force. Still, they knew the Haida Nation would be overwhelmed quickly by the police and military response in any of those scenarios. With forceful tactics, the Haida understood that they would garner little support from the Canadian public, and they knew they needed the public on their side to help persuade the British Columbia and Canadian governments to work with the Haida Nation toward a favourable outcome.

It was an incredibly well-planned event, but adhering to the non-violent plan took courage from everyone involved, as human nature tends toward yelling and force when confronted with disagreements. When moments of buckling took hold, guidance from the Elders and peers was needed to steady the line.

When I asked him how they came up with the plan of non-violence, my uncle Michael said, ‘Mahatma Gandhi inspired it.’

4. The film includes elements of animation. What did you want to highlight with the inclusion of the character of Mouse Woman in the film?

Mouse Woman became the storyteller for this film; it is as though we are experiencing this event through her eyes.

When I think of this time in history, when I imagine it in my mind, I see the Supernatural Beings standing with the Haida People who fought on Lyell Island for the survival of our culture and the land that has shaped us and nurtured us for more than 14,000 years. The Beings standing with the Haida gives them strength and resolve.

I chose Mouse Woman to stand in to represent the Supernatural Beings because, in our stories, she’s like a bridge between the Beings and the humans, a balancing force, a referee. If a human makes a mistake by disrespecting the land or an animal, maybe acts cruel and finds themselves in trouble with a Supernatural Being, then Mouse Woman may step in and help. She won’t fix the problem for the human, but she will offer advice or guidance and occasionally tell off a much larger Supernatural Being when she deems they are being unreasonable. She’s small but mighty, and I think that’s a perfect fit for the Haida when you think globally.

Mouse Woman represents the Haida’s connection to the Supernatural Beings that live in the landscape; every creek, every point that stretches out into the ocean has a Being that lives there. They are a part of the environment. It helps teach us to respect the land, air and sea; we can’t just go in and do what we want, take all that we desire. It’s not only ours; there must be balance. The Supernatural Beings, the stories and the wisdom they provide are also what the Haida were fighting to protect. It was our culture at stake, and Mouse Woman is an example of that.

5. What is your personal connection to the story? 

I have a connection to the story on a couple of levels. I am Haida myself, so telling this story is a way for me to understand my history better and learn from it. Even more personal than that, my aunty Shelley Hageman and uncle Michael, two people who have been considerable pillars in my life, both fought on Lyell Island in 1985. I was too young to remember this event, so making this film allowed me to honour them both and get a glimpse of what they experienced.

6. Many of the most startling moments in the film are also the most intimate and gentle: the Haida People offering to host loggers for a community supper, the courage of the Elders lending their presence to the blockade, even the ordinary conversations between people as they await the arrival of the RCMP. What was it like to be immersed in this moment in history, as many similar struggles to protect and safeguard the natural world are ongoing?

The gentle, quiet moments can tell us why, but they also give us a sense of the character and nature of the Haida People. I wanted to show the human behind the warrior. This works not only for the Haida but also for the police and the loggers.

Those intimate and gentle moments are important storytelling moments. My goal was to have the story unfold in front of us and not through an interview so that we, the audience, are brought up to speed on why the Haida are blocking the logging road and get a sense of the situation’s complexity from those holding the line. Playing out the film in this way would allow those on the road and in the camp to tell their own story, and time could not cloud the events.

It was both fantastic and challenging to be immersed within this moment in history; amazing because there were so many raw and captivating moments captured on video and audio, and complicated in that the story was so large, the events leading up to 1985 were so long, it was easy for me to get overwhelmed. Thoughts of, How the heck am I going to include all this information and not lose the audience? entered my mind. My answer was right in front of me: it was in the conversations the Haida were having with each other as they waited for the arrival of the loggers and the police; it was in the questions the reporters were asking and the answers that were being given. I had most of what I needed to tell the story from what was happening on the road, and the story did not want to leave the road. When I chose to take the story off the road, Jack Webster helped further contextualize it and give a voice to the nation the Haida were facing: British Columbia and Canada.

Due to the archival nature of the film, images are as high a resolution as possible given the source materials.