IO...SUUEllN de musiqUL'folklorique canadienne ~ ~ ---

II

~'That's what an interviewfolk songs withhave Bobalways Bossindone

Bob Bossin met with the Bulletin editors one Sundaymorning in June. He was in Calgary to attend a wedding, the festivities for which included a sweatlodge ceremony(in lieu of a stag party), which Bossin had attendedthe night before: an exampleof the community activity which featuresso strongly in his conversation.Mter transcribing the interview, we edited it somewhat,removing somerepetitive and tangentialmaterial and reordering it. This version was sent to Bossin, who reworked it drastically while travelling to the NDP conventionas part of SvendRobinson's team. At one point he found that it was necessaryto rewrite someof the questionsto make them suit the answersbetter! (This is one reasonwe have removedour individual attributions from the dialogue.) He continuedto sendrevisions up to two weeksbefore our final pasteup. The singer's painstakingconcern to find the best expressionof his ideasprovides an interestingcounterpoint to the image he sometimesenjoys playing with onstage,of the wild hippie, as in his hilarious anecdoteabout being interviewed by CBC upon the 1991 victory of his old friend, Bob Rae, and the Ontario NDP. Whether or not he himself usedall the drugs that Rae passedover, as he claims in that routine, in fact Bossin is an extremely intelligent and thoughtful artist, qualities we believe are demonstratedin the substanceof this interview, as well as in its genesis.

Sinceyou are a banjo player knownfor your political songs, have to buy a ticket to hear. They hooked us, made music it seemsa good guessthat Pete Seegerinfluenced you. slick and mass-produced,and replacedthe music that comes naturally. But the natural thing is to be singing in our own What I do is similar in many ways to what Petehas done, way about our own subjects, including lots of subjectsthat but I don't do what I do becausehe did it. Undoubtedly the now get weededout by the censorshipof the marketplace. path is easierfor me to go down becausehe clearedthe trail. That's what folksingers do; they still sing those other But I nevermodelled myself after Pete.I don't seemuch simi- songs. That's what Seegerhas done, and that's what I do. larity in our music. There is more similarity in our subjects, We're throwbacks.We are professionalfolksingers, which is and even more in what we don't take for our subjects. He almost a contradiction in terms, though not quite. Because didn't write and sing becausethere was a market niche for while we do sing for money, we don't createthe stuff for the somesong or subjectand neither do I. We're folksingers, he money. If I wasn't being paid I would still write and sing long beforeme. And there are not a lot of modemfolksingers, pretty much the samesongs. I don't think nOh, here's a song at least by my definition. that could really get popular" or "Here's a song that I could sell to so-and-so."I know thereare peoplethat write that way. Which is? In fact, they write somereally nifty stuff. But I'm not one of them. I write about the things on my mind, which are the Folk music is the music that rises naturally from a com- things on the minds of people in my community. munity. As a definition, that may not be airtight, but I seeit like this: Making music is an absolutely natural thing to do, What got you started in music? What got you started as a as naturdl as running, as natural as 'speaking. [ can sure see career musician? that in my daughter,who is two. Peoplejust sing. And left to our own devices, we'd sing about anything we'd talk about. Singing was like breathing. I just sang, we all did. My Peoplehave always sung their protests,just as they have sung dad usedto sing as he walked around the house,and my mom their love. They made up songs about their friends. About did, too. I was also raisedaround show business.My dad was tragedies, controversies, work. They made up songs for a booking agent, booking acts into night clubs in southern weddings, played songs for the dance, made up a tune and Ontario. We went out to lots of clubs and shows,and my dad dedicatedit to someoneon their birthday. [f people in the would bring the entertainershome for a meal. So show busi- community were talking about something-cutting down a nesswas a pretty natural milieu for me. forest, putting in a highway-they sangabout it too. I startedperforming in school showsas soon as I was old But that natural music-makingdropped off as the music enough to do it. I did imitations-Ed Sullivan and the like. industry took over and inserteditself betweenthe makersof And took great joy in it. You see, I was a terrible athlete; musicand the consumersof music. Songsbecame commodities maybethat's why I startedto perform. It was somethingI had you purchasepre-fab. In order to havemusic, we by and large a knack for, as opposedto catchinga ball, for which I had no think that we have to pay Sony. Real music is the stuff you talent at all. CanadianFolk MusicfBULlE7JN...ll

So that was the beginning. Playing music came later. In of the music, and was probably anathemato it, but folk was fact, I got Ds in music at school. But I listenedto music, the on the radio and in the clubs. The Mariposa Folk Festival pop of the day. The radio in the kitchen would play, started. I must have been all of 14 or 15 when I went to "Hummin'bird, hummin'bird, sing me your song" and "The Orillia for Mariposa and, oh, it was a thrill! wayward wind is a restless wind" and So there was a sea of folk music to

"Have you talked to the Man upstairs, I swim in, and I did. I stoppedlistening to 'cause he wants to hear from you?"- pop music and never really startedagain. pre-rock and roll pop music. The music revived on Crooning. How did you get into music as a career? Then, I think it was 1954, the radio changedand, all of a sudden,there was The real impetuswas political. In the "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley late '60s, early '70s, so much was And His Comets, and shortly after that, happeningall over the world. The Viet the early Elvis records.And, boy oh boy, Nam war was on. Paris, Prague,Colum- they were something!They just rocked, bia University all exploded in '68. The they touchedme, they were rebellious. I - . .- -- -- killings at Kent State were in '70. wantedto be like Elvis and, at the ageof YoungBob Bos.~in meels Pal Boone. Canadiancampuses were less turbulent- nine, I askedfor a guitar. I didn't get an Phorogrophscount"Rob Rossin we are Canadiansafter all-but it was electric guitar, becauseyou needed an probably the mostexciting momentof the amplifier too, and my parents didn't want to spring for it. century to be around the university, and I just had the luck to They thought I wouldn't stick with it. So I got a $20 be there. We really thought we could changethe world. We Serenader. were naive, but in our naivete we threw ourselvesinto the That's where it started,rock and roll on the radio and G, biggestissues of the time with suchpassion and energy.It was C and D7 on the top three strings of the Serenader.I begged a wonderful time to be 20 years old. my dad to take me to the touring rock and roll shows that Meanwhile, the hippie culture flowered. What was really came through . I saw Fats Domino, Gene Vincent, at the core of the hippie movementis subjectto different inter- Buddy Holly, The Platters, Elvis. pretations, but there was certainly a rejection of bourgeois But then, very quickly, as I recall, rock and roll turned values. So I found the hippie culture exciting too-though I bland. For maybethree really good years, it was wonderful, was never innocent enough to be a dyed-in-the-woolflower raunchy, rebellious music-Little Richard and Jerry Lee child. Lewis, people like that-and then suddenly it was "Sixteen The hippies brought with them a whole new batch of candlesmake a lovely light, but not as bright as your eyes music. Music was sacredto that movement-as it is to all tonight." Industrializedmusic pitched to a genericteen market. political movements. Everything from the Beatles, clearly Pat Boonesinging "Long Tall Sally" in a squeakyclean voice. LSD-influenced, to the Jefferson Airplane ("We are all Then in '59, when rock and roll was at its nadir, I heard outlaws in the eyes of Amerika"). The music wasn't just "Tom Dooley." It stoppedme in my tracks. This was a song music, it was the voice of our rebellion. that seemedto be about something.Was it a true story? Were And I thought, in 1970 (at the ripe old age of 24), if I these real people? I was fascinated. have a gift, it is to take ideas and cast Musically, as sungby the Kingston Trio, them into plain language,to createa kind it was dreadful. But it hinted at a story, of folk expression of an idea. So I and I wanted to know the story. thought I saw a useful, socially respon- So I went to see the Kingston Trio sible role for myself: I could use folk when they cameto town, and, during the music to expresssome of thesealternate, show, they said, "There's a group socialistic ideas and, in that way, reach coming up that you are going to hear a young people already keen on changing lot about, called Peter, Paul and Mary." the world. Naive as hell, but thereis also And, sure enough, a few months later, something sweet and admirable in that Peter, Paul and Mary came through. seriousnessof purpose. They were certainly a stepup, musically. And, as it turns out, that is precisely From there it was a short step to Ian and what I've done. It has proved to be Sylvia, who were genuinely good-their Beyondthe " first 3 strinJ!s~ enormouslymore difficult than I thought. music still standsup today. They openedthe door into real, I have influenced a lot fewer people than I dreamedabout. not-commercializedfolk music. Peoplelike the ReverendGary And I have had to find alternateroutes to do so. I think had Davis. If they passedthrough Toronto, I went. I known how tough a road it was going to be, I might have So I fell into folk music. It was really very easy to do beenwise to choosea different career.But in fact my path has becauseit was this unique momentin music history when folk beenquite straight. was a craze. It had nothinl! to do with the actual folk elements So that was what I decided to do. There were, at that~ time, a lot of free music festivals, along with the free clinics, tically, and my mom was apolitical. But the whole Bossinclan food co-ops, and such. We had reaIly takencharge of our own always fought injustice, one way or another. Perhapsit was a culture, in a way that hasn't happenedsince, at least on as natural response to the anti-semitism that they had all broad a scale. So I startedplaying publicly. Pretty soon I met experienced,although I never paid attention to that myself. Marie-Lynn Hammond, and loved her voice. Jerry . You said your first per- Lewycky, who was a violin fonnances as a kid were student at U of T, joined us comedy. Were you ever a on fiddle, and that was the stand-upcomic with a ~uitar? beginning of . We played lots of little gigs, we Only recently and then played on the street, and not really. In the mid '80s I slowly we got better. Then wrote myself a one-manmusi- Ben Mink replaced Jerry on cal comedy called Bossin' s fiddle, and there we were, Home Remedy For Nuclear with our hat in the ring as War in which I played a professionalfolksingers. snake-oil salesmanwho had bottled the antidoteto nuclear The rebelliousness of rock war. I sold 9(XX)bottles of the musicand of the movementsof stuff over the three yearsI did the '60s seemsto have been I the show. I am very proud of keyfor you. that show, of the way it mixed music,comedy, and communi- Yup, I think I'm just a -; ty organizing. But the lasting natural born rebel. Before StringhaM 1971: Jeny LewyCky, Bassin, Marie-Lynn Hammond. Garv .\'nider legacy of it for me was that I rock and roll and the '60s, I began to construct all my was attracted to the beatniks, the rebels of their day. I shows theatrically. Folksingers are notoriously casualabout remembergoing to the Houseof Hamburgon a Sundaynight, their shows. My brush with theatre people, like Peter I doubt I was more than 12 or 13. The House of Hamburg Froehlich and Simon Webb, taught me just how much power was a Toronto beatnik hangout run by jazz pianist Clem was availableon stage,if you set your mind to using it. So I Hamburg. It didn't open until 10:00, and I had to be in bed took the comic introductions to songs-which lots of at 10:00, but on Sunday nights it opened early, and I folksingers use-and developedthem into full monologues, remembergoing for the first set. I doubt that I got anything piecesin their own right. I startedusing slides and even used out of it-except the ambienceof people who rejected the a flash pot for awhile. I would also havesections of what was, bourgeoisconformity of the era. effectively, left wing stand up comedy, but as my show has That wasalways important to me. The Catcher in the Rye evolved, that has gradually disappearedagain. The politics is was a very seminalbook, both in my life and in the culture of there, but not the standup. the '50s-Holden Caulfield complainingabout "phonies." That The show I do now is pretty unique-at leastI don't know just rang true. And so did Elvis singing "Blue SuedeShoes" anyoneelse who combinesthe elementsI do: songs, stories, or "Hound Dog" or "Milkcow Blues Boogie". It wasn't characters,slides, protest. I cross back and forth between phony. In that way I supposeit was itself a kind of folk comic and serious, betweenpersonal and political, but-and musIc. this is the thing I like most about my show, if I may admit to liking my own stuff-l meaneverything 1 say. The showbites Wereyou a red-diaper baby? becauseI bite. There is not a lot of political comedythat has genuine bite. I think it was John Gray who said of Double No. My family on both sides were Jewish. On my Exposure that they havethis uniquebrand of political comedy mother's side they were reasonablywell off, businesspeople, that would be perfectly at home at a Tory convention. Mine decentbut straight. My father's sideof the family was livelier. wouldn't be. They grew up in poverty. Severalwere writers. One of my So, I supposeI have done some"stand up with guitar." I auntswas a communist. One time I said somethingabout her actually toyed with the idea of trying the comedy clubs as being an anarcho-syndicalist.She said, "Anarcho-syndicalist? venues.But they are such miserableplaces; they really seem Are you crazy?I was a communist,a communist! I wouldn't to cater to the worst in people. I never got around to the touch those people; I wouldn't be in the toilet with those experiment,and I'm not sorry that I didn't. Life is too short. people!" So, there was somepinkness in the extendedfamily, but Whendid you get into banjo? not a lot. I really don't know why my sympathieswere always In the early sixties. Dave Guard of The Kingston Trio left, but they always were. My dad was conservative,poli- played the banjo. It was pretty easy to pick up after playing the guitar for a few years. But then I put it aside and lost three-noteharmony, occasionallya full six-string strum-as interest in it, which is somethingthat always happenswith opposedto the strum-a strum-a strum, untextured sound of me. I'll put an instrument aside for a few years, then I will someonestarting out. You use staccato,dynamics, the ring of switch back. the instrument, every texture you can get your hands to Hearing John Hartford mademe pick produceto tell the story. up the banjo again. He cameto Mariposa So what I starteddoing on banjo was with Tut Taylor, Norman Blake and Vas- in some ways going back to plain old sar Clemens the year they recorded the strumming, but with attention to texture Aereo-Plain album, around 1970. My and punctuation.That's the style of "Sul- jaw dropped! Here was somebodyusing phur Passage,"and that's the style of the banjo to write songs.Hartford picked "Love in Seven." ("Love in Seven" is a up the cadenceof the instrument in his real oddball. It is in mountain minor lyrics, and I thought, "Holy shit!" So I tuning and is not quite in 714time. When dusted off my banjo and wrote "Daddy, we came to record it, Buff Allen, the Was A Ballplayer" and "Did You Hear drummer, charted it out, after trying in They BustedThe Fiddle Player?". vain to make my chart work, and dis- coveredbars of 5/8, 6/8-all kind of stuff You have your own banjo style; where that to me was just emphasis,just part of does it comefrom? the tune, part of the banjo-nessof it.) So that was the evolution. And then I tend to like instruments for their I switched back to guitar again, and colour. Truth be told, I'm no hell as a startedevolving my guitar playing to pick musician.I'm OK. But I useinstruments ; up what I had been doing on the banjo. and styles for their character. There's I'm sure there are peoplewho hear what somethingabout the sound of a fiddle I'm doing now and just hear strum that containsits history, contains all the strum-a strum, and figure, "Bossjn's placesand circumstancesfiddles have~fu'" losing it." But I like the sound, myself. beenplayed. Or a mandolin, or a concertina. The banjo hasalways struck me as the musicalequivalent Back in the 1970s, when Stringband was in its heyooy,you of playing hookey. It's sucha funky sound.I'm talking about usedslogans like "ThoroughlyCanadian" and "God Savethe the timbre of the instrument. (Except for those super-ringy King." There was a twinkle in your eye, but were you also Gibson Mastertones.I don't really like the ambienceof blue- consciouslytrying to representCanadian culture in song? grassbanjos, never have.) To me, the sound of a banjo says gone-fishin'. I mean, if you want a beautiful, resonanttone, Absolutely, though the consciousnessgrew out of the why playa banjo? Choosing to play somethingon the banjo experience, it didn't precede it. 1 always liked something is like dipping your mouth harp in water. Doug Fetherling said about Stringband in Saturday Night I can tell you more about my banjo style, which is kind magazine,back before it becamethe right wing fan mag it is of unique, but I expect it is of pretty specializedinterest. today. Fetherling said, "They searchrelentlessly for what they think is a CanadianSound. Not finding it they have perhaps Try us. invented it." We definitely did set out to find and write and sing songsthat reflected the particular lives of people in dif- Pretty early, I learnedto frail. I always loved its thunky, ferent comers of the country. That was a unique thing to do percussivesound. But then the last few yearsI startedplaying back then. 1 like to think that we helped clear the path for more complexrhythmic variations though still with the feel of thosewho are doing it now, and there are a lot of them. By frailing. To do that I started to sneak in the odd upstroke. singing" Dief Will Be the Chief Again" we openeda door, we Frailing is all downstrokes.Somewhere along the line I started gave a kind of permission to sing about our own particu- leaving out the thumbed notes, which, in frailing, is every larities. third note. I've kept the frailing rhythm, more or less. but Of coursein some ways the border betweenthe US and took the thumb out. So it becamea kind of strumming. but a Canadais a false distinction as far as music goes. The rise of very percussivestrumming with a lot of holes in it. sheetmusic had the sameeffect either side of the border. Or One of the things I've realized about music is that the the rise of the player piano or of radio-the various industrial rests are just as important as the notes. That's one of the interventionsthat turnedmusic into a saleablecommodity. The distinctions betweena beginner and somebodywho is really commercial society, the capitalist society, has marginalized working with their instrument. The person who is really folk music, the natural music of a community, both sides of working the instrument useswhat is not there to set up what the border. In fact community itself has been marginalized. is there. Then you vary what is there: sometimesyou playa We-Stringband-just went backthere for our music. The par- single note, sometimes a two-note harmony, sometimes a ticulars were Canadianbecause we were. 14...BUUEl1N de musique folklorique canadienne - -

You have cel1ainly written someclearly Canadian songs. Do brought tears to my eyes, the first time saw it, and I know you have.favourites ? it affects a lot of peoplethat way.

Songsare like children, you love them all in different How did the video happen?You didn't write the song with a ways. "Daddy Wasa Ballplayer" video in mind. has a special place, becauseit was the first one I wrote that Never dreamed of it. The had its own voice, that didn't way it all cameabout is quite a sound like anyone else. "The tale. In fact it indicatesjust how Maple Leaf Dog" is anotherlike powerful the folk process can that: no one else would ever be. have written that song. They "Sulphur Passage" began were also songs that people humbly enough. It actually be- respondedto. They playeda role ganwith a mistake.I was sitting in Stringband'slittle history. On around, strumming the banjo the other hand, I've also always aimlesslyas I sometimesdo, and liked "Look What's Becomeof I accidently dropped a beat. I Me," in part becauseno-one else thought, "Hey, I like that." So I did. kept doodling with a tune a- I am Proud of the com- ... round the figure I had stumbled .. Stringhandlate 70s:Bossm, Ben Mmk, a prominentfan, AlanSobemran, . pactnessof expressIonIn some Marie-LynnHammond on, and then, Just to mark the of the songs: " Newfoundland- rhythm so I would rememberit ers," "Tugboats," "Dief," "The Cascaand the Whitehorse the next day, I madeup a sentencethat fitted the tune-which Burned Down." I like the way they paint their picture with is what I do since I am not very good at notation. The suchsimple-seeming strokes; then the songkind of extendsits sentenceI madeup was, "Come you bold men of Clayoquot, meaningbeyond itself. The meaningsort of vibratesout from come you bold women." the song'slittle three-minuteworld. "Madelyn's Lullabye," on That was not an entirely random choice of words: the the new album, is like that. There is really a lot going on in fight over Clayoquot-some of the last old growth temperate there, about family, about love, about social class, even rain forest on the west coast-was on my mind, as it was on though it is a really simple song. the minds of hundreds of people. I wasn't sure about the I like "Ya WanDaMarry Me?" becauseit is so much my line-was it too archaic-sounding'?was it a bit preten- own personallove song, although, ironically, it is also one of tious?-but I kept on at it. Eventually I had written a the most popular of my songs.Whenever it is played on radio call-to-arms, an invitation to join the logging blockade that -which isn't of ten-1 get calls and letters from people who was going on at Sulphur Passagein Clayoquot Sound. That want copies. I think they respondto the fact that the song is was 1988. both sweetand realistic about my own marriage-that rings a Over the next five years,public oppositionto clear-cutting bell. "LunenburgConcerto" was like that, too, personalas can Clayoquot just kept growing. Finally, in the spring of 1993, be, and, becauseof that, personalto other people too. the government announcedits decision: they would save a "Lunenburg"and "SatchelPaige" are probably the richest, quarterof the forest and clear-cutthe rest. The shit hit the fan. deepest,most emotionally complex ones. That summer, over 800 people were arrested. I don't think And then I am really happy to have written someof the Canadahas ever had that many people arrestedin a protest overtly political songslike "Show Us the Length" and "Sul- campaign.Of courseI was there, standingon the make-shift phur Passage."They have played their own small part in stage(it was the roof of a Volkswagenvan) singing "Sulphur changingthe world. "Show Us the Length" has literally been Passage." sunground the world, despitevirtually no airplay (for reasons In the fall, the protesterswent on trial. The first judge that are obvious if you know the song.) Its successhas been was extremely unsympatheticand gave out sentencesmuch completely outside of the commercial stream. I am always harsherthan this kind of symbolic civil disobedienceusually hearing from people who heard it in somefar off place, who draws. Grandmotherswere going to jail for months. Once sang it themselvesin some school show or at some protest. again, many, many of us were outraged. Someonesent me a tape of it being sung at a women's music That fall I went into the studio to record, so I called a festival-in Japanese! bunch of BC performers to see if they would join in on "Sulphur Passage"is starting to have the samekind of "Sulphur Passage." Of course, Bryan Adams and Sarah non-commercial,hand-to-hand success. It really is playing a Mclaughlin didn't return my call, but Valdy, , Ann part in the struggle to savethe forests, first in BC and now in Mortifee, StephenFearing, Rick Scott, Roy Forbesand Veda lots of different places. The video is so powerful, and it is Hille did. They felt the sameway I did about Clayoquot, the being seenin different countries, in schools,at film festivals, sameway thousandsof peopledid. That's what I meanby the at conferences.It really encouragespeople to fight on. It power of a folk song. Yes, I wrote it, but it expressedthe real, pressingconcern of the community. Passage,but there are dozensof them. Once again, we have Then Nettie Wild, the documentaryfilm-maker, heard beenbouyed along on a back eddy of the forces of technolog- about the recording session,and she said, "I bet I could get ical innovation. TV has changed.It is still, in the main, the the crew to film it, if you can cover the film stock and the pervasivepropaganda tool it has always been, but around its sushi."

1982: Dennis Nichol, Bossin, Calvin Cairns, and Marie-Lynn Hammond in an uncharacteristically Dickensian situation. Photogmph by GwenKallio

After that, a couple of factors conspiredto help us out. edges,it is now a democratictool as well. There are lots of The first was technologyitself: Lots of people, including the community outlets, from Vision TV and The Women's Net- protestersat Clayoquot, havevideo-recorders. The handi-cam work to the local RogersCable station, and thanks hasdemocratized film-making. Groupslike the SierraClub can to the channelchanger, a programis just aboutas likely to get easily collect aerial footage of the clear-cuts.And so on. So seenon one of those stationsas on crV. While it was frus- we suddenly had accessto documentaryfootage that would trating that MuchMusic couldn't recognizethe quality of what have cost thousandsof dollars just a few years ago. they had-I think they were blinded to it by watching too The secondfactor was the sheerquality of the work of the many hi-tech, lo-heartvideos-it didn't matter, therewere lots artists involved. Though outside of the mainstreamspotlight, of other outlets. most of us had been honing our craft for 20 years. Given the Including a whole new network completely out of the chanceto use it, particularly in aid of somethingwe cared handsof the stations:people passing around videos they care about, look out! Just listen to Roy Forbes's lines, or Rick about. Those are the most important audiences:the people Scott's, or Ann Mortifee's. We had hot tracks, and good track gathered at environmental meetings, in schools, in living records. On the basis of those we got a small grant from rooms. Without any fanfareor publicity, we've sold some500 Videofact, MuchMusic's foundationfor encouragingthe devel- copiesof the video, and peopledon't buy them to leave them opment of new music videos. (Ironically, when we finished, on the shelf. I know there are people who dismiss this as MuchMusic didn't put Sulphur Passagein rotation, as we say "preachingto the converted," but to me, those are the most in the rock video biz, but, God bless 'em, they camethrough important peopleto encourage,because they are the oneswho when we really neededthem.) carry the ball, who are going to work long into the night, who So Nettie and her editor, Paul Lievesley, worked night are going to apply all the skills that they havedeveloped over after night, using the skills they havehoned over 20 years, and years, just as we did recordingthe songand making the video. the result was the video that has now won awardsin Mexico, So "Sulphur Passage,"inspired by the actions of a few South Africa and the States, and been shown in Belgium, local citizens fighting a seemingly quixotic battle against a Japan,Brazil and so on. giant corporation, is now inspiring peoplein similar struggles More important than the awards,is how manypeople have in countriesthousands of miles away. seen it. We stumbled into this whole quasi-underground Meanwhileback at Clayoquot,the story hasits own happy network that was perfect for Sulphur Passage.Environmental ending. On July 7, 1995, the BC governmentannounced, ef- film festivals, for instance. Who goes to these things? Who fectively, the end of clear-cutting at Clayoquot Sound. We wants to watch hour after hour of toxic tragedy? And yet won! Of course we have to remain vigilant, but we won! It people do. took 15 years. I happenedto be around that particular fight Then there was TV. I've lost track of the number of TV from the beginning.I rememberthe first meeting:seven of us, networksand cablestations and showsthat haveaired Sulphur sitting around a picnic table in Tofino in maybe 1980, won-