The counterdemonstrator in chief is pugnacious premier Glen Clark, a onetime blue-collar union organizer, who in his near xenophobic defense of local interests is sounding more and more like a northern Jesse Helms. Clark is on the attack on multiple fronts. The anti-U.S. tirade is less surprising however, than the sustained campaign that Clark is waging against his New Democratic Party's erstwhile green allies at home. Natives from that band later staked out a Bella Coola wharf, cutting the lines of a boat owned by the activist Forest Action Network and scuffling with several women. They smashed the camera of one and pushed another into the glacial waters of the inlet.
Harsh words are apparently another matter.
This sprawling region of snowcapped peaks and deep fjords, ranging from 300 km to 850 km northwest of Vancouver, is the site of one-quarter of the world's remaining temperate rain forest. The rest is being logged at a rate of 30 million cu m a year, or about 30 times the pace in nearby Alaska. The summer's campaign aimed to spotlight the logging and fan a boycott of products from the major companies operating in the area, Western Forest Products and International Forest Products. But the environmentalists did not count on Clark. Faced with a daunting unemployment rate in the forestry industry and a belt-tightening budget, he picked a fight as soon as the campaign was announced.