Betty Krawczyk
I first saw the Clayoquot Sound about 28 years ago,
I was out here on a vacation
I was amazed and just stunned by the beauty of the area.
And I promised myself,
that someday I would come back here,
so, I did.
As we settled in Victoria, I started looking up in this area for some land.
I saw an ad in the paper for 10 marine acres in the Clayoquot Sound
so, I told my son about this.
I was totally befogged by the beauty of the area.
I, we bought the 10 acres, and my son built a house on it.
And I moved up, after, my children got situated in Victoria.
And I was free,
so, I came up
and I lived up here for a couple of years.
23 whole days and weeks would go by, that I wouldn’t see people,
But I got totally involved with the flora and fauna of the area.
Well, I don’t know anything about forest, I’m from Louisiana
so, I thought, well they plant the trees back.
I guess they grow back ,
so, it too several years for me to see that they weren’t growing back.
And I talked about this with my children.
My younger daughter and I went to Louisiana to visit my mother.
And her and I stay down there 3 or 4 months out of the year.
I felt assured that the NDP,
when they got into office,
would declare a moratorium.
And I thought also that even if there were problems with this,
that the Native peoples would protest.
So, Marian and I, that’s my younger daughter,
were in Mississippi at my mother’s place,
And my daughter and I discussed this,
And I said well I’m not too sure about that.
So, I’ll do it, if that has to be done.
So, the day that I got back.
The day I got back I was unpacking in Ucluelet.
I was getting ready to repack to out in Cypress Bay
When I say the news and it was the first days of the blockades
I saw the people on the, uh, blockades.
I knew that that’s where I had to be too.
So I went to a meeting that night.
I went, stood on the blockade, and was arrested, and went to jail.
Citation
Moore, Niamh, “Oral history interview with Betty Krawczyk (audio recording and transcript),” Clayoquot Lives: An Ecofeminist Story Web, accessed April 26, 2023, https://clayoquotlives.sps.ed.ac.uk/items/show/45.