IF WAS the strangest inter- view I’ve ever done. There I was, laid out flat on my stomach on an unfinished road in the middle of a vast, magnificent forest, holding a mike to the mouth of a man buried up to his neck in clay and rock. Not buried like kids bury each other in the sand — buried in a five-foot deep hole, standing straight. Next to him was a woman, buried up to her chest, wearing ewnglasses and a jaunty hat. Surrealistic stuff. “Could you scratch my nose please?”? the buried man asked. Around us, surrounded by birch and pine, a hundred or so people including Teme-Augama Anishnabi Indians, chanted their defiance as a convoy of black- and-white Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) paddy wagons pulled into view, kicking up a cloud of dust. H. e had been buried in the ground since early morning. After a couple of hours in the damp, cold clay, he nearly had to give up because of fear of hypothermia. ’’ ER Ee Above, an OPP chopper hovered, shrieking as though try- ing to drown out the ragtag mob below. . Off io the side, a dozen angry loggers added their own bellows to the cacophony. Somebody sound- ed a moose call. A dozen TV cam- eramen and photographers swung their lenses frantically, trying to capture it all. Ontario’s opposition leader, Bob Rae, stood quietly, hands folded, just behind the man buried in the road — waiting, like all of them, except us media, to be arrested. We were deep in the heart of the Temagami wilderness, about 300 kilometres north of Toronio, astride the Red Squirrel Road. It was late afternoon on the first day of what was to be a week-long blockade. A makeshift iog bridge behind the buried couple had been turned into a formidable barricade, with logs jammed in vertically. Several young men had chained themselves to the timbers. One of them had used a bicycle lock to pin himself around the neck to the bridge. Yes," he had rasped, ‘‘it’s as uncomfortable as it looks.”’ The man buried in the ground at the foot of the bridge was Brian Back, executive director of the Temagami Wilderness Society, an Personal Injury | Ardagh Hunter unlikely-looking heroic figure. He wore glasses, had a slightly Groucho Marx moustache, and was wearing a white and green to- que that made you think of Christmas. If he wore any recog- nizable expression, { waukl call i¢ quizzical. But there was nothing quizzical about his determination. He had been buried in the ground since early meraing. A.tter a couple of hours in the damp, cold clay, he nearly had to zive up because of fear of hypothermia. i counselled him to get out. But as the sun rose, the earth heated up, almost Jovingly, I thought, and warmed enough for him to hold his ground. Literally. A person buried up to his neck in the ground is incredibly vulner- able. No wonder it was a universal form of torture up until modern times, and is probably still used in some places. It is hard not to like people with courage. The young man in the ground before me had plenty of it. He had needed it an hour earlier when Bob Rae reached the scene. The NDP leader’s arrival had trig- gered a stampede on the part of the cameramen and reporters, all of whom surged around Rae, forgetting he was standing next to a man with only his head sticking up out of the ground. Pocr Brian came very close to being trampled. He said later it - was probably the most terrifying experience of his life. He had been in scrums before, but never from the viewpoint of a football lying on the ground. At one point a picket sign was crushed and the broken stake scratched his cheek. Speaking for myself, I would have freaked out and started screaming. Brian merely yelled: “Hey, look out, you guys!’’ They managed to back off without trampling him, but it had been a near thing. With the arrival of the cops, the ordeal locked to be over soon. Leaving their vans and squad cars at the top ci a rise for fear of getting stuck in the freshly-packed clay of the road, the police formed up in rows, some 30 of them, while a sergeant used a builhorn to order everyone to get out of the way. They were obstructing legal work, i.e., the construction of a road into the very last stands of old-growth red pine and white pine forest east of the Lakehead. In the time since Champlain ar- rived, the white man has managed to Jecimate all but one per cent of the ancient forests of Eastern Canada, leaving only second- and third-growth trees. And now the last of it is sched- uled to be chopped down to pro- vide a few dozen jobs for a couple of years. The Red Squirrel Road was being constructed specifically to make way for the loggers. The Temagami wilderness is On- tario’s Meares Island, South Moresby, Stein and Carmanah rolled up into one — there being nothing else left. 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