Listening Once Again to Our Great Mother (The Fairy Creek Blockades and the Life Story of Pacheedaht Elder Bill Jones)

“Elder Bill Jones breaks our hearts open with his deeply personal exposé of the ongoing trauma inflicted on Indigenous people and their beautiful ancestral forests.” — Suzanne Simard, author of When the Forest Breathes

“Inspirational ... essential teaching for our time.” — Elizabeth May, O.C., M.P.

An inspiring personal transformation through rediscovery of Indigenous self.

“I was lost before I was born”: the starting point of Pacheedaht Elder Bill Jones' lifelong journey of decolonization. “You were all Indigenous once”: the starting point for ending a world based on exploitation and greed.

In 2020–2021, settlers and First Nations people held what became Canada’s largest act of civil disobedience — the Fairy Creek Blockades — in Port Renfrew, British Columbia. During this fight to save some of the province’s and the world’s last remaining old-growth forest, the protesters experienced a collective transformation and were reacquainted with our Great Mother. As Elder Bill sat in a tent during a West Coast storm at the height of the Blockades, he experienced the final phase of his personal decolonization when he had a realization that has informed his life ever since.

Weaving together the stories of Elder Bill’s personal life and those of his ancestors with Elder teachings, settler feminism, and the story of the Blockades, Listening Once Again to Our Great Mother shares wisdom that will inspire readers to reach their own self-awakening, now and for generations to come.