Date & time
Thursday, November 5, 2026
3 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
3 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Workshops & seminars
Share this event:
The Fairy Creek Blockades and the Life Story of Pacheedaht Elder Bill Jones
Cost
This event is free.
Website
Where
4TH SPACE
J.W. McConnell Building
1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W.
Accessible location
Yes - See details
"I was lost before I was born": the starting point of Elder Bill Jones' lifelong journey of decolonization.
"You were all Indigenous once": the starting point for ending a world based on exploitation and greed.
We welcome Elder Bill Jones and Karen Moe, co-authors of the book Listening Once Again to Our Great Mother - The Fairy Creek Blockades and the Life Story of Pacheedaht Elder Bill Jones. The 2020-2021 Fairy Creek Blockades, against logging of an old-growth forest in BC, gathered First Nation people and settlers to become the largest act of civil disobedience in Canada. Elder Bill Jones recalls how, at the height of the resistance, he experienced the final phase of his awakening to the voice of the forest and the wisdom of his ancestors.
In conversation with Karen Moe, he will share essential teachings for our troubled time: about listening to the Earth, fighting to protect it, overcoming forces that fracture cultures and the self, and finding true dialogue beyond the colonial divide to face our collective fate. They will join virtually from BC, hosted by Nicolas Renaud Associate Professor of First Peoples Studies, School of Community and Public Affairs, Concordia.
How can you participate? Join us in person or online by registering for the Zoom Meeting or watching live on YouTube.
Have questions? Send them to info.4@concordia.ca
Presented by First Peoples Studies in collaboration with the Office of Decolonizing and Indigenizing Curriculum and Pedagogy.
Speakers
Elder William Jones’ life spans a childhood and early adulthood on the Pacheedaht Nation reservation with the fall out of residential school trauma, then the racism of working in the colonized world, to becoming a ʔuuštaqyu through his own spiritual awakening and a holder of First Nations traditions and rituals. He lives in Sooke, BC.
Karen Moe is a writer, artist, and feminist activist. She has been published internationally in English and Spanish and has exhibited and performed across Canada, in the US and Mexico. Her debut book, Victim: A Feminist Manifesto from a Fierce Survivor, is being translated into Spanish and adapted for film. She lives in Lantzville, BC and Mexico City where she is committed to her life as, in Elder Bill’s words: “A most effective truth-seeker.”
Description: A conversation with Elder Bill Jones, Karen Moe, and Nicolas Renaud about the Fairy Creek Blockades and essential teachings for troubled times.
Organized by: Nicolas Renaud
Participants:
Nicolas Renaud
Elder William Jones
Karen Moe
With: First Peoples Studies; Office of Decolonizing and Indigenizing Curriculum and Pedagogy
