TOP STORY In this particular war, the enemies are the logging companies and the B.C. Ministry of Forests, which, Has- kell charges, haven't been respon- sible stewards of the land. “The more I got involved in it, the more I saw it was wrong.” The feeling one gets from the gregarious Haskell is that he thrives gi @on confrontation and doesn’t mind stepping on a few toes. “If people don’t keep their toes in their shoes, it’s their problem,” he says. When several hundred members of the pro-logging group Share the Forests (Haskell calls the group “Shave the Forests”) held a rally out- side the B.C. Legislature, Haskell =o showed up to present the At environmentalists’ side of the con- We - troversy: To say he was unwelcome at ei. the rally would be a huge under- 5 Statement. = “T like that stuff.” he says. “Pd >, rather fight than switch.” Ne Like an pesky hornet at a garden |i; party, Haskell tormented the _ _ demonstrators, hoping to get his MY = point across and/alsolsecurelin the knowledge that as long as cameras were around to record the day's Ie events, the agitated loggers would © not harm him. “T know damn well if the TV * cameras weren't there they would iy have enjoyed beating the hell out of zi me,’ he says. Indeed, Haskell is realistic enough to appreciate that his antagonistic behavior. could place him in jeopardy. He is routinely insulted by the pro- logging forces and also has been the target of late-night harassing phone calls. He doesn’t exactly like it, but realizes it’s part of the territory. “At a certain time you come to a realization you're at war,” he says. “And with war you have casualties.” While Haskell’s opponents may not be prepared to make him a casualty of war, it’s fair to say they'd be thrilled to have him out of their hair. Indeed, the extent of the acrimony is such that forestry officials are reluc- tant to reveal their thoughts on Has- kell for fear of sparking a libel suit. “It would be difficult to be honest without being. inflammatory,” one says. _ Privately, forest industry people question Haskell’s: motives and ac- cuse him of grandstanding. They sug- "gest he may be more interested in making a name for himself than in _ Saving the environment. Whatever Haskell’s motives — “whether he’s a crusader or a grandstander — one thing is clear: he’s a driven, even fanatical, man with a mission. “Tm willing to go to any extreme to get these people to do the job right,” he says. “I believe in sensible forestry. I don’t believe in clear-cut and I don’t believe in over-cutting.” For someone who's been active in : the environmental movement for , only two years, Haskell has come a {. long way. He says he’s always been an SYD HASKELL, at his Fairfield home, reacts to questions during his interview with This Week reporter Vaughn Cocke. Main photo (courtesy Syd Haskell) shows damage to the Western Canadian Wilderness Committee's Car- manah Valley trail, which was vandalized last week. environmentalist, but it wasn’t until he became familiar with the Car- manah Valley controversy that he decided to take a more active inter- est. That interest quickly became an ob- session. Haskell helped establish the Carmanah Forestry Society in January 1989, and now spends an average of 50 hours per week on en- vironmental matters. During the week he works out of his home or- ganizing trail-building expeditions and planning strategy. (In typical Haskell fashion, he uses the per- sonals section of the newspaper to recruit trail-builders.) Every second weekend he heads up to the Walbran Jrllsy to bieze trails, Photos by CHUCK RUSSELL sometimes with a group of high school students in tow. Students from Vic High, St. Michael’s University School, Reynolds and Mount Douglas have taken part in the labor-inten- sive business of building trails. For his part, Haskell estimates he’s helped construct 12 miles of trail in the Walbran Valley. Something about being in the woods energizes him, Haskell says. He calls it “hiker’s high.” “There's a therapy that takes place in nature,” he says. “There are no questions without answers when you get out in the woods.” One of the byproducts of that trail- building therapy has been improved SYD’S OUT TO SAVE OLD GROWTH FORESTS conditioning (although Haskell’s waistline might still be described as ample). “People pay money to sweat in aerobics classes. When I finish sweating, there’s a park behind me,” he says. Haskell also seems to be a tireless worker. He’s relentless, and he’s bold enough to say he doesn’t envy his opponents having to deal with him. “I'd hate to be up against someone who has limitless energy. I don’t know if I'd want to go against some- one like me.” But despite Haskell’s ready smile and constant enthusiasm, the en- vironmental crusade has had its down side as well. Haskell freely ad- mits his old-growth obsession has put a strain on his family life, but he says he remains committed to his cause, If that means he has only 15 hours a week to work on cars and two weekends per month at home, so be it. “There’s nothing, including my life, that’s more important than these forests,” he says. “It’s cost me a lot. My wife and child suffer from it. There’s no getting around it.” Ironically, while Haskell’s family feels the strain of his fanaticism, he says part of his motivation comes from wanting his five-year-old daughter Maxine to have permanent access to old-growth forests. “So far she’s got a lake named after her and a creek and a tree,” he says: Maxine also has been on trail-build- ing expeditions in the Walbran Val- ley. It appears she’s being groomed as a possible successor to her father. “I think Maxine’s stuck with being an environmentalist of the future,” Haskell says. His wife Diane, meanwhile, offers an unqualified “yes” when asked if the Haskells’ home life has suffered since Syd took up his cause. “For me it’s been very difficult,” she says. “As far as family life, we don’t have much unless we go to the woods with Syd.” Diane, a writer and substitute teacher, says she’s not “fanatical” about saving the forests, but she sup- ports her husband. That support has manifested itself in the form of a _ children’s book she wrote, titled Maxine’s Tree, which tells the story of a young girl who goes trail-building and comes up with a novel way to save the tree that’s been named after er. And while she abhors the harassing phone calls, Diane says it’s clear Syd thrives on his environmental ac- tivities. “Since he’s been involved he’s been a very happy man.” But not as happy as he'd be ifhe and other environmentalists finally won their war. “Tf (Forests Minister) Mr. Richmond was doing his job properly, I'd go back to fixing cars or being a goof,” Haskell says. “I'd go back to taking my wife out for dinner on Friday night in- stead of organizing people for trail- building.”