On Haida Gwaii there is a grand tradition of publishing work that confronts government and industry and ask questions publicly.

The Haida Nation has worked continuously to address land and sea issues and of course the big one, Title. The Islands Protection Society put out a series of magazines under the masthead of "All Alone Stone." The Tlell Watershed Society has done a few issues of "What the Hell is in the Tlell." A magazine surfaced years ago, for two issues, called "This House has many People." And street flyers constantly appear on issues such as bears, fishing lodges, and logging. It is a culture ripe with communication.

Since 1994, Haida Gwaii's Gowgaia Institute has published SpruceRoots, a newspaper and website where we reflect upon who we are, what we do, why we do it, and what we want.

Go into the forest and sit under a spruce tree. Work your hand down into the moss and then into the damp but warm earth. Feel around. There it is, a slender root with little tendrils taking off in all directions. Gently tug and the root will begin to pull up from the earth, lifting the moss. As you pull, finer roots will begin to show. If you were able to pull for a long time and with enough skill you could lift the whole floor of the forest, exposing a network of roots as intricate as anything in the universe.

SpruceRoots: I don’t think we need to go further into the significance of the metaphor to spell it out, but the name does fit the publication. A few statistics — we publish 8 to 10 times a year with a press run of 1,250 copies in the winter and 1,400 in the spring and summer months. Our issues vary in size from 12 pages to 40 pages. We distribute by driving up and down the Island, dropping the issues in cafés, grocery stores, art galleries, gas stations, libraries and the Co-op. We also mail out to more than 120 groups and individuals. These include hereditary leaders, local politicians and councils, logging camps, individuals and supporters. Since 1994 we have published more than 50 issues.

We also publish on the web. Our site www.spruceroots.org carries all of the articles published on paper plus a few extras. We have a gallery of photos from around the Islands, plus a very popular site within the site. This sub-site is a photo-documentary of a totem pole being carved by Guujaaw at Skidegate. It documents the evolution of the pole from raw log to finished figures. You can find the site in the ‘Stories’ index. SpruceRoots has been online since 1996 and we average 500 hits a day. We have almost 200 stories on-line, on issues including bear hunting, Ministry of Forests' waste policies, profiles of community members, local politicians, opinion, critiques, and discussion of community processes.

The Gowgaia Institute was formed in 1994 to promote sustainability on Haida Gwaii. Our goal is to protect and sustain the Islands’ ecosystems, to ensure that the fish, forests and natural beauty we enjoy today are here in equal measure for our children and generations to come. This means adjusting current governing management principles, economic structures, rate of resource extraction, and system of protected areas accordingly.

We approach our goals through programs of land-use planning, mapping, community networking, communications, and fish/forest technical analysis. We build awareness and understanding about what is happening in the Haida Gwaii bioregion by publishing economic analysis and maps, encouraging public dialogue, and engaging with others in the search for solutions.

A few years ago two people came to Haida Gwaii from Nicaragua. They were invited here to teach us the technique of something called Popular Education. Popular Education was developed in Nicaragua after the civil war by a group called Cantera. It is a process of reflection with the belief that the knowledge and ability to change a situation is inherent in the people who live in a place.

The technique is simple but very effective. What it entails is basically publishing the writing and photography of regular people — what they think, how they perceive things, and what they want. The Nicaraguans found that if you do this, people gain a new perspective of their situation, can integrate the information, build on the new knowledge, and act for change.

The idea ignited a spark in us and we set out to produce a publication that would attempt to follow these principles. We decided that SpruceRoots would be used as a vehicle to promote discussion on issues that affect Haida Gwaii. Over the years we have worked with more than 50 writers, illustrators and photographers exploring perspectives and presenting stories which collectively reflect the wealth and variability of a community perspective.

Standard journalistic practices are not the editorial initiative here. We feel that having a set of standards to which all contributors have to fit would only limit the ability to reflect our community as it expresses itself. This is especially true when working with new contributors. Getting an idea on paper and into print is a major deal!

The Cantera approach was decided on also to avoid inadvertently reiterating and supporting the status quo notion on any given subject. The crux is respecting peoples' way of seeing and feeling.

We are trying to reflect the whole (Haida Gwaii) in a different way by placing and positioning ourselves in a realm of interaction with our community. This perspective differs profoundly from many expectations, which tend to be based on the standards of performance in mainstream media and public relations products. We feel this standard approach of "objectivity" is a notion that went out many years ago, and trying to uphold it devalues real feelings and community knowledge around issues.

Sometimes our stories may be a little rough, but it is our experience that honesty and genuine inquiry are retained. The feelings and knowledge that are presented have an integrity in and of themselves.

(Simon Davies works with the Gowgaia Institute and is publisher of Spruce Roots.)