Winter 1990: Documentary filmmaker Nettie Wild returns to Vancouver after spending five years in the Philippines making A Rustling of Leaves. She discovers her home is immersed in its own social/political troubles. Two major issues are tearing it apart: the indiscriminate logging of our forests and the fear and confusion surrounding Native land claims. She decides to document the story covering all sides but from a personal and informed point of view.

January 1991: She takes the idea to Trina McQueen at the cbc. When McQueen hears of Wild’s plans she rolls her eyes, pointing to a stack of other proposals on the same theme. Wild insists hers will be different.

CBC and the National Film Board provide development funding.

March 1991: CBC approves Wild’s proposal and comes in as a coproduction partner on the project, budgeted at $718,000.

Canada Council provides $40,000 towards production.

Wild buys her first car, a 1980 Toyota station wagon. She tosses in her backpack, sleeping bag and cameras and heads out to research her film. Her instincts lead her up around Hazelton, b.c. where logging is a way of life and the Gitksan and Wet’souwet’en Indians are engaged in the country’s most controversial land claim.

May 1991: Wild arrives in the community for the first time. Both whites and Natives are grappling with the issues of logging and land claims hands-on.

She runs into strong opposition from the logging community, which is tired of reporters coming in for a few days and leaving thinking they know what is happening. She also has to contend with the necessity of learning three new languages – Gitksan, legalese and loggingspeak.

Wild assembles her tight-knit family crew with whom she had worked on A Rustling Of Leaves.

July 1991: Filming begins. Several key characters start to emerge.

‘I tried to find people that would evolve into characters central to the story and that were on the verge of some kind of action that would influence the whole community,’ says Wild.

Among those characters are the Hobenshield family, sons of the white settlers in the region. After logging and living in the valley for 60 years, they feel justified in their claim to the land. Vernon Hobenshield, head of the family, initially dismisses Wild as just another reporter looking for a three-minute sound bite. When he sees her hanging around the local diners asking loggers endless questions, and she’s still there six months later, he finally acquiesces to participate in the film.

Fall-winter 1991: Wild says it also took months to gain the trust of several Gitksan people central to the film. The Gitksan needed to see if this ‘Amxsiwaa’ (white) crew was prepared to slow down and really listen. Art Loring, a Gitksan chief who used to be a logger, agrees to be a lead figure in the film on the condition that Wild sign her own legal release form stipulating that the footage will only be used for her film.

December 1991: The action intensifies when the Gitksan Indians establish one of the first blockades leading to Hobenshield’s family logging operation. From then on Wild contends with the complications of guessing just when the unpredictable blockades will occur.

With a hefty tab of $4,000 per day to fly her crew up on a moment’s notice Wild starts to develop her clairvoyant skills. When she misses and the crew is not around, Wild resorts to her Bolex camera with 100-foot loads or her Hi-8 video camera.

Winter-spring 1992: Meanwhile, production manager Betsy Carson is trying to pull rabbits out of a hat on her computer as she stretches what was originally planned to be a total eight weeks of filming into what has now evolved into a whopping 15-month shoot. Wild keeps begging for ‘just one more blockade’ to wrap it up. Carson works her magic.

July 1992: Jeff Warren, who had edited the award-winning documentary Final Offer, comes out from Toronto to cut Blockade. He is faced with the Herculean task of first screening the rushes from 100 hours of film and 150 hours of videotape although the nfb editing facilities are only booked for five months.

Sept. 17, 1992: At last the blockade she’s been waiting for – a climax for her film. The Gitksan and Wet’souwet’en Indians, fed up with the lack of any real movement on negotiations with the government on land claims, blockade the Canadian National Railway, which effectively puts an end to the economy in Northern b.c. and demands the government’s attention.

Late September 1992: A month and a half into editing, screening of the rushes is finally completed.

November 1992: Wild is served with a notice to appear in court. cnr petitions the courts to seize all of Wild’s footage covering the blockades to be used in a civil suit against the Gitksan Band Council and for a permanent injunction forbidding the band to blockade the tracks again.

Keeping in mind what she refers to as the ‘social contract’ she had made with the film’s key participants, the Native and logging communities, Wild adamantly refuses, despite being faced with massive legal costs to fight it out in court. Wild launches a public and media blitz against cnr’s actions. She receives support from other independent producers, a defense fund is set up and a benefit is co-ordinated to help defray future legal costs. Taken aback by the media furor, cnr starts to back off, offering the explanation, ‘Oh we thought she was just some lady with a camera.’

Christmas 1992: First picture edit assembly is completed; it’s seven-and-a-half hours long.

April 1993: Picture edit is completed and ‘sound edit from hell’ begins, with sound editor Gael McLean laying down a 30-track sound track. Roy Forbes (Bim) composes the musical score.

June 1993: The cnr finally withdraws its lawsuit and starts negotiating with the Gitksan.

August 1993: Sound mix completed.

September 1993: Blockade premiers at Toronto’s Festival of Festivals.