Here we are in ucluelet, british columbia.
[cheering & applauding]
On the edge of a continent,
Vancouver island's wild, wet coast.
Ucluelet was an industry town,
Here where the dense rainforest green
Meets the white, grey, salt sea spray.
People had a little blue around the collar,
A little red around the neck.
And if you wanted great surf spots or nice gift shops,
Well, you could do that 30 minutes up the road in tofino.
The problem is people did.
[laughing]
And in the 80s and 90s, people woke up to
Critical conservation concerns,
And fishing and logging were impacted severely.
In fact, this was ground zero for major logging protests.
Protests that got headlines around the world.
And locally, was so divisive,
It nearly clear cut the town in two.
Suddenly, tourism seemed like less of a nuisance and
More like a lifeline.
By then, everybody who comes to this part of the world,
Is not coming for here. People are here, you know,
"hey, check us out, surf's up!"
And they're like, "yeah, up in tofino."
[laughing]
When you grow up in a small town in newfoundland,
You see that people have a sense of humour
About hard times.
Check, check.
I turned that into a career and hit the road.
Mr. Jonny harris!
Now I'm on a mission to find the funny in the places you'd
Least expect it- canada's struggling small towns.
Towns that are against the ropes, but hanging in there.
Still laughing in the face of adversity.
This is ucluelet, british columbia.
♪
[cheering & applauding]
For decades, ucluelet was a fishing and logging town,
But since those industries were decimated,
Now relies more on tourism.
The trouble is getting the message out that
You're open for business.
Right now you guys are like, "hey, come check us out!
We're 'u-cool-it'."
No, 'u...' 'u-cul-et'.
No, 'u-ca-lay'...
[laughing]
'u-clue-let' is a bit hard to pronounce.
People do mess it up a few times, right?
But I think I got a way that you can set people straight.
Just tell them they gotta have a clue.
You can't go wrong if you say "clue".
What are you clueless? Ucluelet.
[laughing]
♪
To find out a bit more about the logging,
I talked to a lifelong local from a long line of loggers,
Shirley martin.
[cheering & applauding]
When I was a kid, macmillan bloedel,
Also known as mmb, or mac-blo,
Was kind of the big employer in town.
I grew up out at the mmp logging camp,
And it was kind of like a family atmosphere.
Shirley grew up in a logging camp.
She said it was great, it had a real family atmosphere.
She said it was fun for kids.
Hard to keep a treehouse.
[laughing]
Sometimes her and her friends,
They'd see the logging truck go by and then.
"well, there goes the neighbourhood."
[laughing]
My dad was a commercial fisherman.
As well as a logger.
So, when I was growing up,
There was a lot of fish around.
From lucrative logging to highly prized herring,
You know, families had food on the table.
By the 80s, things started to change with the fishing.
There were licensing changes, and government changes,
And quota changes, and it hit them really hard.
And they- a lot of the areas around ucluelet
Got logged out.
That sort of started a contentious issue.
A group- grassroots enviro group- started up,
And their mandate was to protect the forests.
And, there's people that are
Making a living through forestry.
So, it became gradually more contentious.
It all came to a head in '93 with the war in the woods.
Thousands of people came to protest the logging.
Every day, people would block the loggers
From going to work. And then, every day,
They would be read an injunction and arrested.
12,000 protesters showed up,
A thousand of whom would eventually be arrested.
And shirley said this was stressful for everybody.
You know, it was between the life of the forest or the...
The livelihood of the locals.
The kids were actually forbidden to
Talk about it in the high school.
It was so divisive that her daughter was in high school,
And they were forbidden to bring it up.
They'd get in trouble if they did.
Although for teenage boys in high school,
There's often trouble when wood comes up,
Especially if you're wearing gym pants.
[laughing]
So then, what happened was the logging company
Pulled out, and that left it 100% under the first nations
Because, of course, this is their original land,
And that what they feel about it is very important with
Their land claims and their rights.
By 1998, it was all over, which essentially meant
The end of logging in this area.
People are passionate about forests and trees.
People are passionate about their environment, naturally.
People also were passionate about their livelihoods and
Being able to stay in the area they love.
And it's a fine balance.
The war in the woods was a big deal at the time.
In fact, shirley said...
It was one of the biggest civil,
Act of civil disobedience in canada.
With 12,000 people, 1000 arrests,
Nobody was, was injured or killed.
You know, it never turned violent, luckily.
Canadian civil disobedience is, of course,
Among the most civil of all civil disobediences.
[laughing]
It was pretty sad, there was a saying:
"the last one to leave, turn out the lights."
Because we felt like everyone was gonna have to leave.
And of course, 20 years ago,
Tourism wasn't doing what it is now.
Tofino got more well-known earlier on,
And went more for the tourism aspect of it.
Actually, at one time we were described as
Tofino's ugly stepsister.
"tofino's ugly stepsister."
[laughing]
That is not a good analogy.
Like, first of all, ugly?
Look around here! If anything,
I would say ucluelet is tofino's equally as attractive sister,
But just way less people have been.
It's not a good analogy. It's not a good analogy.
♪
Much of the tourism that ucluelet gets today is thanks
To the wild pacific trail, which was the brainchild of
One wild pacific male, "oyster" jim martin.
[cheering & applauding]
Jim, of course got that nickname, "oyster" jim,
Because he fished for oysters.
If that's the case, call me, "compliments harris".
[laughing]
Oh, you guys don't like my jokes tonight, do you?
-[laughing] -oh, you do?
Oh, what's your favourite one?
Oh, you like my oyster puns, ah, shucks.
[laughing]
When I first came here,
I wanted to catch salmon off the rocks.
So, I started exploring the headlands
For places where I could fish.
And the perspective from the shore was just stunning.
Something you can't see from a boat or air.
He said it was like streaming postcards.
And he thought, you know,
Somebody needs to string these spots together.
And I'm going, wow,
It should be easy to put a trail here and...
Sure be easy to put a trail there, and...
And that idea, I just couldn't get away from it.
I went out and took pictures of various locations,
Made a 4x8 sheet of plywood with a map hand drawn and
Pictures at different locations.
I went to the co-op and sit in the foyer there.
And he said for years, he'd set up in the parking lot
Of the co-op, just to get people's feedback,
Introduce them to the idea, getting funding in place,
Which sounds sort of crazy,
But there was no dragon's den back then.
I suppose the parking lot of the co-op is
A good place as any.
But it does sound a little bit crazy.
Like, could you imagine if I traveled around
Pinning up some sort of big map,
Spouting my wacky ideas to people?
[laughing]
[cheering & applauding]
Ucluelet doesn't have the attractions
That tofino side has.
When you come to that junction out there,
Everybody was going right.
Ucluelet was basically a bedroom community,
Without any assets.
And when logging and fishing tanked,
It's time to develop your asset.
It was hard for jim, dealing with landowners and
The town council who turned him down twice
Before he finally got approval.
And it was just hard, dirty work.
Spent a lot of time, hands and knees
Crawling through surveying the ground.
There were some areas I didn't set foot on until
I went in and chopped the route out with a chainsaw.
And it just happened that ucluelet had its share of
Loggers and fishermen, guys with strong backs and
Even stronger work ethic, without much work.
And I was able to tap into that and,
That helped me build this.
♪
Since its completion, people have been enjoying
Hiking and in taking in the unbelievable scenery,
The lighthouse, the landscape,
The wildlife you encounter on the trails, incredible.
I had a lot of locals come up to me and go,
"I've lived here my whole life and
I never knew this was here."
He was like, "what do you think I've been doing with
The 4x8 piece of plywood up at the co-op for 5 years!"
[laughing]
Nice to meet you.
♪
Another place that has put ucluelet on the tourism map
Is, of course, the ucluelet aquarium.
I had a talk on the dock with brit buirs.
[cheering & applauding]
The ucluelet aquarium started out as a little trailer on
The boardwalk, and it became so popular that
We got to create this permanent facility.
And we now have 32 tanks that
Hold animals for our season.
And then, we get to release them back into the ocean.
The ucluelet aquarium is canada's first
Catch and release aquarium.
The marine life, they're there for a short while.
Hopefully, tourists will come, spend some money,
And then they'll be released.
A hostage taking, if you will.
[laughing]
The term "catch and release" has caused some confusion.
Some people have taken it quite literally.
One family had come in with their fishing rods
Ready to catch a fish and release it.
[laughing]
Yeah, this place is catch and release,
But you can expect to do neither.
She explained it to them- they were left reeling.
[audience] [laughing & groaning]
That's a groaner, fair enough, yeah, yeah.
[laughing]
I got to see fish, sea stars, urchins.
These little thimble jellyfish that look like
They have little led lights that flutter
Up and down their bodies.
It was wild.
We focus on invertebrates.
They make up a huge part of our coast,
And they're underrated,
And no one really gets to learn about them.
♪
One of the big hits at the aquarium is the
Giant pacific octopus.
The octopus can get up to 40 feet.
They only live a very short time as well.
They only live around a year.
So, that thing is going to grow 40 feet long,
Within a year.
He's gonna outgrow his tank in...
I think like somebody should go check.
[laughing]
♪
Our season runs from March 'til the end of October.
And then we do a public release.
It's low impact on the marine life.
They're returned to the water.
They probably don't even know.
"did that even just happen?"
"I feel like I was just in a tank."
"there was people looking at me."
"but now I'm back here. Did that even really-"
Aliens do that to me all the time.
[laughing]
And, at the aquarium, I don't even think they get probed.
[laughing]
♪
The logging days are long gone,
But you can still find wood cutting and surfers aren't
The only ones who are carving things up.
I went and I had a chat with artist and owner of
Cedar house gallery, hjalmer wenstob.
[cheering & applauding]
Hjalmer told me he grew up on the deer group islands.
I was born in the deer group with my grandparents,
My mom and my aunt, just the 5 of us.
It was his grandparents, his mom, his aunt, and him.
He was the only child.
He wasn't "an" only job, but he was "the" only child.
[laughing]
In the summer, we ran a fishing lodge.
At the end of the year, you'd save up all your tips.
At the end of the summer, he'd have, you know,
80 bucks, all the money in the world to a kid.
And they'd get on the boat,
And they'd come 30 kilometres
Across the sea to the big city of ucluelet.
[laughing]
And he would arrive here, and he would gaze at the
Buildings that stood two storeys high.
And stare wondrously at people
He wasn't even related to.
[laughing]
And you'd walk up the hill to the co-op and
You'd buy some lego or something.
Go to, go to the bowling alley.
Groceries and bowling, that's like big time.
That's something you could really brag about when you
Got back home, if there was anybody else to brag to.
[laughing]
Eventually, he went off to university in victoria.
He was teaching visual arts and indigenous studies there.
Part of what brought him back was
He and his wife had a daughter.
When we had our little one, it was like,
"okay, now it's time to come home."
I wanted her to know how I was raised.
If she ever gets to the age where she complains that
Ucluelet is too small, he can say,
"oh, honey, it's all relative.
And where I grew up, it was all relatives."
[laughing]
You can't just come home and bum around.
We had to, you know, we wanted to do something.
And this gallery was up for sale.
The other thing that brought him back was the chance to
Buy the gallery space and open cedar house.
He needed a bank loan to buy the place,
And he wasn't having much luck.
He got turned down by two banks.
And eventually, he approached an
Indigenous bank and they considered it.
They said, "do you have any assets?"
So, I said, "well, I own part of my truck."
This old beat up, little beat up truck.
And they went, "yeah, yeah, great.
Okay, so do you have any other assets to your name?"
And I said, "well, I got this totem pole that
I've carved for the airport in vancouver."
And it was valued at, I think, $70,000.
He said he had a totem pole that he carved, himself.
And it was quite valuable and actually was on display for
Several years in vancouver airport.
And said, "we need to know you're gonna be committed,
We need to know you're gonna be here for the long haul."
And, said, "do you have anything that'll prove that?"
I said, "I got a master's in visual art."
And they went, "good enough."
What really swayed the bank was the fact that
He'd earned his master's degree in visual arts,
And that helped him secure the loan.
I was sort of surprised to hear that because...
After university, I was trying to buy
A used honda civic.
And my arts degree did not help me.
[laughing]
The guy at the bank was like, "you got a theatre degree?"
Do you even have a fixed address?"
I was- [stammering]-
"what do you think the civic is for?"
[laughing]
♪ [indigenous singing]
I really have a hard time being called
An indigenous artist.
I can't represent first nations art.
There are so many different art forms in there, right?
Nuu-chah-nulth have our own art.
At the time we opened the gallery,
We weren't seeing those artists being highlighted to
The extent that I thought we deserved to be highlighted.
So, the majority of the art in the gallery it's, 80%,
90% of the work is nuu-chah-nulth.
One of the goals of opening cedar house was the
Opportunity to showcase not just first nations artists,
But nuu-chah-nulth artists, who are not always as well
Represented as say, haida artists or...
Or coast salish artists.
I didn't really want to run a gallery.
I wanted a studio, a place where I get to come work.
And, it became more of a community space than anything.
Cedar house now is essentially a place where
You can buy art, sell art, watch art being made.
In fact, I think I got a good slogan
That you can use, hjalmer:
"cedar house gallery by hjalmer wenstob.
Your wenstob shop for nuu-chah-nulth art."
♪
Ha-ha!
There's not as many logs getting sent
Down these waters now. But not to worry,
There are still plenty of boards out there.
I went and had a chat with the owners of
Relic surf shop, mike and nicole bray.
[cheering & applauding]
Mike and nicole came here 20 years ago, from ontario.
They were amazed to find out
There was this surf scene here.
I got into snowboarding, and I was running a course and
The guy told me that there was surfing in canada.
Immediately, I wanted to come out here, I started surfing.
We'd heard about tofino, everybody hits the junction,
And they go right.
We made the left and we went to ucluelet.
We saw so much potential in the town, and we were like,
"this is, this is heaven."
They got here, fell in love with the place,
And then thought, you know,
"how do we make our lives here?"
We started with bringing people into town
With our inn and getting that whole
Surf culture happening there.
And then, starting with the surfing and the lessons.
And then, eventually, you know,
Building it into the shop.
This was a risky proposition 20 years ago.
The tourism was nowhere near what it is today.
In fact, several other surf shops had tried to
Open up and failed, even,
Even a surf shop couldn't catch a break.
[laughing]
One thing that they decided to do differently,
It wasn't gonna be seasonal.
There was no one operating in ucluelet
Doing surfing year-round.
So, we started adding that into our business.
Nobody surfed in the winter...
Which, to me, sounds reasonable.
[laughing]
They gave me a big surfboard.
Bigger boards are better for beginners.
And the bigger the board, the better.
When he told me that, I thought, I'm gonna
Go ask oyster jim for his 4x8 piece of plywood.
[laughing]
♪
Did I get up?
I wouldn't say I didn't get up.
[laughing]
♪
Like, at one point, I was sort of in the stance,
Feet planted on the board.
I sort of gave myself like a victorious fist pump because
There was a gopro camera on the front of the board and
I figured from the angle it's at,
It can't tell that I'm just about to eat it.
[laughing]
Maybe I didn't catch a wave, but I did catch the bug.
It was so fun, and I'm determined now that I,
I really want to actually do it.
I'm gonna be back, I don't care what time of year.
I don't care how cold it is.
I'm coming back, 'cause I figure it's like
Snowboarding, you just fall and fall and fall.
Then, you know, your brain clicks,
And you start to learn.
It must be like that with surfing.
I just wasn't at it long enough. You know, the...
The penny hasn't dropped yet.
Neither have one of my testicles. It's cold.
[laughing]
♪
If there exists a place anything quite like this,
I hope someone will let me know.
Ucluelet's so gorgeous, I could go on and on,
But I don't want to upset tofino.
The cedar house rules with wood carving and tools.
An incredible totem pole that I know has spent more time in
The vancouver airport than a layover flight from nanaimo.
Bald eagles perch at the tops of great spruce.
In the sea, sea lions are king.
See jellyfish at night amidst their disco dance light.
I swear I didn't even know that was a thing.
Rent a board at relic's, go give surfing a try.
Or hike a trail that's both wild and at peace.
If ucluelet's a sister, she's a hell of a catch.
And one you won't want to release.
Thanks for coming out, everybody.
You've been fantastic.
[cheering & applauding]
-Fantastic. -It was awesome.
It was so, it was so good.
♪
Johnny educated the town about the town.
♪
He's good looking, and he's funny,
And he didn't let us down at all.
-No. -He was great.
They call this the janet look.
Miss jackson, if you're nasty.
♪
Yeah, maybe I should take surfing lessons.
I'm only 70, what the hell.
♪
Well, there's two people now who have made an art,
An art degree successful, him and myself, so...
You know, I feel like I'm in good company.
[laughing]
♪