Bella Coola: The Rainforest Brought Them Home

From the British Columbia rainforest to the hills of Kentucky, the waters of the Rio Grande and the power centers of New York, Washington and Rome, Bella Coola: The Rainforest Brought Them Home probes the spiritual fault lines of our civilization in crisis. A clash between spirit and greed in the rainforest places the lives and loves of indigenous, Euro- and African-American protectors of the planet in jeopardy. With hearts torn between love for each other and love for the earth, Peter and Sarah, Bobby and Annetta, Anna and Ted, Randy and Aleysha, and Moria and Norval struggle to control their destinies. Bella Coola: The Rainforest Brought Them Home, set in 1998, is a novel that explores the intertwined quests of lifelong friends to find meaning in a world they experience as turned upside down from widespread environmental degradation and spiritual failure. Bella Coola begin with an evocative picture of a man—Peter—entering an ancient Canadian rainforest wilderness to support anti-logging activities. Peter and his wife Sarah left the US during the Vietnam War and became ardent environmental activists in British Columbia. Throughout the first chapter several themes emerge: the restorative quality of human experience in nature, the obligation to protect her, and the sensibility of a man at a critical juncture in life—with respect to both activist commitment and Peter’s commitment to Sarah. Peter’s dilemma is one that concerns all sensitive humans, and how he tries to resolve this conflict throughout the novel examines the struggle to find meaning in contemporary life. His trek through this wilderness to join his indigenous colleagues Norval, Duran and Roy at a pristine, old-growth wilderness valley threatened with clear-cut logging, the culmination of that journey and…