A coffee with… Henri Jacob | The ecologist “a little runny”

The forest, the environmental activist Henri Jacob has it in the skin. He has been defending it against development for 50 years. He even lived there for 10 years, without running water or electricity. It was therefore natural that our editorialist Philippe Mercure should go to meet him in the middle of the woods, in his native Abitibi.

(Val-d’Or) In Abitibi, the expression “pull a log” should be taken literally.

With astonishing force, Henri Jacob grabs a large section of tree trunk with arm-the-body, then deposits it with a crash in front of a clearing which gives on the Piché river. He invites us to sit down, takes out a thermos and cups from a backpack and pours us a strong, black and hot coffee that invigorates this cold November morning.

It designates an island planted with conifers, beyond the water and the reeds.

“Do you see the point? My house was right behind the first trees, ”he says.

We are a few kilometers from Val-d’Or, on the land of Henri Jacob. This island has a special meaning for him. In the 1980s, he lived there for 10 years with his girlfriend and his daughter. still very young. A life lived among ducks, bears and moose, without running water or electricity.

“I started to campaign in 1972 and wanted to put into practice what I had learned in theory,” he explains. And already, at the time, I had the impression that there was no longer any hope for the environment. I wanted to introduce my daughter to a more natural environment while it was still possible. ”

In winter, her dog, a Newfoundlander, crossed the frozen river to bring the little one to school by sled. “In the evening, I would send her to fetch her. He would wait for her at school and bring her back, ”he says.

* * *

Henri Jacob was born in 1952 in La Reine, a village on the border between Abitibi and Ontario which prides itself on being the “world capital at the end of the world”.

“I was brought up at the edge of the woods. Our playground was the forest, ”he says.

The taste for activism comes to him by chance. Henri Jacob was 20 years old when he participated in the very first edition of the Canada World Youth program. The experience, dotted with memorable celebrations, took him from Alberta to Ontario via Mexico.

While at a summer camp near Edmonton, he grabs the first book he can find to learn English. The Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson, describes the ravages of pesticides on the environment. The book made a strong impression on the young man.

Back in Abitibi, Henri Jacob became an environmental activist even before the expression was known.

“I didn’t even know I was an environmentalist! He says.

Outraged by the logging companies who clear the lands where he likes to camp and hike, he responds in his own way.

Henri Jacob invites himself to meetings where he is not welcome. He remembers one of them, organized between the Minister of Forests and the forestry companies, where he asks disturbing questions.

“I didn’t have time to get my answers. There are two big men who took me by the underarms and brought me outside, in front of the Minister! “, Says the one who admits to having been” maybe a little slobbery “at the time.

* * *

Henri Jacob shows the forest that stretches across the Piché river. It has been in the crosshairs of forestry companies many times. But with a few “accomplices”, Henri Jacob constantly stood in their way.

“As a joke, I say that we created a protected area before the concept of a protected area existed,” he says.

“We were going to check the cutting plans and we knew a year in advance where they wanted to burn,” he explains.

While militant, Henri Jacob multiplies the jobs to earn a living. Driving instructor, nature guide, construction worker: he keeps every job just long enough to collect EI.

“Big ends, I said I was a civil servant. I was paid by the federal government to campaign! He laughs.

He also serves long mandates for the Anichinabe community of Kitcisakik. He advises locals on how to interact with government and logging companies, then coordinates a community relocation project that ultimately never saw the light of day.

“The natives, I knew them. We had affinities on the mentality of land management, ”he says.

Over the years, he helped found many environmental organizations, including Action boréale with singer Richard Desjardins – now a close friend.

Every summer for 27 years, he has also disappeared for five weeks in the forest to put rings on the legs of ducks. The operation, carried out for the Canadian Wildlife Service, documents the fluctuations in populations.

Obviously, in a region that lives largely on mines and forests, Henri Jacob’s methods do not appeal to everyone. In the 2000s, when he opposed the development of the Canadian Malartic gold mine, it was his famous house on the island, which then became a cottage, that paid the price.

Henri Jacob is cross-country skiing on the river when he sees two snowmobiles going away at full throttle. Arrived at the chalet, he notices that it has been demolished with an ax.

Because you understood it: after half a century of activism, Henri Jacob has no intention of settling down. He continues the “struggle” and wants to pass on what he has learned to the youngest.

Faced with the climate emergency and the inaction that accompanies it, he sometimes admits leaning towards pessimism. But then he remembers a memory. He was hitchhiking in Guatemala in 1976 when an earthquake struck and killed over 20,000 people. He survived.

“Suddenly, I saw people talking to each other and starting to collaborate,” he says. I tell myself that there may be events that will occur that will cause such a shock and awareness. ”

“I have grandchildren anyway,” he says. So I don’t have the luxury of being a pessimist. ”