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.