The sound of a chain saw greeted me as I walked toward the intersection, where Government street meets Victoria’s harbour, right by the Empress Hotel. The street was closed to traffic. On the meridian, in the middle of the lanes, with downtown buildings all around, a half-dozen workers were finishing the job of bringing down what must have been a fairly large tree. Some were cutting the trunk into pieces, others were shredding branches, still others were piling four-foot slices of hard-wood trunk onto a front-end loader. The crew was working hard. But there was just as much action outside the cordon. Three different TV crews had cameras trained on the workers, who self-consciously were trying not to pay attention to them. Several camera photographers were snapping photos.

I ran my errands. Fifteen minutes later, on my way back, the cameras were gone. A flag-woman guarded the yellow tape.

“What’s all the media interest about?” I asked her. “What happened?”

“Oh,” she replied, “we cut down a tree.”

“Was it an important tree?” I asked.

She shrugged. “There aren’t that many around– take a look.” Her arm swept the horizon. “I guess so.”

“There were protesters?”

“Believe it or not, only one.” She laughed. “All those media folks came down on her like a gang. They all had to interview the same person!”

“Why’d they cut it down?”

“That’s the best part,” she leaned in, as if sharing a secret. “It’s for a bike path,” she whispered. Then she hoisted her neon vest and headed back to the other workers. “We live in a bizarre world!” she called over her shoulder.

Today I’m flying out of Victoria, headed east. And you cannot fly without experiencing – and, let’s be honest, benefitting from – systems. There’s a system that directs travelers through airports onto planes, and systems to guide the planes safely across runways and through the air. A system will, I hope, make sure my luggage arrives when I do. A system for bike paths spelled the end of that tree. But despite their undoubted value, we make a mistake when we treat other people, or creation, as if it’s only that – a series of systems to be managed, and not relations to be nurtured and respected.

We use systems, and we think of them as external to us. On the other hand, we are part of a web of relations. Tanya Talaga points this out in her book “All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward” (Anansi Press, 2018). Other Indigenous writers such as Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, and Indigenous activists such as Kenneth Deer warn us that to ignore our relations with creation puts us at peril. Indigenous courage and sacrifice in defense of the planet, whether against fracking, or pipelines, or sacred sites, has led the way. I don’t know if that one tree, in downtown Victoria, should have been saved. A bike path is certainly a good thing. But I wonder if it was a case of “all our systems,” rather than “all our relations.”