From award-winning journalist Sarah Cox comes the inspiring and astonishing story of the farmers and First Nations who stood up against the most expensive megaproject in BC history and the government-sanctioned bullying that propelled it forward.

In 2010, the BC government announced its plan to build a third hydroelectric dam on the Peace River. Although Site C would flood land of great significance to First Nations and some of Canada’s best farmland, BC Hydro, Premier Gordon Campbell, and his successor, Christy Clark, insisted it was necessary to generate jobs and clean energy.

In this powerful work, Cox reveals the true costs and hidden dangers of the project, as told to her by the local farmers, ranchers, and First Nations leaders who tried to stop the dam and the wholesale destruction of their valley in courts of law and the court of public opinion.

This modern-day David-and-Goliath story, told in frank and moving prose, stands as a much-needed cautionary tale during an era when concerns about global warming have helped justify a renaissance of environmentally irresponsible hydro megaprojects around the world.

Sarah Cox is an award-winning author and journalist based in Victoria, B.C. In May 2002, Cox won the Canadian Association of Journalists’ Award for Environmental & Climate Change Reporting and her investigative reporting for the Narwhal has also been awarded the World Press Freedom Award and the Canadian Journalism Foundation’s Jackman Award for Excellence in Journalism. She has also won a Gold Digital Publishing Award with her colleagues at The Narwhal and previously won two Western Magazine Awards.

Cox’s 2018 book Breaching the Peace: The Site C Dam and a Valley’s Stand Against Big Hydro won a B.C. Book Prize and was a finalist for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing (Writers’ Trust of Canada) and the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature.

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• Short-listed, Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing, Writers’ Trust of Canada
• Winner, Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize, BC Book Prizes

Sarah Cox has written a searing new book about the scandalous Site C Dam in British Columbia … [she] expertly provides the context to the Site C saga that allows readers to understand what has happened here. Few people, except those who stand to profit immensely, have ever been enthusiastic about this project.

iPolitics

This book is important reading for scholars, activists, and policy-makers interested in environmental justice and community mobilization. In short, Cox’s work will appeal to a wide range of readers; her prose is accessible, passionate, and privileges the words and perspectives of those determined to protect their homes and homeland.

NEW SOLUTIONS: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy

Cox supplements her journalistic account of the movement with extensive ethnographic work with the people at its forefront… the resistance has been immensely instructive of how social movements emerge and evolve to make a difference. Breaching the Peace is therefore a must-read for students and scholars of development studies, environmental studies, and social movements. Summing Up: Highly Recommended.

CHOICE

[This is] a breathtaking examination of how Site C was rammed through despite its devastating impacts on public finances and an ecological treasure trove … Cox delivers science journalism of the highest order, presented with passionate intensity and relentless curiosity.

The Georgia Straight

Breaching the Peace is an excellent title for Sarah Cox’s important book about the Site C Dam. That title yields a cascade of kaleidoscopic connotations — insights into this complex history of a river being broken up, of communities being divided, of “breach of the peace” lawsuits, and of byzantine machinations by BC Hydro to overcome the resistance.

BC BookLook

The prose in [Breaching the Peace] is lapidary, beautifully crafted to give the reader a keen sense of the unique beauties of the Peace as well as some of the personalities in the indigenous/settler alliance that is fighting to protect it.

Columbia Journal

Environmental journalist Cox presents a well-researched, accessible history of the Site C dam, a British Columbia project that’s drawn international attention for pork barrel politics, violations of First Nations rights, and threats to the ecosystem in the Peace River Valley. With energetic prose and extensive on-the-ground reporting, Cox profiles the people and issues behind the divisive project.

Publishers Weekly