Nearly a decade after ugly and sometimes violent logging protests in the Elaho Valley - nicknamed the War in the Woods - a deal has been reached to satisfy all interests.
"This brings to conclusion a long chapter in negotiation and concern over the territory," said Chief Bill Williams.
In the summers of 1998 and 1999, the Elaho Valley was the scene of countless protest as environmentalists and loggers squared off in a battle over the future of the very landscape.
It has been nine years since People's Action for Threatened Habitat (PATH) vowed to block International Forest Products' (Interfor) efforts to log the area.
The confrontation was one of the most heated conflicts between environmentalists and industry in B.C. history, with charges of vandalism, assault and destruction of property marring the months of August and September 1999.
Protest groups demanded the logging cease and the area be turned into a park while Interfor protected their claim to harvest the enormous tract of land.
It all came to a head on Sept. 15, 1999, when a group of loggers -- just how many were involved has never been determined - attacked a protest camp, destroying equipment and assaulting protestors.
Now nearly a decade after that incident put an end to open hostilities between the groups, a land agreement between the province and Squamish Nation has finally put an end to the war, with a designated protected status for the area.
In 2002 the Squamish Nation and the government began negotiating the deal and Williams and Agriculture and Lands Minister Pat Bell signed it last week.
"This has been so long in coming," said Joe Joy, campaign director of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee (WCWC), who supported PATH at the standoff.
"There's so much history, in some cases bad blood here. This puts it behind us."
After those heated summers, Squamish Nation began working on a land use plan to define exactly hoe to protect the contentious parts of their traditional territory.
The agreement now sets aside 10,112 ha of parkland in the Elaho Valley and another 1,082 ha next to Tantalus Provincial Park, providing the level of protection that WCWC demanded nine years ago.
