(en) Canada, Comox Valley May Day Anarchist Book Fair

10:00am - 11:00pm Saturday May 4 2013 Venue: The Abbey Address: 1st & Penrith Ave Cost: 
Free ---- Rise-Up for May Day Weekend at the Comox Valley Anarchist Book Fair ---- On 
Saturday, May 4, 2013, the Village Muse Bookstore in Cumberland (centrally located on 
Vancouver Island in British Columbia) will be hosting the first ever Comox Valley 
Anarchist Book Fair at The Abbey, featuring a May Day feast of subversive ideas and 
creative resistance possibilities. As a black and green event, it is bathed in both the 
radical legacy of the Cumberland mine wars and the soaring Beltane spirit of the Merry 
Month of May, and has absolutely nothing to do with Queen Victoria's birthday. This 
anarchist festival of the book has been fomented in the cooperative spirit of mutual aid 
that unites Cumberland and Denman Island co-conspirators.

While we anticipate that lots of anarchists and anarchist-friendly folks will converge on 
Cumberland that weekend, you don't have to be a self-described anarchist to attend the 
Book Fair. All you need is an open mind and an anti-authoritarian sense of curiosity.

In The Abbey on this day, you will find rows of tables peopled by 
individuals, distros, and bookstores that feature a wide array of anarchist and 
anarchist-related books, zines, publications, and crafts. Participating bookstores and 
distros, in alphabetical order, so far include: BC Blackout (Vancouver/Denman Island), 
Black Banner Distro (Vancouver), Black Sheep Collective (Calgary), Camas Books (Victoria), 
One Way Ticket (Victoria), Red Lion Press (Nanaimo), Spartacus Books (Vancouver), Village 
Muse Bookstore ( Cumberland), and Warrior Publications (Vancouver). At this point, 
individual book authors who will be at tables include: Gord Hill, Grant Schilling, Jeff 
Shantz, Larry Gambone, Matta, Matt Rader, Miles Olson, Ron Sakolsky, Sean Woods, and Tom 
Swanky. Only a limited number of tables are still available, so please apply asap.There 
will be free food all day and a potluck at the Abbey between 6 and 7 PM. The Abbey will 
provide space for an ?art wall?and an acoustic open-mic event starting at 7:30 PM, dubbed 
The Creative Mayhem Anarchist Cabaret.

Across the street from the Abbey, at the OAP Hall, there will be a series of 
free direct action, skill-sharing and radical history workshops at the top of every hour 
all day. They will feature such topics as: combating the Raven and Bear coal 
mines/anti-pipeline solidarity; street theatre; rewilding; Cortes Island forest defense; 
the BC government's historical use of biological warfare against indigenous people through 
the spread of smallpox on Vancouver Island and in the Comox Valley; grand jury resistance 
in the Pacific Northwest; decolonization; and Cumberland's radical roots. Outdoors, there 
will be a medicinal plant walk and a blacksmithing workshop. As we get closer to the Book 
Fair date, we will provide more detailed info on titles, facilitators and scheduling, as 
well as billeting possibilities for out-of-towners.

On the occasion of this 2013 May Day event, we recognize the 127th 
anniversary of the judicial murder of the Haymarket anarchists in their fight against wage 
slavery back in 1886, and we remember Ginger Goodwin, who was shot in the back by the law 
at Comox Lake for militant union organizing activities among his fellow Cumberland mine 
workers and for his principled refusal of conscription during the First World War.

In turn, we commemorate the hundredth anniversary of local resistance to the 
military invasion and occupation of Cumberland by order of BC Attorney General Bowser in 
1913. His kilted dragoons were stationed in the village at the behest of the coal barons 
to protect their financial empire by breaking the Vancouver Island miners' strike of 
1912-1914 and restoring order through the imposition of martial law. Today, anarchists, 
along with many others, are engaged in an effort to prevent Cumberland from once again 
becoming a mining town under the thumb of the coal bosses should the Compliance Energy 
Corporation's proposal for a Raven coal mine project get approved, which would then open 
the door for the proposed open-pit Bear coal mine to be precariously perched over Comox 
Lake, threatening the village's water supply.

Finally, we respectfully acknowledge that we are holding this event on K'?moks' 
territory, and we express our solidarity with their ongoing struggle for their land and 
against colonization.

Organizer:Book Fair Crew: oystercatcher@uniserve.com