Nobody Talks About WHY People Were Scared

'We spent a whole month listening to sad stories.'

Part 1: Trucker Town Rises out of a Frozen Farm Field

Trucker Town mementos. Shown to me by Michel & Jeannette. Text accompanying the drawing at the bottom right reads: ‘Thank you for our freedom.’

People didn't wear face masks in trucker town. Michel believes half their volunteers were vaccinated while the other half were not. "Nobody talked about it," he says. "And nobody got sick. I'm pretty straightforward, and to start with, the government's always stupid. They're on another cloud. They don't know the real people."

In his view, the federal government could - and should - have stopped the protest cold. A few days after the Freedom Convoy left the west coast was the time for those in charge to say

'Okay, never mind trucker. You don't need to be vaccinated. We'll just back off.' For me, that would be the logical thing to do. And everything will be finished. It's their fault. I told them that, too. They were f**king stupid. Just imagine, they could have stopped everything in two days. No money spent.

Jeannette sighs, "But can you imagine if this wouldn't have happened?" she asks. "We'd all still be asleep." Her universe permanently shifted during those weeks. In her words,

We spent a whole month crying, listening to sad stories. We thought these vaccine injuries were rare. And then I saw people coming in. Their son had died. Then our [post menopausal] neighbour had her period start over again. And so-and-so's daughter, the periods wouldn't stop. Then we have direct family members that had myocarditis. What the heck?

French is their mother tongue. Jeannette points to a fringed banner bearing a flag identical to that of France, but with a yellow star in the top left quadrant. This is L'Acadie - the Acadian flag historically associated with French speakers in Canada's Maritime provinces. Much of that history is painful.

"This is from a trucker," she says, tearing up. "He told his kids and grandkids he was coming here and he wasn't going to leave." But his company demanded he bring the truck home. "He was crying when he left, because he had to go. He said he'd promised his kids Canada would be free again. He left this so we wouldn't forget him."

Closeup of some of the mementos seen above.

Every day, says Jeannette, people would arrive at Exit 88 in private vehicles packed with donations:

They brought mittens, clothes, non-perishable food. One old man and his wife. He says, 'I'm from Poland. I saw how tyrannical government starts. This is how it starts. This is how overreach happens. I am so scared. Our community is so scared.' The man was crying and it made me cry. It still gives me goosebumps.

We had people of German descent, donations from churches. They're all crying. I was so dumb. I didn't know what people went through in Europe. I became more aware of history in that month than in all my years in school.

Oh my God, I don't know one person who didn't cry. Grown men crying. I was very ignorant. I felt really naive. All the people that had hard times in their country that moved here. And they were bringing stories from their life.

Nobody talks about that. I've never seen that anywhere, and it's valid. Nobody talks about why people were scared.   

next installment: Leaders Bring People Together