G8 protest last month in Calgary/Kananaskis

Well nothing got broken and there was no teargas so there has been little news outside of Canada but boy did we ever have fun.
The G8 (Group of 8 leading industrial nations; US, Canada, Japan, UK, Italy, Germany, France plus Russia) decided last year after the intense and overwhelmingly chaos of Genoa to avoid a major city for the next meeting. The tiny ski resort of Kananaskis in Alberta Canada was chosen for the 40-mile single road leading to it. Not to be deterred we decided to have our protests in the nearby large city of Calgary.
I took the bus up and arrived on the 19th of June. I helped organize the Convergence center where everyone came for info and some workshops. I spent most of my time there for the next 9 days. We also sold great stickers such as "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then you win" Gandhi.
Information about the whole event was always a problem to gather and Alberta is Canada's most conservative province and thus we didn't get as many people as we would have wanted but we made up for it with massive creativity. The 19th-22nd of July was the Afrikabeat festival. June 21-25 saw the G6B (Group of 6 Billion) Conference with lots of speakers etc. There were excellent medical and legal collectives the whole time as well. There were workshops put on by many activists and unions at a number of locations and the unions had a soup kitchen for 5 days.
The actions started Saturday June 22nd with a great Critical Mass ride of 160 cyclists mostly dressed as frogs, for the ratification of Kyoto and vs. global warming. We went all around town and across the river to many positive comments by pedestrians and drivers alike. The police tried to block us but the ever-versatile bicycles just went around. That night there was an excellent photo display/presentation on the peoples uprising in Argentina with a firsthand account and 5 videos. There was also open mike at the convergence center.
Sunday, June 23rd we had the biggest march-the Community March. There were about 5,000 of us: unionists, religious, anarchists, students and all sorts of regular people including the woman from the fabric store I had just shopped at. We had a great time in the sun with the most colorful crowd of banners, flags, puppets, great chants and giant "boat" and all sorts of visual excitement. We marched downtown and had a stirring rally with great union speakers and song by the Raging Grannies and Latin Americans. There was a downpour but we rolled around a huge world and danced and all got along great.
June 23rd there were workshops in the day and meetings, at night there was an interfaith prayer for peace and a punk show.
The 24th (through the 28th) the Indymedia center had press conferences, speakers and videos. There was a Wail for Bail benefit concert, which was good since two of my friends had been arrested for spray painting. There were also spokes council meeting every night and other meetings at the Convergence Center.
On the 25th we organized a We'd Rather Go Naked Then Wear GAP action. We rehearsed some great parody songs then marched off with 150 people from the Convergence Center. The police had been making threats all week but we took over the streets and went where we wanted through the downtown. When we arrived it was overwhelming: 200 journalists and 1,000 spectators crowding us out. We had to go down the pedestrian street a bit and had our speeches and sang our songs then tore off our cloths and the front row had BOYCOTT GAP written on their butt cheeks! The commercial workers had a great free picnic and that night we had the Showdown at the Ho-Down. There was a western style party for low-level G8 delegates and business leaders so we had a street party to protest it. We marched off with a divers crowd of 1,000 people. We got to a major street at the edge of the sports center where their party was and had ours. We had techno sound systems, spiral dances by the pagans, a giant trampoline, good conversation and a great time. Check out alberta.indymedia.org there is lots of good info on the protest. We tried to march on their party but eventually turned back and saw a punk band play on their front porch; we learned a new dance from a one-year-old girl then back to the street party. At 10:30 we headed home.
The 26th was the main day of protest. The authorities had tried to scare us for months. Thousands of police were ready, and up to 6,000 soldiers in Kananaskis, up to $400 million in security costs, the mayor denied every event a permit except the Community Mach and all sorts of threats were made against us. The population of Calgary was told to prepare for massive destruction. We were very worried and many people had gas masks and other gear to protect ourselves. There had been a lot of arguing over the form of this protest but we eventually went with the original plan, of the Calgary anarchist kids, to gather at 6 am and disrupt the downtown core. Calgary is home to corporate offices of countless oil companies and many other evil corporations. We felt that if their business as usual destroys our world and lives then we have an obligation to stop it. Many windows were boarded up, corporate signs taken down and most workers took the day off, on the cities advice! We had a few brief union speakers and headed off with some trepidation, there were about 1,5000 of us. There were tons of bike cops as usual but they just watched and blocked entrances to corporate buildings that weren't fenced off. We marched all over the deserted downtown a few union speakers denounced some corporations that had treated them especially badly. The police tried to block us but the unions spoke to them and we continued. It was great to see the unionists, the black bloc, pagans, Christians, students and everyone else all marching in solidarity. The Pagans did a great spiral dance and the socialists had great chants. After several hours we ended at the government center and rested. Sprinklers popped up and sprayed happy demonstrators and peeved journalists. The crowd split and the more militant of us marched off and had soccer in the streets and a general good time and there was a confrontation for a while at McDonalds then we marched past the delegates hotels. We got to the main plaza just as the Die-in For Life ended, to remember the victims of AIDS and to tell the G8 to really focus on it. We then all headed off to another free picnic by the Food and Commercial Workers Union. There were great speakers ("look, there were no riot police and no riot") and performers such as Bruce Cockburn (If I had A Rocket launcher). I had some great conversations then hundreds of us piled into cars for a caravan to Kananaskis. If that's where the decisions are being made, then that's where we belong. We drove in 150cars for two hours and the police let us through the first 2 of 16 roadblocks then stopped us for good. We did block US and Japanese delegates but they got in another way. We had a meeting and a spiral dance and generated tons of media then went home. Before we left I got to take a walk and it was so beautiful with the silty, freezing glacial river, flowers and giant peaks. We drove back to Calgary and there was a free concert with Bruce Cockburn but I went to sleep.
The 27th the Pagans led an Earth March. We covered ourselves in mud, mud people, and went all over downtown grunting at corporations and planting seeds of change while others sang, danced and spoke. It was so fun to stare at the business folk behind the glass. We tried to have a spiral dance in a huge shopping center but the guards were quick. So we had it outside then went to wash off in the river where I splashed the journalists and started a water war. The pagans called on the element of water and thunder, lightening and a downpour clouded the sunny day! We heard an update that two more protestors had just been killed in Argentina. Others left on another caravan to Kananaskis but were turned back. We had a final meting to wrap thing up and a few of us were downtown as many delegates passed by walking around. Finally I got on the activist bus to Vancouver.
All in all I think things went great. We all had a fun time. Everyone in Alberta talked about us for months. The city and government said we were a horde of mindless vandals and we surprised everyone, by being friendly (to people not capitalism). Different tactics are needed at different times. In the words of one moderate activist "Maybe next time we'll have smashy-smashy". I think we left activists in Alberta empowered and experienced and with a much more sympathetic population. Lots of the events were organized by more militant folks but attended by everyone. We drew attention to the issues and had great solidarity and prepared and informed thousands of people for the struggles to come. Now we have to make this energy felt throughout the world.