WILD SIDE COMES BACK TO HAUNT PHOTOGRAPHER

Adrian Dorst, acclaimed 68-year-old nature photographer and bird
lover, embarked this week on what was to be the trip of a lifetime -
two months of hiking in the cloud forest around the Ecuadorean village
of Mindo.

But last week it turned into a nightmare at Vancouver airport when
U.S. Homeland Security detained, questioned, fingerscanned and
threatened him with arrest if he tried to board his Continental
flight.

It left without him.

"I'm still traumatized," Dorst said of his two-hour ordeal.

"You have to have a sense of humour but this is crazy. I've got a copy
of my five-page interrogation. Talk about Big Brother!"

Dorst's exquisite photographs of the west coast of Vancouver Island,
its flora and fauna, have been published in more than 50 books (see
www.adriandorst. com).

Clayoquot On the Wild Side, published by the Western Canada Wilderness
Committee in 1990, showcased a collection of 144 of his most evocative
images. It was a bestseller in B.C.

In the past two decades his work has appeared in numerous magazines -
among them International Wildlife, BBC Wildlife, Canadian Geographic,
Sierra, and Geo.

His photographs have also appeared as calendars and environmental
posters.

Most B.C. residents will remember two of his most popular posters -
one of giant, moss-covered trees in Carmanah Valley, published by the
Wilderness Committee, the other of a spyhopping orca for the Sierra
Club.

Dorst's route to Quito entailed a change of planes in Houston, Texas,
and U.S. authorities at YVR stopped him because the mild-mannered
senior had a drug conviction in St. Catha-rines, Ont., 44 years ago.

"It was for resin in a pipe I brought back from the Middle East as a
souvenir of my travels in the '60s," he complained.

He was 24 and barely remembered it. But the Yankees sure did.

"Our records indicate that you were given a suspended sentence with a
$250 bond for your conviction of possession of a narcotic on or about
December 6th, 1967, is this correct?" the Homeland Security
interrogator asked.

"That sounds right, yes," Dorst replied, according to the official
transcript.

"Do you have any other arrests in Canada?" the officer continued.

"No," the longtime Tofino resident said.

But then he recalled civil disobedience arrests during the battles to
save B.C.'s old-growth forests in the late 1980s. He spent "a week or
two" in jail for "tree-sitting."

"Do you understand that because of your criminal convictions, that you
are inadmissible to the United States?" the Homeland Security officer
finally asked.

"Yes," Dorst said.

"Do you understand that you will be required to obtain a waiver to
enter the U.S.?" the American continued.

"I do now," Dorst said.

With that he was released.

"I have been to the U.S. many times over the years and they never had
any such information before," he maintained.

"So how come they have it now? I even thought it was off the books."

Mike Milne, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said
he could not comment specifically about Dorst's case because of U.S.
privacy laws.

Though a conviction for a narcotics offence renders an individual
inadmissible, the public affairs officer said, it might not come to a
border guard's attention during a primary inspection.

At that point, Milne continued, the degree of thoroughness employed is
a matter of discretion and usually only arrest war-rants or other
contemporaneous law-enforcement "wants" are shown on a border
officer's computer.

The border official, however, can do a secondary, deeper inspection
that involves accessing Canadian and U.S. criminal-records databases,
Milne added.

For Canadians such as Dorst who have a record but would like to visit
the U.S., Milne said they can apply for a waiver and each case is
decided on its merits.

Dorst was trying to find a bright side, but failed: "I had not
realized that buying an air-line ticket was such a gamble - $1250 down
the drain."