Anti-oilpatch activist Wiebo Ludwig says there are innocent explanations for the articles police seized from his farm in northwestern Alberta in a recent raid.
Some of the books on terrorism were gifts, the chemistry texts were for home schooling and the marijuana was for his pregnant goats.
"Some of the stuff (police) took on a previous search 10 years ago, and they took it again," Ludwig said in an interview Friday from Trickle Creek Farm near Hythe, Alberta.
"I guess it's a new crew."
He said he is still waiting to get back most of the items taken from his family compound in January and listed on 15 pages of court documents. He's been told by officials they'll be returned soon.
"It's all getting to be pretty funny," said Ludwig. "I don't know if you see anything in the list that is a serious problem. We don't.
"And we don't have any charges, so what's it all about?"
Ludwig's long-standing fight against sour gas wells around his farm -- wells he says have led to stillbirths in his children and poisoned his animals -- have given him a national profile. His fight has been turned into a book, a TV movie and a stage play.
He served 1 1/2 years in jail after he was convicted of terrorism and vandalism at wellsites ten years ago.
The articles were seized when Mounties raided two months ago and arrested the 68-year-old on the suspicion he had a role in a half-dozen recent pipeline bombings just over the nearby boundary in British Columbia.
He was released a day later when Crown prosecutors said there wasn't enough evidence to lay a charge.
Mounties searching the property, where 50 members of Ludwig's clan live, seized numerous items, that included:
-- Books with titles such as "Harvest of Rage: Why Oklahoma City is Just the Beginning," "Blasters Training Manual" and "Arma-Geddon."
-- Chemistry textbooks.
-- Ludwig's diary, containing what he says are well over 2,000 pages of notes.
-- A crossbow and a shotgun.
-- A computer hard drive and office supplies.
-- A video of the "Lord of the Dance."
-- A 75-gram bag of marijuana.
Ludwig said "Harvest of Rage" was given to him by a university professor to add to an eclectic collection of books for the library at his farm. The chemistry books are for the children, who are home-schooled, he said.
"We have a lot of interesting stuff on our bookshelves. What does that have to do with anything? You can't say just because he has a book on sabotage, he's a saboteur. It's ridiculous."
The marijuana, he said, was fed to pregnant goats to help with the delivery.
"The weed was in one of our shacks. We just had a minor bit," said Ludwig, who added he isn't worried about getting nabbed for drug possession.
"We don't particularly care about the government's view on this stuff. We believe all the herbs and plants were given to man to use, instead of governments beating up on people who aren't abusing them."
He said he has no clue why police would want a copy of Irish jigs in the "Lord of the Dance" video. "It's music the girls dance to."
He said his irritation is tempered by world weariness.
"We've gone through this before so that helps. And this time police weren't near as destructive as they were the first time, pulling things apart and ruining things.
"Yeah, it's an invasion of privacy, but you know, privacy has to be sacrificed in times as difficult as this. We don't mind. There's nothing we're ashamed of."
But his court battle ten years ago stirred up anger and derision among nearby residents. A group of teenagers spun doughnuts on his lawn late one night in 1999 and narrowly missed some of his children sleeping in a tent on the lawn.
One of the joyriders, 16-year-old Karman Willis, was shot through the chest and died. No one has ever been arrested, but many locals suspect the Ludwigs.
Ludwig returned to the public eye last year when a number of pipelines belonging to Calgary-based Encana were hit by an unknown bomber.
He has publicly stressed he didn't commit the crimes and doesn't know who did. He went so far as to write an open letter urging calm.
When Ludwig was arrested in January, his lawyer said police had told his client he would be charged with extortion for writing letters to Encana that demanded the company stop operating in the area.
When police released Ludwig, they wouldn't say why.
The court battle is not over.
Three oil companies, including Encana, are now seeking a peace bond against Ludwig, his son Ben and friend Richard Boonstra, who was convicted along with Ludwig of the bombings a decade ago.
The companies say they fear that the individuals will "cause injury to their employees or agents or will damage their property."
Ludwig says he will challenge the application in court in Grande Prairie on Wednesday. He says it's too broad and impossible to enforce because it demands the trio stay 200 metres from all wells and not contact company employees or agents.
"Are they going to give us the names of all the contractors with their pictures so we don't talk to the wrong people? Are they going to give us a map of all their sites? What's the practicality of this ridiculous request?"
He says the fight continues to be political, pointing to the 60 people, himself included, who publicly protested the testing of a new sour gas well in the area a month ago.
"We're getting some headway. This anti-industry movement is getting pretty strong locally. We're kind of the centre of it and the (the oil companies) don't like that," he said.
"They want to knock us out."
