Terry Allan Simmons (April 12, 1946 – November 14, 2020) was a Canadian-American lawyer and cultural geographer, and the founder of the British Columbia Sierra Club.

[3] Though unnoticed at the time, Simmons' death was subsequently reported by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation,[4] as well as the French-language Radio-Canada[5] There is a plaque on the False Creek sea wall in Vancouver, that commemorates Greenpeace's inaugural voyage and the people on the ship.

[11] Thereafter, Simmons undertook his terminal degree in Cultural Geography, at the University of Minnesota under the supervision of noted Humanistic Geographer Yi-Fu Tuan.

Students from the University of British Columbia, and other institutions, held a large protest against such tests at the Peace Arch Border Crossing in October 1969.

[13] Terry Simmons, before moving to Vancouver for graduate studies, had spent the summer of 1968 as a research assistant in the national office of the Sierra Club in San Francisco.

Struck by the lack of similar environmental groups in BC, Simmons contacted local subscribers to the Sierra Club Bulletin, and convened a meeting that led to the incorporation of SCBC to “explore, enjoy and preserve the scenic resources of British Columbia, in particular its forests, waters, and wilderness.”[14] In autumn 1969, Simmons became the first chairman of the newly formed Sierra Club of BC.

[18] Also in early 1970, Jim Bohlen, representing both the Sierra Club of BC, and the Don't Make A Wave Committee, was interviewed on Vancouver talk radio, in which he blurted out that he would visit Amchitka Alaska to witness an American nuclear test.

After a fundraising rock concert at which Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Phil Ochs, and the local Vancouver band Chilliwack performed, enough money was raised to charter a vessel for the trip to Alaska.

[20] The Don't Make A Wave Committee announced the crew members in May 1970, who would sail aboard the fishing-vessel cum protest-boat Phyllis Cormack.

Terry Simmons, then a 25-year-old Simon Fraser University graduate student, was included among the crew as "geographer," "who would act as legal advisor".

At the same time, they were handed a letter, with the signatures of 18 coast guard members, who supported the activists in their opposition of the underground nuclear tests.

[23] On May 10, 1972, Simmons participated in a Minneapolis anti-war protest at the University of Minnesota, and was one of four students arraigned on gross misdemeanor and felony charges.

In a 1973 interview, speaking as vice-chairman of the Sierra Club of BC, Simmons warned that "Alaska pipeline interests" were sneaking a bill through the US Senate to authorize the US Secretary of the Interior to permit rights-of-way on Federal land.

"[26] In 1989, Simmons served as a law clerk at the Alaska Supreme Court, and in the then Land and Natural Resources Division of the US Attorney's Office in San Francisco.