I’m currently sitting in Terrace at the home of some friends, Molly and Malcolm and am about to head north with some other friends to Iskut, in the traditional territory of the Tahltan First Nation. This weekend is the 10th anniversary celebration for the blockades they have been running against mining operations in their territories. While the Red Chris Mine is under construction and they were unsuccessful in being able to stop it, they have had some great victories against Shell and Fortune Minerals and succeeded in stopping those mining operations.
Last week, I was at the 6th annual Unist’ot’en Action Camp, a gathering of First Nations and non-aboriginal activists for networking around direct action resistance and to support the Unist’ot’en in their blockade against oil and gas pipelines. We finished construction of a two story healing and counselling center in their traditional territory (placed on a proposed pipeline route), heard from some great speakers, and had a wonderful bunch of days networking and exchanging stories. I particularly enjoyed conversations with Oscar Dennis of the Tahltan (speaking with me about their long term strategies) as well as many conversations with Kathy, Kai, Miriam, and Judy, a group of older women who had recently completed a walk across the United States as a way to instigate local gatherings to talk about climate change… wow, what a wonderful, smart, and inspiring group of women! I also really appreciated the leadership of Freda Huson and the Unist’ot’en elders, holding space for this important gathering and holding the line in their territories against the pipelines.
The province last week gave approval for the building of a pipeline through heir territory, and a construction yard has been quickly built in nearby Houston. Meanwhile, the RCMP (Canadian police) have stepped up surveillance and harassment, setting up check points going into and out of Unist’ot’en territory and taking names and id of people passing in and out. As i was being asked to escort out the First Nations activists to reduce the risks of racist profiling, i was reminded of how in doing check point observation in the West Bank, the presence of us outside observers allowed Palestinians to pass through the check point in an hour or two instead of 4 hours.
I’ll write more about Unist’oten later, but they could use more help, especially people there on the ground in the next weeks. check out the website if you would like to get involved.