Gidimt’en land defenders: “We will never stop defending our yintah.”

Photo by Gidimt’en Checkpoint (September 18, 2022).

On September 18, Gidimt’en Checkpoint tweeted:

“URGENT UPDATE: The drill they will use to destroy Wedzin Kwa is now in place. We will never stop defending our yintah the way our ancestors have done for thousands of years. We need all your support now to ensure it will never be functional.”

Then on September 19, journalist Brandi Morin tweeted: “Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief Namoks & Jocey Alec of Gidimt’en Clan accessed the CGL drill pad site w CGL security watching every move on their own sovereign land. The drill is in place ready to hammer under Wet’suwet’en sacred Wedzin Kwa. Drone footage courtesy @Gidimten.”

This follows Houston Today, on September 14, reporting:

“The company would not release details other than to say two “trenchless watercourse crossings” are underway underneath the Morice River [Wedzin Kwa] south of Houston and at Crocker Creek in northeastern B.C. …Once preparations have been completed, the actual tunnelling time is expected to take two and half to three months.”

The Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs, the governance body for the 22,000 square kilometres of Wet’suwet’en territory in northern British Columbia, have not given their free, prior and informed consent for this pipeline to be built.

Since January 2019, 74 land defenders, legal observers and members of the media have been arrested in three militarized Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) actions on the territory.

Gidimt’en Checkpoint photo (November 19, 2021).

And over the three-month period of March to May 2022, the RCMP have attended the Gidimt’en village near the drill pad site 269 times.

In letters dated December 13, 2019, November 24, 2020, and April 29, 2022, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has called on Canada to withdraw the RCMP and stop the construction of this pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory.

Watch Brandi Morin interview with land defender Molly Wickham here.

We continue to follow this situation.

Photo of the Coastal GasLink drill pad site situated by Wedzin Kwa. Photo by Gidimt’en Checkpoint (June 21, 2022).

Map by Canadian Press.