On July 28th, several dozen Indigenous and non-Indigenous activists took to the streets of Seattle to hold a solidarity action in support of the Unist’ot’en Camp in B.C. Canada.
Currently, eleven companies have proposed to build oil and gas pipelines through Unist’ot’en territory from the Tar Sands in Alberta. Additionally, Pacific Northern Gas (Chevron is the majority owner) has proposed to build the Pacific Trails Pipelines which would carry fracked natural gas from the Horn River Basin through Unist’ot’en territory.
Activists briefly occupied the Canadian consulate in downtown Seattle and then marched, occupied and picketed Fidality Investments, a major investor in Chevron. Demonstrators were removed from Fidality’s offices by Seattle police, but continued to demonstrate blockading the entrance to Fidaility.
Since 2010, the Unist’ot’en clan of the Wet’suwet’en nation have constructed a protection camp to block the pipelines. The camp is run on solar energy, water is collected from local streams and food comes from hunters.
The Unist’ot’en camp describes themselves as: “The Grassroots Wet’suwet’en do not operate from a boardroom or from a societies act, they walk and breathe their laws with a powerful and unbreakable marriage to the land. The Grassroots peoples of the Wet’suwet’en are healers, warriors, elders, hunters, fisher people, knowledge keepers, and are culturally driven. The Grassroots peoples have a great potential to reverse impacts from colonization and eradicate the resultant social and spiritual poverty by continuing to show the next generations to walk with their laws.”
Watch “How To Stop An Oil And Gas Pipeline: The Unist’ot’en Camp Resistance” for more information