On February 14, 2020, over a thousand people gathered in Vancouver, Canada’s Downtown Eastside to participate in the 29th Annual Women’s Memorial March to honor all the women who have gone missing or have died due to economic, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual violence. The march takes place on unceded Coast Salish territories. A private family remembrance occurred before the march where no media nor public was permitted out of respect for those grieving.
By Augusta Davis
Photo: Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs, December 2018, photo courtesy of http://unistoten.camp/
On December 31, 2019, the British Columbia Supreme Court issued an injunction to allow construction on the Coastal GasLink (CGL) pipeline, giving unlimited access to Wet’suwet’en lands. The Coastal GasLink pipeline is intended to be 416 miles long, stretching from northeast British Columbia to near Kitimat. Within this swath of land lies 22,000 square kilometers of unceded Wet’suwet’en land. In 1997, the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed that Indigenous claims to land in this area still exist, and the Wet’suwet’en Nation has vehemently opposed the pipeline’s construction.
Kanahus Manuel held for hours without proper medical attention for wrist injured in arrest
For Immediate Release: October 21, 2019
(Unceded Secwepemc Territory / Blue River, BC) – At 9 a.m. on October 19, 2019 Kanahus Manuel and Isha Jules of Tiny House Warriors were arrested on Highway 5. They had stopped to tell construction workers they had no Secwepemc consent to flag in preparation for roadwork. Police arrived on the scene and within minutes arrested Manuel and Jules for the crime of “bugging.”
Canada’s rates of violence against Indigenous women, girls, and LGBTQ+ people “amounts to genocide,” according to a report released in June 2019 by the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Entitled “Reclaiming Power and Place,” the final report is the result of an evidence-gathering process that involved cross-country public hearings, guided dialogues, and testimonies.
By Dave Courchene
This article is an excerpt from a presentation given by the author at the National Climate Change Science and Knowledge Priorities Workshop hosted by Environment Canada at the Shaw Centre in Ottawa on February 21, 2019.
As we reflect on the current issue of climate change, we must be prepared to understand the root of this reality.
Tse Wedi Elth/Unist’ot’en Camp in British Columbia, Canada is Cultural Survival’s Keepers of the Earth Fund grant partner. The Unist’ot’en Camp was founded in 2010 by Wet’suwet’en hereditary Chiefs. Its mission is to protect Unist’ot’en territory by re-establishing traditional Indigenous governance systems and enacting an FPIC protocol for all activities on Unist’ot’en land.
By Nii Gaani Aki Inini – Leading Earth Man (Dave Courchene)
Paintings by Henry Guimond, Turtle Lodge. Used with permission.
Tse Wedi Elth/Unist’ot’en Camp (British Columbia, Canada)
Reclaiming Indigenous sovereignty and protecting homelands from resource extraction.
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that we are headquartered on Massachusett land, in Cambridge, MA, and we thank the past, current, and future Indigenous stewards of this territory.
