[Text: Tomas Borsa. Photos: Jean-Philippe Marquis.]
Sixty-five kilometres from the town of Houston lies a small community unlike any other. This is the home of the Unist’ot’en, an Indigenous resistance community who have declared an all-out ban on pipelines routed through their territory. Surveying has been halted, blockades have been erected, and a pit house – a large, sunken cabin made of cured pine – has been built directly in the path of four proposed pipelines, among them the Northern Gateway. As Toghestiy, the camp’s leader, tells us shortly after our arrival, “They can move the co-ordinates – but that’s just going to spawn more homes for more Unist’ot’en people to move in to.”
We arrive at the camp just after sunrise, and are initially mistaken for hunters. Toghestiy is understandably perturbed, and returns to eating his breakfast. Two volunteers emerge from the main cabin to greet us: Egan has travelled from New Mexico, and has been at the camp since July, while Lichen is from South Korea by way of Vancouver, and has been in camp for just over a month. Inside the main cabin, two wood stoves serve as the main heat source, and fox, marmot, and mink pelts hang from hooks on the walls. A well-stocked library sits to the right of the entrance, while a makeshift movie screening area and satellite internet ensure that life at camp isn’t unbearably analog. Over coffee, Toghestiy gives us some background on the Unist’ot’en philosophy: “Our people have said ‘enough is enough’. This is unceded territory – it’s not the government’s land, it belongs to us. If industry says that they’re going to push the pipeline through by any means necessary, we’ll be forced to push back harder, and we’ve trained accordingly. There’s a network of warriors across North America ready to stand with us. We don’t work with NGO’s; we don’t align ourselves with people who sign petitions. That doesn’t accomplish anything”.
We have arrived at a time of high alert at the camp. Shortly before our arrival, the camp’s main blockade had been bombed in the middle of the night. The camp has since began fundraising for security cameras, motion sensors, night-vision equipment, and an all-terrain snowmobile to patrol the territory. As we drive past the scene of the bombing, Toghestiy stops to check a series of animal prints in the snow. With the sun beaming down on the water’s surface, he points toward the Morice River and shares a thought: “We have always shared territories with the animals. In the old days, our people used to know every animal that we lived with on the territory, and the animals knew us. They recognized us when they saw us walking around. Today we’re in a state where we’re trying to occupy these spaces again, and the animals don’t recognize us. They don’t know who we are, we’re strangers to them, just like anybody else. These aren’t just legends, it’s not just folklore, it’s our life. Our people are connected to our lands, and our lands are connected to us. We really depend on each other.”
Suddenly, and without any warning, a snow storm sets in. Toghestiy pulls the truck over, and we exit to a lookout point. There is almost total silence – no wind, not a whisper of motion. Toghestiy points to the horizon and traces the outlines of the mountain ranges which mark the boundaries of the Unist’ot’en territory. In a calm tone, he tells us, “Our ancestors fought for these territories with enemies that tried to invade it. And we won. Our people were warriors. They protected our lands form invaders, and if it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t be here right now. We owe it to our unborn to do the same thing. We have to, by any means necessary.” It’s clear that to call these the front lines of the pipeline debate is more than just a figure of speech.