The oil boom in Alberta, Canada has brought Big Oil in confrontation with First Nations for decades. This year, a breakthrough struggle occurred as the Woodland Cree First Nation established a blockade to stop construction of new oil wells by Obsidian Energy. Demanding respect for their treaty rights and a more equitable deal, the struggle of the Woodland Cree united Treaty 8 First Nations and local non-Indigenous industry owners against Obsidian. Brandi Morin reports from Treaty 8 territory in this exclusive documentary from The Real News and Ricochet Media.

Pre-Production: Brandi Morin, Geordie Day, Maximillian Alvarez, Ethan Cox
Videographer: Geordie Day
Video Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Transcript

Irina Ceric:  WoodLand Cree First Nation Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom is seen taking the injunction and putting it in a nearby fire pit

Brandi Morin:  Throughout the month of May. In a remote region of Northern Alberta, Canada, a standoff took place between a First Nation and an energy company. Sounds typical, right? No, this was more complicated. For starters, an oil and gas company had requested an emergency court hearing to seek the arrest of a Cree chief opposing a drilling project on Indigenous land.

Irina Ceric:  It’s over?

Grand Chief Joe Whitehead Jr.:  It’s over. There was no intent on their part to negotiate.

Brandi Morin:  I’ve covered many confrontations between resource companies and First Nations, but I could tell this one was different as soon as I set foot in Woodland Cree territory,

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  We believe in sharing prosperity. First Nations people are very generous. I think we’re born that way. If we see somebody hungry, we feed them. If we see somebody cold, we help them. That’s just the way we’re brought up.

Brandi Morin:  This pro-industry First Nation and their blockade were supported by many local, non-Indigenous industry owners and workers. They joined the Woodland Cree in asking Obsidian Energy to hire local, mitigate environmental impacts, and share profits with the First Nation. But Obsidian’s confrontational American CEO seemed to think he could bulldoze through local opposition.

Stephen, do you have any time for a brief [crosstalk] interview.

Stephen Loukas:  [Crosstalk] Rangers in six.

Brandi Morin:  After failed attempts to negotiate with the company, the Woodland Cree First Nation erected a blockade in the form of a traditional camp in early May to halt Obsidian Energy’s access to their traditional territory near Peace River. Soon after, Obsidian was granted a civil injunction against them.

It was a conflict that threatened to have far-reaching implications for how resource companies interact with First Nations across Canada. In June, Obsidian reached an agreement with the First Nation to end their blockade.

Although the terms aren’t public, it’s clear Obsidian were forced to walk back from their earlier, more confrontational statements. Could this be the start of a new kind of resource fight, one that pits Indigenous and non-Indigenous locals against corporate investors? This is the story of how one small First Nation partnered with local industry and forced a multinational to listen to them.

Tensions escalated on May 13 when Woodland Cree leadership, including Isaac Laboucan-Avirom, stormed out of a meeting with Obsidian CEO, Stephen Loukas, who jetted in from Calgary. Loukas is American, but the company is based in Calgary. Woodland Cree members suspect he isn’t well-informed on Indigenous rights and the legal duty to consult.

Stephen Loukas:  We’re in the early innings of executing on that plan. I’m very happy with the start that we have to date. We’ve outlined production that was approximately 36,000 BOEs a day.

Brandi Morin:  Some Woodland Cree told me Loukas comes off as arrogant and disinterested in good-faith negotiations. He sure wasn’t interested when I asked for comment

Stephen Loukas:  Rangers in six.

Brandi Morin:  What the heck does that mean?

Speaker 1:  Sports reference.

Brandi Morin:  And my repeated requests for interviews with Obsidian reps have been ignored.

Speaker 2:  I need to transfer your call, but that is the number that I have for the media department… One second. And did you already left a voicemail [crosstalk] —

Brandi Morin:  Yes.

Speaker 2:  — Requesting a call back?

Brandi Morin:  Yes, I have.

This conflict’s been brewing for a while, as far back as two years ago when the Woodland Cree learned the company was planning to drill 200 more wells here. They don’t seem to care that this is unceded territory. First Nations signed treaties with the Canadian government when Canada was established. The treaties stipulated First Nations’ access to traditional territories and rights to maintain their livelihoods. Industries like Obsidian are supposed to consult with First Nation treaty holders about any developments affecting their territories, but that’s not what Obsidian is doing.

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  Well, this, I believe, is definitely years in the making. This didn’t happen overnight. We acted overnight — Reacted overnight, but this has been definitely an accumulation of many different circumstances.

The campus here is due to an awkward relationship, manipulation, lack of integrity. This company is basically saying, Hey, we don’t gotta work with the locals. But I’m saying, hey, you should work with the locals. Obviously you don’t have to, but you should. It’s the right thing to do. In this Peace area, it hasn’t been as economically hot as other regions in this province.

Brandi Morin:  Obsidian has filed an application that has yet to be heard by the court, an emergency application to specifically have Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom arrested and jailed until the blockade is taken down, and that’s a pretty bold move.

Irina Ceric:  The injunction was not surprising. Research that I participated in the Yellowhead Institute published a couple of years ago makes it very clear that resource extraction companies such as Obsidian have a very strong record of success in obtaining injunctions against First Nations and Indigenous groups, even on traditional territories, even on treaty territories, and this is Treaty 8 territory.

Brandi Morin:  I reached out to Irina Ceric, an expert on injunctions granted against activists and Indigenous groups.

Irina Ceric:  The way that the courts issue injunctions mean that issues such as Indigenous legal orders or the existence of Aboriginal or treaty rights under a treaty or under the Constitution are just not taken into consideration. When these sorts of court orders are obtained by corporations, the corporations can just say, we have this licensed project, regardless of how well that licensing process was carried out, this group of people is impeding our ability to carry out this project and we’re going to be irreparably harmed, meaning that we’re going to lose so much money and time that that cannot be addressed later on. And then the courts tend to take those arguments very seriously, and injunctions of this sort of situation are not unusual at all.

What is really unusual, and you mentioned this yourself, is this attempt by Obsidian to go back to court and attempt to have a second procedure issue, this arrest warrant. And that’s unnecessary on a legal level. Once a court order is issued, there will be an enforcement order within that injunction that says, in this case it’s the RCMP, you can enforce this order; that includes taking people into custody if necessary. So the police have that power. It’s not like the police can’t arrest the chief if they choose to. So what I’m seeing here is an attempt to sidestep the discretion of the police and attempt to have a court issue an unnecessary, and, I think, highly unusual, arrest warrant.

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  Obviously, that’s outrageous. I think the courts also understand the repercussions that that would have and the precedents that would have, and I don’t think that is a responsible way forward, a respectful way forward. And that’s been the issue all along. I think to move forward, whether it’s with industry, government, even family, you have to have integrity, understanding, respect in response. You know what I mean? There’s principles, and even corporate principles, that have to be met. We’re not just all about the money, but we are, in a way, saying, hey, if you do want to make money, we want to make money for our people as well.

Brandi Morin:  At the heart of this conflict, industry and government circumventing treaty rights, and First Nations have had enough.

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  I definitely don’t think there’s a good understanding of traditional rights, treaty rights, land acknowledgement, et cetera. It’s been very intrusive what Obsidian is doing to us, but it’s also showcasing to the world there has to be better ways to get work done, so to speak. I do understand that there is a need for resources to be in the global market. I think it actually might make the world a better place. I think Canada needs to do a better job at getting investors into this country — But working with the First Nations in partnership to get that done. We take responsibility for our destiny. We have our own rights to our own self-determination, and that is definitely different than what others might assume for us.

Janice Makokis:  When our ancestors and the people in Treaty 8 entered into treaty more than a hundred years ago, there was an understanding that the parties were both sovereign entities with unextinguished title to the lands. When they entered into that international treaty agreement, it was two sovereigns. And the Indigenous side of that party understood that they were not giving up anything, including the land and resources of the lands that they would’ve referred to as their territory.

Brandi Morin:  I reached out to Janice Makokis, an Indigenous scholar and member of Saddle Lake Cree Nation in Alberta, to understand more about how treaty rights play into this.

Janice Makokis:  And so what happened after that was almost immediately after treaty making happened, the Indian Act was set in play by the federal government, which corral our people onto these small parcels of land referred to now as reserves, but we would be able to have full access to land outside of the reserves for hunting, fishing, trapping, and other things to maintain our livelihood and way of life. And so that territory is inclusive of everything within the treaty territory, so everything within Treaty 8, as the Woodland Cree are under.

So there’s a significant misunderstanding between our people’s understanding of the treaty and the crown, government’s, and industry’s understanding of what that is. And I think that’s where we see these conflicts happening on the land, because we are still exercising our inherent and treaty rights as we understood them when our ancestors made that treaty. And the crown and industry have a completely different understanding, and so that’s why we have these conflicts that exist on the land.

Brandi Morin:  Don’t you think that those different understandings that the government and industry have is pretty convenient for them?

Janice Makokis:  Oh yeah, absolutely. Because it benefits them to continue to oppress and use colonial laws and legal instruments such as injunctions or through the courts to advance their interests in the name of the public good or the good of the company and for economic development reasons, whatever that is, or whatever arguments that they’re making to advance the interest of their company.

Brandi Morin:  But they don’t look at the public interest in regards to the interests of First Nations, whose sovereign territory that is and whose livelihoods are connected to that.

Janice Makokis:  That’s right, exactly. They don’t consider First Nations as a part of the interest when they’re considering the interests, whose rights, lives, and land that they’re impacting when they’re out there doing what they’re doing on the land to make profit from resource extraction taking place.

Brandi Morin:  The Peace oil sands is referred to as the mini Fort McMurray of Alberta. Fort McMurray is the extractive economic engine of Canada, pumping out billions of dollars in annual revenue. The Peace oil sands are also rich in untapped oil reserves. There’s a ton of money to be gleaned out of here, but development goes hand in hand with the destruction of the land.

Frank Whitehead:  And I said, hey, this is the most environmental person you’ll ever see. Because I was born in [inaudible]. I knew where everything is, where the moose licks are, things like that. A lot of times they bury all that when they’re working on oil. They don’t look at what we look at. We look at the whole territory. We look at where you need to put your lease. We have to be doing that, not you guys. A lot of times they don’t let us do that, and they go ahead and do it without consulting us. Consulting us is the very thing that they should be doing. They should not do that, but a lot of times they’ll just do it. Go ahead and do everything.

But my heart cries for Mother Nature a lot of times too, because Mother Nature is the one that gives us this land, that gives us everything that we should respect. We should have no garbage. We should have everything to be cleaned up after. And sometimes if you go, they’re not cleaned up. When they plug a hole and the water comes out with cement. Cement just shoots out, now you have cement all over. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be. You have to clean this place. Because to me, sometimes Mother Nature cries so much. They drain so much.

But that’s what I was taught. A lot of times you have to listen to that. You have to listen to the birds, you listen to the animals. You listen to the little creatures. You listen to the little bugs. Because the bugs, if it wasn’t for the bugs, the birds wouldn’t be here.

Brandi Morin:  So Frank, have you been coming and has you and your family been utilizing these specific areas ever since you were [crosstalk].

Frank Whitehead:  Yes. Yes.

Brandi Morin:  And so have you seen big changes?

Frank Whitehead:  Oh, man. Like I said, I’ve been here, and we flew this 10 years ago when my brother Joe was the chief there. We flew it and then we see the changes from the helicopter, how it changed. We used to hunt all the routes to walk, instead of now you can just drive anywhere. But what keeps us from that is they’re putting the gates now. This is our hunting grounds, and you put a gate and you put all this. This is where we live.

But I even see animals going away too, because [they’re] scared of everything that’s happening, and you got your trucks all over the place, and we have to watch it.

Brandi Morin:  Industrial activity is transforming the landscape, but there’s another big problem: earthquakes. The Alberta energy regulator found Obsidian Energy responsible for causing a series of quakes here in 2022 after it injected industrial wastewater deep into the ground.

Reporter 1:  Late November, an earthquake shook houses and had people stop in their tracks.

Speaker 3:  [Clip of man playing piano when earthquake starts] Oh my.

Reporter 1:  It happened in the Peace River region and could be felt more than 600 kilometers away.

Ryan Shultz:  But what makes this different or noteworthy is how big this earthquake was.

Reporter 1:  The 5.6 magnitude earthquake is the largest the province has seen. At first, it was thought to be natural, but a study done by Stanford University is suggesting wastewater disposal from oil production triggered it.

Ryan Shultz:  We are confident that this event was a manmade or induced earthquake is what they’re called.

Reporter 1:  This research shows the first link between such a large earthquake and human activities this far away from a mountain range. Researchers say they’ve seen other quakes caused by fracking, but they believe this one is different: it happened after wastewater was injected into a well to extract oil.

Ryan Shultz:  The injection of CO2 also has the potential to cause earthquakes. So this is something to, essentially, start thinking about, and maybe even start monitoring.

Brandi Morin:  One of the quakes was the largest ever recorded in Alberta’s history: it scored a local magnitude of 5.6 — Yet, Obsidian denies it had anything to do with them and is appealing the AER ruling.

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  We did make a request for incremental data that really anchored the AER’s decision as well as the characterization that the seismic activity in the Peace River area was solely attributable to Obsidian’s operations. We didn’t agree with that assertion then, we don’t agree with it now. We are in the process of evaluating that data. We will have more to say in that regard in the future.

Brandi Morin:  The memory of this earthquake is seared into the minds of all here, including Chief Isaac.

Can you talk about the earthquakes?

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  Oh my goodness. I remember that day I had elders calling me. I just dropped my kids off for school. My daughters were calling me from Peace River. I was taking off to a meeting. I believe I was close to the area, ready to turn around. But definitely unexpected and felt by everybody, not just me and my family, but the farmers nearby, industry. I believe it might’ve been one of the biggest in Alberta to date.

Brandi Morin:  So do you feel it, or…?

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  We felt it. It was shaking houses, absolutely. I think there were four or five tremors or something that happened. Like I said, I was on the road and I was definitely scared for my children. Obviously, when you hear about earthquakes, because they’re not normal in our area, we wonder what the repercussions would be. Will it rupture pipes? Will it rupture foundational stuff? Will it hurt old homes? We don’t know. Will it contaminate groundwaters?

Brandi Morin:  Will there be more?

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  Will there be more? That’s one of the biggest questions as well. Will there be more? Are they man-made? Are they industry made?

Brandi Morin:  Chief Isaac, like most Woodland Cree, grew up hunting, fishing, and trapping. He still gets out on the land as often as he can.

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  So then my brother comes looking in for me three or four nights after, tries pulling me out, he gets stuck. Then he had to walk out with my little brother to the end of the road. And that must have been… Yeah, it was definitely a few miles.

Brandi Morin:  So then how’d you guys get out then?

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  Three or four four-by-fours.

Brandi Morin:  [Laughs] Chains?

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  And everything. Yeah.

Brandi Morin:  Just moments after sharing stories of being on the land with me, the chief discovered access to his beloved hunting territory was blocked. Obsidian erected a gate to another industry road not far from the Woodland Cree blockade.

Oh, they have a gate up.

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  Holy fuck.

Brandi Morin:  Notice… Oh, was that there before?

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  No.

Brandi Morin:  This road is closed… Blah, blah, blah. Oh, here’s the security lady. I wonder what she’s going to say to you.

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  When was the gate put up?

Security Guard:  Yesterday.

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  Oh, so they did put it up, hey? I’m the chief. Just wondering what’s going on with this gate. Don’t worry. I’m not going to make a big deal. I just wanted to see if the gate was put up.

Security Guard:  [Inaudible].

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  Oh wow.

Security Guard:  I just don’t like being on video.

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  Yeah, neither do I [laughs]. Man. Well, this is very, very unfortunate. How many people are up this way?

Security Guard:  I have no idea.

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  Son of a gun. All right. Yep.

Security Guard:  Well, I’m not letting no one unless they work for… [Inaudible].

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  Which company? Obsidian?

Security Guard:  [Nods][inaudible].

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  Yeah. All right. Is there any other construction going on over there? Just tankers.

Security Guard:  [Shakes head][inaudible].

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  Alright, well, I’ll go let them know that they did put up the gate. I thought they were going to wait for us.

Like, holy fuck. The direct attack on treaty from stopping the people who live off of this land from entering their own lands. How it stops us from hunting, gathering, trapping. We were just talking about stories of how we used to just camp forever. And then now we’re being locked out of our traditional territories and places where we found medicine. We were finding medicine over there. They harvested moose over there. We have that and they’ve put a lock on it. Something has to change.

Brandi Morin:  Back at the blockade, Woodland Cree members are set up along the Walrus industry access road, about 40 minutes east of Peace River. It’s a key access road utilized by Obsidian, which is now shut down. The company is losing around $450,000 Canadian dollars a day here.

And the Woodland Cree are not alone. See, I’ve covered a lot of Indigenous defense frontlines. Other than a few non-Native allies that show up sometimes, I’ve never witnessed non-Indigenous industry owners supporting First Nations like they are here. Some have parked their semi-trucks and heavy equipment at the blockade, despite risking being blacklisted by Obsidian.

Dustin Lambert:  My name’s Dustin Lambert. I’m from Peace River, Alberta, area.

Brandi Morin:  And what do you do?

Dustin Lambert:  I work in construction.

Brandi Morin:  Awesome. What do you think about what’s going on here with the camp?

Dustin Lambert:  I think it’s a good thing for the community to stand against the oil companies when they try to take from the communities and not work with the community. People like Obsidian has work, but they want to bring in a large outside contractor. And, as I understand, in Canada, we’re free to work in all areas. However, when you have local contractors, they should have the first opportunity. And when Obsidian goes and tries to bring the larger contractors in that have the potential to take all the work from the companies in the region.

And then with Obsidian trying to go through and not work with the community being like the Woodland Band, or Lubicon, or any of the bands, because we work through them and directly with them. And I’ve worked with these guys on and off pretty much my whole life. Went to school with them and then worked with them.

Brandi Morin:  Meanwhile, Woodland Cree members are well equipped for the long haul if need be.

Frank Whitehead:  Right here.

Brandi Morin:  Blended right in.

Frank Whitehead:  Right here. The snare’s right here.

Brandi Morin:  Wow.

Frank Whitehead:  And that’s how you put it.

And this is where they’re working. And look at what’s happening. They’re taking all our rabbits, everything, animals.

Brandi Morin:  The Woodland Cree have utilized these lands for millennia, but they were forced out of their traditional territories decades ago when oil was discovered here. The band was made to settle on allotted reserve sites about an hour away from here. But they’ve never abandoned their original homelands.

Frank Whitehead:  Well, it’s very important because of our livelihood, our hunting grounds, what’s happening with the fires too, and that’s not helping us. But with the oil companies too now coming in, that’s not helping us no more. It’s just destroying our livelihood right now.

Brandi Morin:  Frank’s been an elected Woodland Cree Nation counselor for over 16 years. He’s seen industry come and go, governments make promises and break them. Foreign companies are even more of a problem, he says.

Frank Whitehead:  I don’t think they know what we do here as First Nations people, especially when somebody else is not from this country. That’s not right because they don’t know. And we try talking to ’em, we tried teaching them, we tried everything. But still, a lot of people won’t understand how we live here. And they need to understand this. We’re from here. We were here, one of the first people that lived in this territory a long time ago. We went up and down these rivers. Every year we canoed down Peace River. So they don’t know what’s going on and they need to know, they need to listen to us too.

But people, you gotta understand that this is our livelihood. This is how we were born. This is how we were raised. This is what we eat. Everything we eat and the herbs and everything that the trees provide for us, the animals. If the animals are going, sometimes when we trap, we don’t… It’s my kids, their livelihood, and it’s gotta continue like this for generations and generations. We cannot stop this. This is how we were born. We have young guys that’s doing that now. This is the young guy that’s trapping, hunting, and he learned.

Brandi Morin:  Woodland Cree Counselor Joe Whitehead Jr. has been helping oversee the camp. Grand chief of the Kee Tas Kee Now Tribal Council and chief of the Woodland Cree, he’s pissed that Obsidian is sidestepping its duty to consult and work with the nation.

Grand Chief Joe Whitehead Jr.:  The trust factor for our First Nation is really low with industry because of Obsidian. Obsidian is to blame for everything that’s happening today, where the cops are staging over there to come in here and trying to remove people that are from the land and believe in the land. And we are teaching kids here today, and we’ll still keep doing that.

And we will be here forever. Obsidian might not be here for a long time, until they take the resources away from our land. We’re just asking for that fair, equal share of the resources that go out of here. No more of this construction and all that. We want to be part of the solution and part of the development. That’s all we’re saying. And I encourage First Nations people to stand up because this is our fight together. It’s just not Woodland Crees, it’s us all across this Turtle Island, all of Canada.

We always say we support each other, but let’s have action, any means necessary in terms of trying to educate Canada in terms of who First Nations people are and who we really are, and that’s from the land. And we have to protect it. Any means necessary.

There was a gate put up over here. In our treaty, it states that all gates shall be open in case of hunger. But what they did was they put up a gate and blocked our chief. And that’s wrong. And I’m mad today because of that. This is going to escalate if the government doesn’t step in.

And if Obsidian doesn’t come to the table, what does that say to other industries? They can start putting up gates where we hunt, trap, fish, and gather? That’s our treaty right. That’s nobody else’s right but our First Nations people.

Grand Chief Arthur Noskey:  We’re still in that role as the liaison team.

Speaker 4:  We’re speaking with you, we speak with the other side, for sure. We’re not picking a side. That’s why we need to be able to keep those lines of communication open. If you’re saying —

Grand Chief Joe Whitehead Jr.:  The people be here, they’re not welcome in our company. We can stay over there, take your photos and whatnot. So speak with the chief when he gets here.

Speaker 4:  Oh no, that’s OK. And like I said, we’re not here to pick sides. We’ve always been upfront with you in regards to that.

Grand Chief Joe Whitehead Jr.:  Well, all First Nations that have a stake in this, it’s just not Woodland Cree, it’s everybody. We live off this land. And I think industry and government need to be educated more in terms of when they come in and try to develop the resources around us. We will idle no more. We will do what we have to do as a nation to protect the rights, the treaty rights of our people that were signed in 1899.

And I believe that industry needs to wake up in terms of what they’re doing. You need to come to the table and not give us lies and lies after lies. You need to be honest.

Police Officer 1:  …Energy regulator’s going to want to inspect because it’s not been operational. So they might be here tomorrow too.

Grand Chief Joe Whitehead Jr.:  We’ll see, we’ll see about that.

Police Officer 1:  The energy regulator?

Grand Chief Joe Whitehead Jr.:  That’s unprecedented because [inaudible].

Brandi Morin:  You guys know if that helicopter that’s been circling, if that’s the industry guys?

Speaker 4:  Yeah.

Brandi Morin:  It is, eh? So they’re just trying to scope things out?

Speaker 4:  They gotta do their checks. Extra police that are going to be in the area just to ensure the safety and security of all involved.

Speaker 1:  So they’re not there to enforce the injunction?

Brandi Morin:  It’s a step up, obvious.

Speaker 4:  Well, we don’t have any information in regards to what’s going to happen in regards to the injunction. We’re [crosstalk] not privy to that information.

Brandi Morin:  — Resources for nothing.

Speaker 4:  We do have extra resources there.

Speaker 5:  But to ensure the safety of all people involved, that’s pretty much the one group. So the only other group was the police officers.

Speaker 4:  Well, we have to be prepared for anything that might happen. So if we didn’t have those police here and something were to happen, then it would be [crosstalk] how are you able to respond?

Speaker 5:  I’m not sure what would happen between them?

Speaker 4:  That’s what we don’t know either, right?

Speaker 5:  Exactly.

Speaker 4:  We never know. We’ve been to lots of these type of events. There’s people who decide that they want to hijack these type of events that people don’t necessarily think the way that everybody here or that you may think. As a result…

Brandi Morin:  Hello!

Police Officer 2:  Hi, how’s it going?

Brandi Morin:  Good, how are you?

Police Officer 2:  Living the dream. [Crosstalk] One day at a time.

Brandi Morin:  You guys are hiding out back here?

Police Officer 2:  You guys are not allowed in here, I’m sorry.

Brandi Morin:  You’re hiding out back here?

Police Officer 2:  No, we’re just here for fun.

Brandi Morin:  Is this C-IRG?

Police Officer 2:  Sorry?

Brandi Morin:  Is this C-IRG? Are you guys C-IRG?

Police Officer 2:  What’s that? Sorry, I don’t know —

Brandi Morin:  Community-Industry Response Group.

Police Officer 2:  No, no, no, no, no.

Brandi Morin:  OK. So obviously —

Police Officer 2:  I’m sorry, I don’t know all the acronyms [laughs].

Brandi Morin:  OK, so you’re staging, obviously, [crosstalk] because you’re hiding.

Police Officer 2:  Well, we tend to stay on the road, right. We need a place to park our vehicles. But you guys are technically not allowed in here because it’s closed.

Brandi Morin:  It’s closed.

Police Officer 2:  This place is closed

Brandi Morin:  By the police, or…?

Police Officer 2:  No, no, no, it’s just closed.

Brandi Morin:  Can you say what you’re doing?

Police Officer 2:  We’re just here working. That’s all we’re doing. There’s nothing to be worried about. If you have any questions, you guys were in touch with the DLTs?

Brandi Morin:  Yeah. OK.

Police Officer 2:  OK? You guys just can’t stay here.

Brandi Morin:  OK.

Police Officer 2:  OK? Alright. Thanks a lot, guys.

Irina Ceric:  There’s another way to address this, which is to look more at the politics and history of these sorts of struggles. This is not the only example of courts refusing to recognize Indigenous jurisdiction. This is not the only example of Canadian law facilitating the extraction of resources at the cost of the environment, the cost of workers, at the cost of, in this case, First Nations. So to me, this is not an unusual outcome of the foundation of Canadian law in both settler-colonialism and in the Canadian foundation in resource extraction as a national preoccupation.

Brandi Morin:  Well, you think that because it’s 2024, because we’ve had the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, because we’re in so-called building nation-to-nation relationships, you think that things would be different by now.

Irina Ceric:  You would. You absolutely would.

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  Well, we want to see, obviously, respectful, responsible industry. Obviously we’re not getting respect here, and they’re not being responsible. Just what you asked me about them not hiring local, other people around us. We want to see stuff be sustainable. We do care about our environment. We do care about the lands, the waters. We do feel the encroachment of industry and the accumulative effects of not just industry, but also the environment. The wildfires. The droughts. We’re thankful for this rain. But it’s about finding that balance. We are educating our children now to become the operators, tradespeople, nurses, teachers, et cetera. We want to educate our peoples to adapt to modern society — But as well keep their traditional way of life.

Grand Chief Arthur Noskey:  It’s kind of absurd for Obsidian to start making those recommendations to the province and even to the courts, and even to try and enforce the RCMP to do something, as those that don’t know the treaty. The RCMP officers were presented at the treaty, a day of making treaty, and these were here for our protection against foreigners that would intrude in our way of life. Obsidian, you’re intruding without talking to the people, without doing a proper process because the government, you’re listening to the government more so than the leadership that is sitting at this table.

And I will say when it comes to jailing our people, our chiefs, I think you’ll see a lot of chiefs either in jail, and hopefully that the court systems or that the institutions can hold all of the Canadian First Nations people in jail. Because I think there is an uprising in the making, and I think at some point we need to start making those calls for that support.

Brandi Morin:  Just days after the failed May 13 meeting with Obsidian representatives, the chiefs of Treaty 8 traveled to gather in the same meeting room to support the Woodland Cree.

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  I just want to say that Obsidian is changing the dynamics of industry within our backyard and others. For Woodland Cree, we are hoping that they remove the injunctions on myself and my people, that they remove the injunctions of our local joint ventures and their livelihoods.

Grand Chief Arthur Noskey:  And Supreme Court of Canada ruled that there must be consultation with landowners.

Brandi Morin:  Treaty 8 Grand Chief Arthur Noskey called on the province to step in.

Grand Chief Arthur Noskey:  Remove ACO Aboriginal Consultation Office, AER, Alberta Energy Regulator, and the Red Tape Ministry, because these agencies and ministries do not honor the Supreme Court ruling, the duty to consult. Premier Danielle Smith and cabinet, we call upon you to meet with Woodland Cree First Nation leadership and Treaty 8 chiefs to establish a table for revenue sharing talks with the province. It is important that the public and industry know that Alberta government’s First Nations consultation policy is their own policy. We are sovereign nations with our own consultation processes and laws.

Brandi Morin:  For decades, First Nations in Alberta have insisted the province pay up. Alberta makes billions in royalties earned from industry projects in First Nations territories. The province has largely ignored requests to share some of those benefits with Indigenous communities. The current situation could pressure Alberta’s government to change course.

Chief Sheldon Sunshine:  When we talk about the issue that my colleague here, Chief Ivan, and their community has dealt with Obsidian, we feel those impacts all across our territory. We deal with the same issues in our backyard. We’re here to support Chief Isaac and the rest of the Treaty 8 chiefs in solidarity in opposing this issue. It affects all of our First Nation people. And when you take a look at the resource development in our backyard, the government of Alberta has received over $30 billion, and the government of Canada is prospering as well — Yet, while our communities are suffering. This attack on Woodland community is an attack on all of our treaty rights.

Chief Dwayne Lovell Laboucan:  It’s pretty simple from our end: if you’re going to come and make a livelihood in our lands, we must too. That’s our message to oil and gas. You’re not going to come in here and start bullying us. We’re here to stay and we’re ready to fight. Hay-hay.

Brandi Morin:  Ultimately, this isn’t just about what’s happening in Woodland Cree territory. This is about a status quo that’s fundamentally untenable for Indigenous peoples. The status quo must change, says Chief Isaac.

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  Well just look at the GDP that comes out of our land from the forest sector, the oil and gas sector, even, for the longest time, billions, hundreds of millions come out of this land. Why are, as First Nations, we still administrate poverty? Obviously those comments that are made on greed, it’s people that don’t even understand the current situation and the reality of this country. We shouldn’t have to fight this hard for prosperity when we signed a treaty. A treaty is a nation-to-nation relationship.

And that people ask about our greed? Well, I think it’s actually the other way around. People don’t want to see us lift ourselves up. I’m not looking for a handout. I’m looking to just provide and to protect my people with our own ways and our own rights. We want to be part of the workforce. We want to develop megaprojects. We want to be owners of the resources.

And you’re darn right it is about money. My people shouldn’t be living in poverty. We deserve equalization payments. The chiefs that are around this table are the economic engine of this country, the economic engine of this country. Our resources supply the world with some of our trees, our oil and gas. And we could set a good example, a world-class example of doing things right. And we need that opportunity to do things right and that collaboration with industry, government, and communities — And in solidarity with our chiefs, our brothers and our sisters.

And I really want to commend them, the councilmen, the leadership, the elders, the youth. Our kids need a brighter future. Seven out of 10 of us are going to die sooner than the [rest of] Canada’s population. Seven out of 10 of our kids are in CFS issues. That’s because of poverty. So how is this greed? It’s actually the other way around, where a greedy American company wants to come dictate in our land? I don’t think so.

Grand Chief Arthur Noskey:  You’re talking about landowners that entered into a treaty with the imperial crown. How can there be anything higher than that in our lands? Where is that certificate of ownership, Canada? Where’s the certificate of ownership, province? So these are questions that still remain there. Right now they’re just brokering deals with industry at the expense of our lands, our resources, and just leaving their contaminants behind. They’re greedy for money, and it is obvious. Thank you very much.

Grand Chief Joe Whitehead Jr.:  I just want to make a quick comment in terms of why we’re here today in terms of what we’re doing. And it’s for our people. And I’d like to show you, this is what my daughter does every time I go home. I see her every four hours, and she takes this shirt and covers herself up. And the people need to know that we are fighting for our kids and their kids, for the future, so they don’t keep fighting. That’s one thing that people don’t understand. That we are passionate people. We are humble people, and we like to laugh, but at the same time, we have to protect this land, our treaty rights, for our future generation.

Brandi Morin:  Now you also said that if they were to come to arrest you, that you wouldn’t surrender.

Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom:  Surrender. Of course not. I don’t think there’s a Cree word for surrender [laughs] or cede. No. I’m here to maintain the best interest of my community. And if I was, I know there’s a lot of support that I have out there. I think Evander Kane said it best: Sometimes you got to fuck around to find out [laughs].

Brandi Morin:  I’m Brandi Morin, reporting in the traditional territories of the Woodland Cree Nation for The Real News Network, IndigiNews, and Ricochet Media.

Editor’s note: Over the past month, journalist Brandi Morin has made multiple trips to the Woodland Cree First Nation and the Peace River area to report on this story for Ricochet, IndigiNews, and The Real News Network. This kind of on-the-ground reporting is costly, but essential. You can support our journalism by making a donation today.

In Northern Alberta, First Nations leaders and their neighbours are uniting against an oil and gas company that has asked a court to arrest and jail a chief and members of his nation so they can move ahead with a drilling project. 

Obsidian Energy has obtained an injunction against the Woodland Cree and their ongoing blockade of access roads, but the RCMP has yet to enforce it. A legal application filed two weeks ago by the company seeks to compel the police to confront the Woodland Cree and make arrests, which could escalate this local conflict into a national crisis. 

Meanwhile, sources say the First Nation and Obsidian are currently engaged in confidential mediation talks, but the outcome of those is uncertain and the blockades remain active. 

Estimates based on the company’s daily production and the benchmark price for oil suggest the blockade may be costing Obsidian in excess of $400,000 per day in lost revenue.

Although the resource company is nominally based in Calgary, CEO Stephen Loukas is American. Cree leaders suspect he isn’t well-informed on Indigenous rights and consultation duties north of the medicine line. Woodland Cree leadership has rejected Obsidian’s project, but it has been moving ahead, with the province’s permission, regardless. 

“We’ve concluded that… foreigners are making laws on sovereign lands, and we have to unite in solidarity to address what’s developing in our country,” said Treaty 8 Grand Chief Arthur Noskey during a press conference following a meeting of treaty chiefs expressing solidarity with the Woodland Cree in Peace River on May 20.

“We are sovereign nations with our own consultation processes and laws… this affects all of us, all of our First Nations people. And when you take a look at the resource development in our backyard, the government of Alberta has received over $30 billion, and the government of Canada is prospering as well. Yet our communities are suffering. This attack on the Woodland Cree is an attack on all of our treaty rights.”

Obsidian have not responded to requests for comment or interviews, but the company has taken a hard line in a press release, accusing the nation of attempting to “coerce” them, arguing the area is “Crown land” and saying it reserves the right “to pursue all legal means” to restore operations.

‘We are sovereign nations’ 

For decades, First Nations in Alberta have insisted the province pay up. Alberta makes billions in royalties earned from industry projects in First Nations territories, however, it has largely ignored requests to share some of those benefits with them.

The Woodland Cree say they support industrial projects and resource extraction, but not without their consent and involvement. 

The First Nation wants to be consulted on new drilling projects on their traditional territory, a share of the profits extracted from their land and enhanced environmental standards following an Alberta Energy Regulator report that blamed Obsidian for causing a series of earthquakes in the area. 

As is typical in these situations, the company has obtained an injunction requiring the blockades be removed, but the RCMP have thus far declined to take any action to enforce that order. In an unusual move, Obsidian filed an emergency application with an Alberta court on May 14, asking to have Woodland Cree Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom and others arrested and held in jail until the blockade is dismantled. A decision on that application is expected any day now. 

On May 21, Chief Laboucan-Avirom discovered access to one of his beloved hunting territories was blocked. Obsidian had erected a gate to another industry road not far from the Woodland Cree blockade camp.

“This is a direct attack on treaty (rights), stopping the people who live off of this land from entering their land,” said a frustrated Laboucan-Avirom while driving away from the locked gate after an Obsidian security guard told him he couldn’t enter. 

Chief Laboucan-Avirom, like most Woodland Cree, grew up hunting, fishing, and trapping. He still gets out on the land as often as he can.

“We were just talking about stories of how we used to just camp wherever here. And now we’re being locked out of our traditional territories and places where we find medicine,” he said. 

“Obsidian is changing the dynamics of industry within our backyard and others. For Woodland Cree, we are hoping that they remove the injunctions on myself and my people, that they remove the injunctions of our local joint ventures and their livelihoods.”

During the press conference on May 20, Grand Chief Noskey demanded governments produce a bill of sale to First Nations territory. “Where is that certificate of ownership, Canada? Where is the certificate of ownership, province? Right now, they’re just brokering deals with industry at the expense of our lands, our resources and just leaving their contaminants behind. They’re greedy for money and it is obvious.”

When it comes to First Nations’ rights to traditional territories outside of reserve boundaries that were never ceded or surrendered, Chief Laboucan-Avirom wants Obsidian to take lessons on Indigenous rights and sovereignty. 

“It’s been very intrusive what Obsidian is doing to us, but it’s also showcasing to the world that there has to be better ways to get work done,” he said. 

“I do understand that there is a need for resources to be in the global market. I think it actually might make the world a better place. I think Canada needs to do a better job of getting investors into this country, but (they need to) work with the First Nations in partnership to get that done. We take responsibility for our destiny. We have our own right to our own self-determination, and that is definitely different than what others might assume for us.” 

The conflict with Obsidian has been brewing for a while, he said. It started as far back as two years ago when the Woodland Cree learned Obsidian was planning to drill 200 more wells on the First Nation’s territory.

“This has been an accumulation of many different circumstances. This company is saying, ‘Hey, we don’t gotta work with the locals’, but I’m saying, ‘Hey, you should work with the locals. You don’t have to, but you should.’ It’s the right thing to do.” 

Unusual alliances

The Woodland Cree has the backing of many area oil and gas contractors. It’s unusual, if not unprecedented, for non-Indigenous industry owners to support First Nations asserting their rights. Some contractors have parked their semi trucks and heavy equipment at the blockade, despite the risk of being blacklisted by Obsidian. 

Dustin Lambert, of MDP Oilfield Services Ltd. in Peace River, has been regularly visiting the Woodland Cree traditional camp blockade. He says he’s concerned he’ll be losing out on potential work too, because Obsidian brought in contractors from Central Alberta instead of hiring local ones. 

“I think it’s a good thing for the community to stand against the oil companies when they try to take from the communities and not work with the community,” said Lambert.

“Obsidian has work, but they want to bring in large outside contractors. As I understand, in Canada, we’re free to work in all areas. However, when you have local contractors, they should have the first opportunity. We work directly with the Woodland Cree. I’ve worked with these guys on and off for pretty much my whole life, and I went to school with them.”

Janice Makokis, an Indigenous scholar and member of the Saddle Lake Cree Nation in Alberta, said Obsidian is using long-standing colonial tactics against the Woodland Cree. She explained that the understanding of First Nations who signed treaties was often quite different from settler governments. 

“When our ancestors and the people in Treaty 8 entered into a treaty more than 100 years ago, there was an understanding that the parties were both sovereign entities with unextinguished title to the lands,” said Makokis in a Zoom interview.

“It was two sovereigns and the Indigenous side of that party understood that they were not giving up anything, including the land, and resources of the lands. And almost immediately after treaty-making happened, the Indian Act was set in play by the federal government, which corralled our people onto these small parcels of land referred to now as reserves, and they weren’t meant to be where we would be corralled.”

Makokis explained how upon signing treaties First Nations believed they’d have full access to lands outside of the reserves for hunting, fishing, trapping and other activities to maintain their livelihoods. 

“There’s a significant misunderstanding between our people’s understanding of the treaty and the Crown governments and industry’s understanding of what that is,” she said. “And I think that’s where we see these conflicts happening on the land. We’re still exercising our inherent treaty rights as we understood them when our ancestors made that treaty.”

Governments and industry interpret the treaties as giving them the right to freely access, destroy and profit off Indigenous traditional territories, which is convenient, she said. 

“It benefits them to continue to oppress and use colonial laws and legal instruments such as injunctions or through the courts to advance their interests in the name of the public good or the good of the company and for economic development reasons, whatever that is.”

Makokis adds the “public interest,” factor is flawed because the interests of First Nations are not considered. She noted since the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report in 2015 governments and industry are slowly starting to consider Indigenous rights in land disputes, but true change must start at the top. 

“That willingness has to come from the senior leadership of the company for it to trickle down within that company. They need to be trained to understand Indigenous peoples’ history, rights, treaty, UNDRIP, all of these legal instruments that are now being implemented or suggested to be included within government policy.”

The blockade continues

Woodland Cree members are set up along the Walrus industry access road about 40 minutes east of Peace River. It’s a key access route utilized by Obsidian which has now been rendered non-operational. 

They are well-equipped for the long haul if need be. They’ve utilized these lands for millennia. But they were forced out of their traditional territories decades ago when oil was discovered here. The band was made to settle on allotted reserve sites about an hour away from the blockade site. However, they say they’ve never abandoned their original homelands.

“It’s awesome when you can do a lot of things on the traditional land, we hunt, we trap,” said Frank Whitehead, elected Woodland Cree councillor of 16 years. He pointed to the forest next to the camp where multiple rabbit snares were set. 

On this day, the trappers have caught five. Jerome Courtorielle, a young hunter and trapper, finished skinning the catch and laid them out on a wooden rack to smoke over a fire. 

“This is our hunting grounds. But what’s happening with the wildfires too, is not helping us. All (these) companies are now coming in. It’s just destroying our livelihood,” explained Whitehead. 

He’s witnessed industry come and go over the years, as well as governments that make promises and break them. He says foreign companies are even more of a problem.

“I don’t think they know what we’re doing here. That it’s First Nations people. When somebody else is not from this country, that’s not right because they don’t know. And we tried talking to them. We tried teaching them. We tried everything, but it’s still not enough,” he said.

“People won’t understand how we live here, and they need to understand us because we’re one of the first people that lived in this territory a long time ago. They don’t know what’s going on and they need to know. They need to listen to us.”

The Peace River oil sands are sometimes referred to as the mini-Fort McMurray of Alberta. Fort McMurray is the extractive economic engine of Canada, pumping out multi-billions of dollars in annual revenue. The Peace River oil sands are also rich in black gold deposits and much of these oil reserves are untapped. There’s a ton of money to be made here. But development goes hand in hand with the destruction of the land, and Whitehead is concerned. 

“My heart cries for Mother Nature a lot of times because Mother Nature is the one that gave us this land and gives us everything that we should respect. We should have no garbage, everything should be cleaned up afterward. And sometimes their (projects) are not cleaned up. that’s not the way it’s supposed to be.”

Whitehead has also witnessed a massive transformation of Woodland Cree’s traditional territory in recent years. 

“A long time ago, we used to call moose in September over here,” he said. “But these days you have a lot of pump jacks, so when you’re calling a moose here you can’t even hear it because the pump jacks are the only ones that you can hear, scaring them outta here. I even see animals going away too because they’re scared of everything that’s happening.”

Earthquakes and environmental issues 

There’s another big problem caused by industry — earthquakes. The Alberta Energy Regulator found Obsidian responsible for causing a series of quakes near its worksites in 2022 after the company injected industrial wastewater deep into the ground.

One of the earthquakes was the largest ever recorded in Alberta’s history — it scored a local magnitude of 5.6. 

Obsidian has denied it had anything to do with the earthquakes, and is appealing the AER ruling.

But the memory of the big quake is seared into the minds of all here, including Chief Laboucan-Avirom.

“We felt it. it was shaking houses,” recalled the chief with a wide-eyed look. “I think there were four or five tremors. That day I had elders calling me. I’d just dropped my kids off at school, my daughters were calling me from Peace River. It was definitely unexpected and felt by everybody. Not just me and my family, but the farmers nearby, industry. I was scared for my children.”

All who felt it were shaken up, because earthquakes don’t happen in the region. 

“We wondered what the repercussions would be. Will it rupture pipes? Will it rupture foundational stuff? Will it hurt old homes? Will it contaminate groundwater? Will there be more?” 

Woodland Cree Councilor Joe Whitehead Jr. has been helping oversee the blockade camp. He’s a former grand chief of Treaty 8, grand chief of the Kee Tas Kee Now Tribal Council and chief of the Woodland Cree.

Joe held up his cell phone to show a photo of his 18-month-old daughter wrapped up in his Woodland Cree custom-made jersey. He said it breaks his heart to be away from his family to maintain the blockade, but they are the reason why he’s doing it. 

“This is what my daughter does every time I go home,” said Joe, proudly looking at the photo of his dark-haired, chubby-cheeked daughter through teary eyes. 

“She takes this shirt and covers herself up… this is for our people. And, the people need to know that we are fighting for our kids and their kids for the future. So they don’t keep fighting.”

He’s angry because Obsidian is circumventing its duty to consult and work with the Nation.

“The trust factor for our First Nation is really low with industry because of Obsidian. Obsidian is to blame for everything that’s happening today where the cops are staging over there,” he motioned to where the RCMP have set up a command station at the local agriculture hall about 15 kilometres west. 

“To come in here and try to remove people that are from the land and believe in the land… we are teaching kids here today, we’ll still keep doing that and we will be here forever.”

Joe believes the Woodland Cree’s stand against industry is game-changing, and passionately calls on allies to follow suit.

“This is our fight together. It’s just not Woodland Cree’s. It’s us all across Turtle Island… by any means necessary in terms of trying to educate Canada on who First Nations people are,” he said.

“There was a gate put up over here. Our treaty states that all gates shall be open in case of hunger. But what they did was they put up a gate and blocked our chief, and that’s wrong. And I’m mad today because of that. This is going to escalate if the government doesn’t step in and if Obsidian doesn’t come to the table. 

“What does that say to other industries? That they can start putting up gates where we hunt, trap, fish? We will be idle no more, we will do what we have to do as a nation to protect the treaty rights of our people that were signed in 1899. And I believe that industry needs to wake up in terms of what they’re doing… you need to come to the table and not give us lies and lies after lies. You need to be honest right now.”

Whitehead says he’s willing to be arrested if it comes to that, alongside his chief. 

The RCMP can enforce the injunction at any time. But they have not done so yet, and have “no interest in enforcing it at this point, as we’re still looking for a peaceful solution,” according to Corporal Matthew Howell. RCMP liaison members on the ground said they’re monitoring the area to “ensure the safety and security of all,” adding they “have to be prepared for anything that might happen.”

Part of their reluctance may be rooted in the sheer size of the blockade, which on some days counts more than 100 participants, and the local support the Woodland Cree have. Any raid would require hundreds of officers, and could have far-reaching consequences. 

An ‘uprising in the making’

Irina Ceric is an assistant professor in the University of Windsor’s Faculty of Law. She has extensively studied injunctions granted against activists and Indigenous groups, and co-wrote ‘The Legal Billy Club’: First Nations, injunctions, and the Public Interest,’ an academic paper published in 2023. 

She said she was not surprised the injunction was granted to Obsidian. 

“Research that I’ve participated in makes it very clear that resource extraction companies such as Obsidian have a very strong record of success in obtaining injunctions against First Nations and Indigenous groups, even on traditional territories, even on treaty territories,” she said. 

When courts issue injunctions that favour corporations, the existence of Indigenous treaties or constitutionally-protected rights are not taken into consideration, added Ceric. Corporations petition the courts stating their work is being impeded or their projects will be “irreparably harmed,” (meaning they will lose a lot of money), and the conflict needs to be resolved at a later time. In the meantime, an injunction is needed to remove the blockaders. The courts tend to take those arguments seriously, she said. 

“What is really unusual is Obsidian going back to court to attempt to have a sort of second procedure to issue this arrest warrant (for Chief Laboucan-Avirom). That’s unnecessary on a legal level. Once a court order is issued, there will be an enforcement order within that injunction that says to, in this case, it’s the RCMP, ‘you can enforce this order.’”

The injunction gives police the power to arrest and hold in custody (if necessary) anyone who violates it. So the RCMP already have the power to arrest Chief Laboucan-Avirom, should they choose to use it. 

“What I’m seeing here is an attempt to sidestep the discretion of the police and attempt to have a court issue an unnecessary, and I think highly unusual, arrest warrant,” added Ceric. 

Arresting a treaty chief in his traditional territories is a dangerous proposition, and if carried out could see the conflict explode and spread into other jurisdictions, Grand Chief Noskey said at the press conference. 

“For Obsidian to start making those recommendations to the province and even to the courts and even to try to force the RCMP to do something… RCMP officers were present at the treaty, on the day of making the treaty. And they were here for our protection against foreigners that would intrude in our way of life,” he said.

“Obsidian, you’re intruding without talking to the people, without doing a proper process… when it comes to jailing our people, our chiefs, I think you’ll see a lot of chiefs in jail, and hopefully the court systems or the institutions can hold all of the Canadian First Nations people in jail because I think this is an uprising in the making.”

Grand Chief Noskey went on to call for the province to step in. 

“Remove the Aboriginal Consultation Office, Alberta Energy Regulator and the red tape ministry. Because these agencies and ministries do not honor the Supreme Court ruling that they do need to consult. Premier Danielle Smith and cabinet, we call upon you to meet with Woodland Cree First Nation leadership and Treaty 8 chiefs to establish the table for revenue-sharing talks with the province.”

Other treaty chiefs at the press conference chimed in with a warning, such as Driftpile Cree Nation Chief Dwayne Laboucan, who said he’s ready to take action. 

“It’s pretty simple from our end. If you’re going to come and make a livelihood in our lands, we must too. That’s our message to oil and gas. You’re not going to come in here and start bullying us. We’re here to stay, and we’re ready to fight.”

Ultimately, changing the status quo of inequities faced by First Nations communities is what’s at stake, said Chief Laboucan-Avirom.

“Just look at the GDP that comes out of our land. From the forest sector, the oil and gas sector, even before for the longest time, billions, hundreds of millions come out of this land,” he said.

“Why are we as First Nations still administrating poverty? We shouldn’t have to fight this hard for prosperity. Treaty 8 is unceded territory. We’re a country within a country. But people don’t want to see us lift ourselves up. I’m not looking for a handout. I’m looking to just provide, to protect my people with our own ways and our own rights.”

The chief stressed that his nation wants to participate in the workforce, develop mega-projects and be owners of their resources. He’s determined to set an example.

“You’re damn right, it is about money.  People shouldn’t be living in poverty. We deserve equalization payments. Our kids need a brighter future,” he said.

“Seven out of ten of us are going to die sooner than the rest of Canada’s population. Seven out of ten of our kids are in CFS care. That’s because of poverty. So how is this greed? It’s the other way around where a greedy American company wants to come dictate (terms) in our land. I don’t think so.”

The chief pointed out there are no words in the Cree language for “cede” or “surrender,” and it’s not something he’s planning to do if a warrant is issued for his arrest. 

“It’s outrageous. I think the courts also understand the repercussions that that would have and the precedents that would have (if I was arrested),” he said.

“And I don’t think that is a responsible way forward or a respectful way forward. That’s been the issue all along. To move forward, whether it’s with industry, government or even family, you have to have integrity, understanding, respect and (you have to) respond.”

This story originally appeared in Ricochet on May 13, 2024.

In the heart of the Arizona high desert lies a battle for the soul of the land.

The ancient, sacred grounds of Apache Native territory are under threat from a looming giant — a massive copper mine that promises riches for the locals, and a pathway to the so-called green transition. 

But, as is often the case, it comes at a cost. 

The San Carlos Apache tribe calls it Chi’chil Bildagoteel, English speakers call it Oak Flat. It sits on a mountainous plateau within a 17.3-kilometer oasis in the Tonto National Forest. 

Rio Tinto and BHP, two of the world’s biggest mining companies, have staked their claim here through a joint venture called Resolution Copper. For over 10 years they’ve been lobbying governments for the right to build a colossal mine that would cover roughly 7,000 acres of surface area, and extend more than a mile into the ground. 

The only thing that stands in their way is the resistance of the Apache Stronghold, a nonprofit community organization of Natives and non-Natives uniting to counter ongoing colonization, defend holy sites and protect freedom of religion, which was created to protect Chi’chil Bildagoteel. 

For generations, the Apache have revered the life-giving medicine that thrives here through various species of plants, animals, and Emory oak trees. Some of the oak trees here are over 1,000 years old, and provide the Apache’s most coveted ceremonial item and food source — acorn flour. 

The tribe, whose holy people have always lived nearby, believes the natural springs flowing beneath Chi’chil Bildagoteel provide healing powers that can only be found here.

“Understand we’re sitting in a holy place, in a sacred place. This is where God touched the world for us with who we are, when it comes to how we protect Mother Earth, not only as a human, but through the spirit of why we have, in Apache, we call them Gaan, but in the English, they call them angels,” said Dr. Wendsler Nosie Sr., an Apache elder and community leader. 

“And those angels live here today. Our ceremony, called Na’i, is a repeat of how creation was created, and how the angels brought us to the surface to see God’s work, and to live in the moment. These are corridors that God created for us, and it’s no different than parts of the Bible you would find about the beginning. These are real critical places for us and I guess in the White language, our religion.”

Nosie has been living at Chi’chil Bildagoteel for over two years in a bid to protect it from the proposed mine. He leads the Apache Stronghold.

Resolution Copper is owned by two foreign entities, Rio Tinto (which already has an atrocious track record for violating Indigenous rights, after blasting away an ancient Indigenous holy site in Australia in 2020), and BHP, the world’s biggest mining company. BHP also has a dark history of forcible displacement of Indigenous and afro-descendant communities as well as catastrophic environmental damage. 

The mine will use about 250 billion gallons of water over 40 years to process ore in an already drought-stricken area. It will also use the water to help store toxic tailings in ponds that will stretch for miles. The company’s rhetoric argues that America needs copper, but it hasn’t yet said how it plans to keep that copper in the United States. 

It is said that meeting climate goals for vehicle electrification requires an urgent ramp-up in copper production, despite harmful impacts to land, water and communities. The International Energy Agency reports that production needs to triple by 2040. 

Nevertheless, Apache Stronghold has been waging their fight against these giants in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In late April, the court rejected an appeal of a lower court’s ruling from 2021 that found the mine wouldn’t threaten the First Amendment religious practice rights of the Apache. Now, the group is taking their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Chi’chil Bildagoteel was once protected. In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower listed the area on the National Register of Historic Places as a Traditional Cultural Property. That designation stood until 2014, when former U.S. Senator John McCain slipped a rider onto a must-pass National Defense Authorization Act to allow the sale of Oak Flat to Resolution Copper. 

The area, where their ancestors lived for thousands of years, holds more than just ceremonial significance to the Apache. During the expansive wars between the Apache, the United States, and Mexico it was part of the San Carlos reservation and served as a prisoner of war camp. 

Nearby is Apache Leap, where Apache warriors jumped over a cliff to their deaths rather than surrender to the U.S. Cavalry in 1870.

The remaining prisoners of war were rounded up and taken to a valley in the San Carlos reservation. The Apache now refer to it as Hell’s 40 Acres. It’s where Apache clans were imprisoned and killed by the U.S. Cavalry. 

“We once roamed all the mountains, and we lived in bands and communities and family,” explained Dr. Lian Bighorse of the San Carlos Apache Tribe Wellness Program. She’s also Nosie’s daughter. 

“And now we’re imprisoned on a reservation and a lot of our people have that mentality that that’s our home, that’s where we’re from… but that’s the land we were put on. They said you can’t go any further.”

Up until the 1960s, Apaches from San Carlos weren’t allowed to leave the reservation without the permission of the Indian Agent. Since then, bands like the Chiricahua have been returning to their ancestral homelands, like Oak Flat. 

Local Apache clans still pray at the same mountain nearby where famed Apache warrior Geronimo requested to pray before U.S. Cavalry soldiers hauled him away to Florida in chains. 

These lands hold the memories of their forefathers, like Geronimo, Cochise, Victorio, and Mangus Coloradas, and their fight to save their territories from invaders. Now, that cycle is repeating itself with the looming mine.

“When you don’t have a connection to the land, when you don’t know the history of the people, is when that doesn’t matter to you. Just being out here you can feel how beautiful it is and see the scenery and feel the wind, you can see the clouds. All those things that establish a connection, and when you don’t even take those moments and all you see is how you can profit off of things, when it’s that money and power and greed — it’s an illusion… if you call America your home, how can you just destroy it that way?”

This is not only a tribal fight, but a family one. Multiple generations of the Nosie family have been at the forefront of protecting Chi’chil Bildagoteel. Nosie’s granddaughter, 27-year-old Naelyn Pike, has travelled with him across the United States to speak out against the mine. 

“This is no longer a game of bows and arrows and shooting us physically, but it’s killing our religion, our way of life, and everything from what we do and who we are as a people,” said Pike. 

“That in itself scares me because it tells me that what I identify with, what I physically feel connected to, my religion, way of life, doesn’t matter and that the federal government can still do this to our people today… It’s the federal government, everything that has been put into place, the systems are working as they should… by design.”

Pike had her coming of age ceremony at another Apache holy site, Mount Graham. Wendsler has been working for decades to protect it from research universities and the Vatican who are trying to expand a massive observatory there. 

“I was able to wake up that mountain. And that was a very powerful moment for me,” she pauses to wipe away tears falling on her cheeks. 

“Because as Apache people and as Indigenous people, we’re stewards of the land. We have a power to connect, to have these intimate relations with the Earth. And when that’s forcefully taken away, not only are we hurting as a people, but these places are hurting, too. When I had my ceremony there, I definitely felt the power of my ancestors. I felt the power of the mountain and the animals and there were so many beautiful and powerful experiences that I got to experience because of that fight of my people.”

Pike wants those same experiences for other young women to be preserved. 

“It’s reclaiming those spaces and revitalizing our culture, and the government tells us you can only have these ceremonies here on your reservation, but this is not where we come from.”

Reclaiming their ancestral lands, and protecting them from invaders, is dangerous. During the time Nosie’s been living out here, he’s been shot at four different times.

He draws courage from his ancestors, including his late mother who prepared him to combat the evils that arrived on their doorstep over 100 years ago. 

“(My mother) would say to me that you have to remember that this evil (colonization) already came here a long time ago, before (white people) came here. But the difference here on this side of the world was that there was one drum, one prayer, one circle. So this evil that was destroying on the other side (of the ocean) already came here. But because we’re all intact, it couldn’t penetrate. But it did turn to us and tell us that I’ll be back,” explained Nosie. 

“When all these white people came and they were doing all these ugly things to our people, we thought, it was them. And that’s where the evil sits because it started to destroy us, because now Indian people began to act like them. So there’s only a certain number of us that are left and we have to pull our people back and say, ‘you’re doing the same thing they’re doing,’ and you have to teach them that this evil has enslaved them and we have to wake them up.”

When word spread that Nosie was being shot at, a Christian organization called Community Peacemaker Teams sent volunteers to be on the ground to help look out for him. 

“They’ve (Apache) already been brutalized for centuries really and now here we are with the copper mine and everything else trying to do the same thing and a lot of people are going to get, aside from losing their sacred space, it’s going to poison the water, it’s going to give people cancer at an early age and we’re going to see our land get destroyed here,” said Jeremy Gilchrist, a CPT Volunteer who took two weeks off his job as a meteorologist in North Carolina to be on site.

“Again, you’re going to see Indigenous People suffer once more from the same things they’ve been dealing with for all too long now. I think these corporations see them as vulnerable and an easy target because of all that, and because of their marginalized status, but they’re fighting back and I’m happy to see that.”

Nosie doesn’t do battle with modern day weaponry. He gains his strength through ceremony and prayer. He regularly walks the desert terrain and visits sacred corridors to conduct ceremonies. 

His daughter Vanessa Nosie, Pike’s mother, visits her dad as often as she can. She cherishes Chi’Chil Bildagoteel and helps in the fight to protect it. 

“This is a place where all our teachings come from. This is a place that God has touched, Yossen the Creator,” said Vanessa while sitting at a picnic table in Chi’Chil Bildagoteel, just as the sun was setting. 

“This is where I can be a mom and teach my children, my daughters, what it is to be an Apache woman and to carry on the legacy of our people and our family.”

The Nosie family, however, worries for Wendsler’s safety. 

“We’re facing the two biggest mining giants in the world; they have the potential to get rid of him. It’s always been me and my dad. He sat down and talked to me, he said, ‘Ness, what better way to die than doing God’s work,’ Vanessa’s voice breaks and tears well up in her eyes. 

 “I had to… let him go cause when I was here, I wouldn’t leave. I stayed days, a few days and a day longer and said I don’t want to leave you, I’m scared. That was his thing — he said, ‘I know, I know you love me, and I love you too…’”

Pike believes her grandfather is a target because the mining company has made him out to be a troublemaker. 

“There are people out there (who are out) to get him. People who work in the mines, because in their eyes, the company is telling them, ‘oh, they’re trying to take your job.’ And that’s not the case. And then you have Resolution Copper, owned by Rio Tinto and BHP.

Rio Tinto being one of the notorious international companies who hurt and kill people in different countries — and we’re up against that. These are multi billion-dollar companies. Me and my grandfather, our family, and the people, we don’t have money. We don’t have any means of protecting ourselves.”

Bighorse says the priorities of those targeting her father are backwards. 

“He’s hated, just because he protects the land, and he prays for the land and the animals and the people that life is important. It’s just not about me and you, and progress. It’s about life.”

Rio Tinto refused Ricochet’s requests for an interview. The company responded via email stating they had conducted extensive consultation with local tribes and that they’re heavily invested in the future of the residents in the area. 

The destiny of this holy place now lies with the Apache Stronghold’s upcoming court case. 

Meanwhile, Wendsler says he’ll never leave. 

“When the United States comes out with their most critical list of important [resources], you find copper, gold, silver, you find all of that, but you don’t find water and air. It confuses us because as Indian people, we’re like, those are the main two sources that you have to protect, right? But in America, they don’t protect it. They don’t care. They do not care… it’s why I left the reservation two and a half years ago to move back. 

“So, if they want to remove me, they’re going to have to remove me, forcefully.”

Last year, journalist Brandi Morin and cinematographer Geordie Day traveled to Fort Chipewyan on assignment for Ricochet, The Real News Network, and IndigiNews. The feature and short documentary, ‘Killer Water,’ explored the impact of industrial pollution from the Alberta oil sands on the community. It recently won the Canadian Hillman Prize for investigative journalism. This month, Morin returned to the community to report on a long-awaited visit from the provincial regulator.

This story is co-published with Ricochet Media and IndigiNews.

There were over 100 people in the gathering hall in the isolated Northern Alberta hamlet of Fort Chipewyan on an evening in early March, as residents waited to hear from Alberta Energy Regulator CEO Laurie Pusher. He made the trek to the fly-in community to address the AER’s response to a massive tailings leak from an Imperial Oil site that was first disclosed in February of last year. 

When he arrived he was met with scowling faces and angry outbursts, as residents expressed their frustration with the regulator’s failure to promptly notify the community of the leak. 

Athabaska Chipewyan First Nation councillor Mike Mercredi stood up several times to yell across the room to Pusher, accusing him of overseeing “regulated murder.”

Mercredi seethed at the CEO, saying he was making excuses for the AER’s lack of oversight.

“I got a graveyard full of family and people and friends that you killed. Their blood is on your hands! Your rules are being broken and you do nothing.”

ACFN Chief Allan Adam, who was expected to be away for the meeting, arrived unexpectedly and served a statement of claim to Pusher, whose face blazed red with embarrassment. 

The Chief along with the ACFN band are named as plaintiffs in the $500 million lawsuit that claims the regulator failed to inform the First Nation about the leaks. The lawsuit alleges “negligence, nuisance, breach of the duty to consult, breach of the Honour of the Crown, breach of fiduciary duty, and unjustified Treaty infringement.”

“We’re going to court,” declared Adam, after taking the microphone. Cheers erupted in the room.

‘We signed a treaty, and you are totally ignoring it’

Last year, Fort Chipewyan officials, alongside those from several other affected Indigenous communities, learned of a 5.3 million litre spill from Imperial Oil’s Kearl Mine (located about 75 kilometres upstream of the community). Soon after, they found out about another spill at the same mine site that had been leaking for at least nine months before they learned about it. 

Despite mine employees discovering the leak in 2022, and then notifying Imperial, which in turn alerted the AER, neither told affected Indigenous communities, the public, or provincial, territorial and federal governments. They were only informed when an Environmental Protection Order was released by the AER.

In October, the Canadian Press reported that Imperial Oil and the AER already knew that the tailings had been leaking for years.

“You’re coming here saying you’re concerned about us? Do you think I believe you?” Dene elder Alice Rigney chastised Pusher at the meeting.

“You talk about your experts, you got the scientists, all these top people, and still this shit happens on our land! And don’t ever say it’s industry’s land, it’s our traditional land, and always will be. You guys are encroaching on our territorial land. We signed a treaty, and you are totally ignoring it,” Rigney says.

She continued probing the CEO about the mishandling of the spills and demanding to know if any AER employees were fired or disciplined. Pusher largely dodged her questions. 

Rigney then accused the AER of rubber-stamping oil sands projects while ignoring the harmful impacts on the people of Fort Chipewyan.

“I’m speaking for my grandchildren and those yet to come. And that voice is not understood by you guys when you sign that application. Every time you put your X on it, it means that somebody else is going to die in this community from a rare cancer way, way earlier than they should have,” she adds.

In Fort Chipewyan, there continues to be documented elevated rates of cancer and other diseases with no official explanation as to the source. For the community, the tailings spills have heightened existing local concerns over contamination.

“The people know that something is up, that something is going on,” Rigney, a member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, told Ricochet earlier that day while sipping coffee at her kitchen table. “We knew from day one.”

She reminisced about her beloved 49-year-old nephew Warren James Simpson, who died of a rare bile duct cancer in 2019. Rigney described him as the “greatest all-around person, and kind like you wouldn’t believe.”

Not long after he was diagnosed and given just months to live, Simpson decided against undergoing experimental treatment due to its extensive side effects. 

Parked at a popular spot on a hill overlooking the stunning scenery of the Athabasca Lake, dotted with tree-lined rocky islands, Simpson told his aunt that he’d rather let the cancer take him, and skip the toxic meds.

“He said, ‘All I know is that I’m going to be sick from my head to my toes and my white blood cells would be dropping dangerously low, so I’ll get infections.’ It’s almost like he’d to have live in a vacuum, so he said ‘I’m not going to do it.’”

With the little time he had left, Simpson invited Rigney to take a nearly 2000-kilometre round trip with him through his traditional territories in the summer of 2018. The pair navigated the Athabasca and Slave Rivers to Fort Smith in the Northwest Territories, and then on to Yellowknife.

Rigney’s brown weathered eyes light up as she recalls the joy on Simpson’s face when he took in the grandeur of the wilderness where his ancestors once roamed, one last time. She prefers to remember him that way, not like the skeleton he became when the cancer ravaged him.

In December 2019, Rigney helped care for Simpson at his mother’s home in Fort Chipewyan. She recalls watching him starve to death because he could hardly keep any food down.

“His skin was kind of grayish, that’s what it does (the cancer), and his cheekbones and his eyes were starting to sink in,” she recalled. 

Her heart was broken, she says, but she did her best to comfort him.  

“I had made a pot of chicken soup and he said, ‘I’m hungry aunty.’ So, I went and got him half a cup of broth and put a little bit of rice, a little bit of chicken and mashed up carrots and made it really watery and gave it to him. He just drank the whole thing… that was his last meal.”

He requested that Dene gospel songs be played on the stereo around the clock while loved ones took turns providing palliative care. It was Rigney who held his hand when he took his last breath.

Simpson wanted his remains to return to the lands he cherished. He was cremated and the urn with his ashes was taken to ACFN’s Jackfish reserve, about an hour’s boat ride away on the banks of the river. It’s a former village site where Rigney was born and raised. Her family harvested healthy fish from the Athabasca and used the sustenance of the land to survive.

A dramatic change

These days, the conditions of the river and aquatic life are declining, she says. It’s common to find deformed fish in their catches, and many suspect the oddities are directly linked to industrial pollution upstream.

Nevertheless, Rigney practices her traditions like harvesting, drying and canning fish, and spending as much time as she can out on the territory.

“Even though I know my land is poisoned, I’ll still go out to Jackfish as soon as I can (if we can have enough water to get into the river this year). There is nothing more beautiful than spring on the land…” 

Her eyes gaze longingly out her kitchen window and her voice momentarily trails away. “The ducks, the robins. And, oh my God, you know… it’s beautiful.”

Rigney says she’s lost count of how many people in Fort Chipewyan have died too soon.

Another haunting memory she carries is that of a former local school bus driver named Albert Houle. She knew he was sick when she noticed a yellow-tinged colour to his skin. “I saw him and told the doctor ‘This guy needs to get out (of Fort Chipewyan) right now,’ he was jaundiced,” recalls Rigney.

The doctor she’s referring to is Dr. John O’Connor, a physician who practiced in Fort Chipewyan for nearly two decades. He alerted authorities after encountering multiple cases of a rare bile duct cancer popping up in the small population of about 1,200.

O’Connor was subsequently accused of raising undue alarm in the community by Health Canada in 2007 and charged with professional misconduct, which threatened his medical license. The residents of Fort Chipewyan defended him in a 2009 statement.

“This charge of ‘causing undue alarm,’ since it was lodged, was the cause of much frustration and disbelief by residents of Fort Chipewyan,” read the statement.

“Frustration, because the residents of the community have never been consulted on whether we agree with the charge; and disbelief that the very responsible authority who is charged with protecting our interests and our health was actually lodging the complaints against Dr. John O’Connor, rather than coming to the aid of our community to find resolution to Dr. John O’ Connor’s claims.”

The charge of raising undue alarm was dismissed in November, 2009.

Meanwhile, people kept dying. Rigney said the cancer took Houle overnight.

“It’s a fast cancer, you know, and so he was gone. The kids all say he’ll be driving the bus in heaven,” she paused to smile and consider that glimmer of hope. 

Then she stiffened up and adjusted her glasses, before a look of anguish washed over her face. “Our cemetery, it’s filling up so fast, you know.”

What’s even more unsettling is all the children fighting cancer in Fort Chipewyan. Rigney says she prays for her young neighbour, a friend of her grandson battling brain cancer in a hospital in Edmonton.

Rigney knows what it’s like to fight for her life. 

Not only did she survive the horrors of the Holy Angels Indian Residential School in Fort Chipewyan as a child, but she also beat cancer in 2012. She says she was “burnt almost to a crisp” after enduring 16 chemotherapy treatments.

She was livid to learn about the Kearl Mine spill and the AER’s delayed response. But she also wasn’t surprised.

“We were lied to again. The broken trust again. They’re (AER/industry) really good at it, breaking things. Trust is like a bottle, once it’s broken you can’t put it back together. Now, they’re trying to fool us by using words like ‘I promise it’ll never happen again,’ but don’t use those words, you don’t know what it means.”

Despite feeling ignored, Rigney said she’ll never stop speaking out.

“They’re (AER/industry) like giants. We’re like David and Goliath. They’ll never put Goliath down until the last drop of oil from his body is taken. And then, they’ll pack up and leave a mess for Mother Earth to rebuild… as she will. But it’s an uphill battle for us.”

Targeting those who raised the alarm

Lionel Lepine, 47, another ACFN band member, was once heavily involved with scrutinizing the oil sands. Beginning in 2007, he traveled across Canada and Europe speaking at environmental rallies and discussing the pollution impacting Fort Chipewyan. Before that, he’d worked for the oil industry interviewing elders in his community to document the negative changes they were seeing in their homelands. What he heard from them bothered him so much that he left the well-paid industry job and began speaking out against it.

“All of the things that we’ve used for thousands of years, the water, plants and the animals, all our medicines were getting contaminated,” he said. “Right now in that graveyard (pointing nearby), there’s probably 40 per cent of the people there that shouldn’t be there at all. They’re (the oil sands industry) killing our freaking water, which means they’re killing us.”

For years he passionately addressed industry executives, politicians and advocates about the seriousness of the situation. But the single father of two says he became disheartened when he was unfairly characterized by pro-industry zealots. 

One of them was Ezra Levant, founder of far-right Rebel Media and author of “Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada’s Oil Sands.” The book propagated the phrase “Ethical Oil,” which is still used by Alberta’s conservative government as justification for the expansion of the oil sands. 

In a December 2010 meeting of the Natural Resources Committee in Ottawa Lepine spoke as the Traditional Environmental Knowledge Coordinator, Industry Relations, for ACFN about governmental and industry Indigenous rights violations, lack of consultation, threatened species and wildlife habitats and air and water contamination. Levant also presented at the meeting as an expert, due to his recently published book.

A few months later, after Lepine delivered a speech in Europe, Levant wrote a Sun News column accusing Lepine of being an “anti-oilsands activist from northern Alberta.” An introduction to the article reads, “A small group of Aboriginals, funded by international environmental extremists, toured France this week to condemn Canada’s oilsands as a ‘slow genocide.’” 

Lepine said the op-ed went viral, which made him uneasy.

“I started getting these, not threats, but I started to feel kind of intimidated by a lot of things. He (Levant) called me an environmental extremist, eco-terrorist, you know, he had all kinds of names for me.”

Lionel says he wanted to retaliate with a harsh response. But his Chief, Allan Adam, advised him not to, that it would be “just what Levant wanted,” to steer him off the course of fighting to protect the territory. 

After a few more years of endless campaigning, and receiving support from celebrities like director James Cameron and actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who both visited Fort Chipewyan to better understand community impacts, Lepine was burnt out. 

He said he felt like their voices were being silenced amidst the boom of the oil industry.

Almost everyone was enticed by the economic benefits of industry, he said, including people in Fort Chipewyan. 

“People are so blinded by the money. They’re blinded by this big screen TV that they got in their house and they don’t see the people dying behind it. They’re so money-hungry, even some of our own people, that they don’t want to believe that there’s a problem. They don’t want them (industry) to shut down because it’s going to affect their jobs. But industry is profiting off our deaths.”

The latest tailings nightmare has catalyzed his resolve to once again work on the frontlines of safeguarding his homelands.

“It’s escalating. It’s getting worse and worse as we speak. And people still don’t seem to understand it. But I talked to the elders, and one asked me, ‘Do you hear frogs anymore?’ Even the frogs are a big indicator of something wrong because suddenly there are no frogs in certain places… fuck that, we’re not ok with dying.”

‘What the hell is going on?’

At the meeting with the AER that evening, Lepine’s father, 74-year-old Matthew Lepine, who worked in the oil sands industry for decades, said he is well-versed in how tailings ponds work. The senior Lepine said officials knew as far back as the early 2000s that tailings ponds leak (they are designed to). Yet nothing would be done to stop the toxins from leaching into the environment. 

“You know what they (industry) told me back then? Too expensive. I said, ‘Hey, come on.’” 

Matthew is wearing a black ball cap that sets off his white goatee, dressed like a cross between a lumberjack and a blue collar worker.

His son Lionel sat fixated beside him. The crowd of approximately 200 remained still as the elder continued.

“Expenses for that are cheaper than me watching my people die. I’m watching my country go to hell,” Matthew told Pusher. 

“I lived there (on the territory). I hunted and trapped there. Now there’s nothing left to trap, nothing. I can’t drink the water. I go to more funerals than I care to… sure, we’ll make money if we go to industry. But all of us have to come back home. When we come back home, there’s nothing. Nothing but filling up our graveyard and people going to the hospital. 

“What the hell is going on? We need straight answers. You had over a year to do that. If you didn’t do it in that time, I mean, what’s the use? You wasted our time.”

Applause broke out and shouts of agreement echoed across the room.

“That’s part of what we’re trying to do as an organization, is come together, be more involved in these conversations and more proactive in the relationships we’re developing across the province so that we can better appreciate and understand your perspective and your interest, not interest, your perspective and your knowledge about these things and the way they operate,” Pusher responded. He continued to offer similar sentiments throughout the two-hour meeting that often felt more like a standoff.

But the locals attending the meeting didn’t cut Pusher any slack. Including the president of the Fort Chip Metis, Kendrick Cardinal, who had previously been tight-lipped about industry’s impacts on the village where he grew up. The tall, burly and articulate leader stunned the group with his point-blank remarks. 

“We can’t stop it. Right now the tailings are leaking into the river,” thundered Cardinal. “So, we just live our lives because we’ve become used to it. We’ve become used to getting hush money, all our nations, all our people are bombarded with the devil’s dollar.”

His eyes grimly scanned the room. His lower lip quivered and his eyes moistened as he fought back tears.

Cardinal is a hunter, trapper and fisherman. He’s out on the land often and teaches the way of life to his children and other youth. 

But his traditions feel doomed.

“You’re dying inside. You don’t even know it,” he pleaded with attendees. 

“It’s happening upstream from us and no dollar can stop it. Nothing will ever, ever bring back the lives of the people who died from cancer. Fort Chip is suffering and dying slowly. That’s a cold hard truth.”

He blamed the AER and others responsible, including Pusher.

“They’re going to keep on spilling. It’s going to keep on happening. How do we hold them (AER/industry) accountable? It’s time that they do their fucking job!”

Cardinal called for industry to be shut down, declaring that it would be a true act of reconciliation.

“We need clean drinking water. Listen to the people. Shut down the industry till we get freaking fresh water. That’s what they should do.”

Nodding at Pusher standing a few feet away, Cardinal told the crowd their efforts were in vain. Pusher wasn’t going to listen.

Pusher said in an interview with Ricochet shortly before the meeting he understands the “passion and dedication” residents feel toward protecting the environment because Fort Chipewyan is a “spectacular part of the world.”

“(The passion for) this beautiful place, this amazing lake and delta was made very, very clear to us by chief and council and president (Cardinal), and council when we first visited up here last February,” Pusher said, stressing that the AER is committed to being open and transparent with affected communities.

He says that the AER continues to monitor and test the spill site along with regularly reviewing submissions from Imperial.

“We have significant interest in and around the Kearl project in particular. We’ve significantly increased our expectations of Imperial to do extensive groundwater monitoring around that tailing pond so we can have a really good understanding of what may or may not be happening there. We’re conducting verification testing which is far beyond what we would normally do to be confident in the independent testing that Imperial is providing,” he says.

Pusher claimed the AER is sharing that data with Fort Chipeywan leadership and that it’s his priority to “slowly begin rebuilding the relationship to make sure there is nothing that isn’t available to the community.”

But an independent environmental scientist who’s worked extensively in Fort Chipewyan questions the validity of Pusher’s claims that the AER is providing consistent updates. Mandy Olsgard is a toxicologist and risk assessor who once worked for the AER, and said the regulator hasn’t provided a comprehensible update since November.

“It’s a little disingenuous to say, ‘well, we’re keeping everyone updated,’” explained Olsgard, who attended the meeting and challenged Pusher over various AER inconsistencies.

Olsgard says the AER was publishing summaries of their findings, complete with a map, on their website up until last November. Those updates showed “there are still two exceedances of certain chemicals in the groundwater, surface water and soil that they are addressing.” 

But since November, they are only posting spreadsheets that require interpretation. 

“If you’re not a scientist, that’s hard. I think they could do a better job of communicating it, especially to the general public.”

‘They haven’t done that risk assessment’

The Kearl Mine produces about 240,000 barrels of oil per day. The leftover tailings contain dissolved substances like iron, arsenic, and naphthenic acids along with water, sand, clay, residual bitumen, and various chemicals. 

Imperial Oil states that the impact zone of the Kearl Mine covers five hectares and extends beyond the designated tailings enclosure into the surrounding boreal muskeg and water bodies. 

The water released during the first spill surpassed both federal and provincial guidelines for arsenic, sulphates, and hydrocarbons, which could include substances like kerosene, creosote, and diesel. This incident, recognized as one of the largest tailings releases in Alberta’s history, contained hazardous levels of contaminants such as naphthenic acids and arsenic.

Scott Heckbert, AER Chief Environmental Scientist, said he’s confident no tailings spilled from the Kearl Mine reached any nearby water bodies, including the Fire Bag River, a tributary of the Athabasca River, located three kilometres away from the spill site. He stated groundwater and soil testing results of the area haven’t shown any evidence contaminants from tailings have impacted wildlife or fish. There also haven’t been any impacts to drinking water or human health, he said.

But Olsgard again disputed those statements.

“Last Spring, Imperial and the AER both said there was no risk or no impact to humans or wildlife,” said Olsgard. “But they are just now doing the human and wildlife risk assessment. So how did they make that determination last year when they made a public statement? They hadn’t done that risk assessment (yet).”

Olsgard says she’s been lobbying officials for years to undertake studies on the human health-related impacts of the oil sands. It’s no secret that each of the 19 tailings ponds holding 1.18 trillion litres of oil sands waste are leaking, she added. But it needs to be investigated.

“In tailings-associated water, many chemicals are known as human carcinogens,” she says, noting that guidelines for monitoring tailings ponds as well as groundwater and surface water are set by the federal and provincial governments and various agencies. 

“We do regulate and manage human health because groundwater guidelines consider human drinking water. But surface water guidelines do not. There is a gap in the available surface water guidelines published by Alberta.

They do not consider that humans drink untreated surface water; that the tailings ponds are leaking and leaching into the river systems.”

‘Slow, industrial genocide’

At the meeting, the discussion soon escalated into angry outbursts and shouting. 

Mercredi, the ACFN councillor who accused Pusher of overseeing “regulated murder,” said he’s fed up with the rhetoric that the AER is remorseful, and their offer of empty promises. 

It’s too late for that, he said.

“Which part of your regulations are you going to be sued for, ecocide or genocide?” hollered Mercredi, his chest puffed out and arm waving towards Pusher.

“It’s happening. Slow, industrial genocide. I said this 10 years ago. I’m saying it again! How many times? How many bodies? How many billions are you going to be making before we’re all dead? Can you calculate that? I bet you’re thinking about it right now… $11 billion surplus, $10 billion surplus? Can I keep going back or forward? Do you know what is expected? $1.2 trillion by 2030 (in profits). That’s the cost of our life. And then what? What have you done?!”

ACFN chief Allan Adam, who served Pusher with the statement of claim in their $500 million lawsuit against the regulator for failing to notify his community of the leak, did not hold back in a speech that earned cheers from the crowd.

“No more of these dirty dealings will continue on our traditional territories, because we have had enough. Do you know how many times I had to stand and defend the words of you guys that said to the community that everything would be okay when I knew it was a lie?”

The straight-talking chief has been fighting this battle for decades. Adam, who has been ACFN’s elected chief for 16 consecutive years, became internationally recognized for speaking out about the adverse impacts of the oil sands on treaty rights, climate change, and public health. 

“I asked the same questions when I first was elected in 2002 as a council member. I asked the same questions in 2007 when we had the Alberta government and industry come here in this exact case.”  

“We had nothing to stand on… And a lot of our people passed away in the community. You heard elders talk about watching their loved ones pass before them. I watched my dad take his last breath when he died of cancer. Until today, nobody gave me an answer to what had happened to him. All the questions that we’re giving you here today, you will answer in the court of law.”

Before abruptly shutting the meeting down, Pusher told Adam that he respects the democratic institutions of Canada and its courts.

“We will do what is right and appropriate in response to this and work our way through it,” said Pusher.

Following the meeting, Adam told Ricochet the precedent-setting lawsuit puts the entire oil industry on notice.

“This year is going to rock the world for the industry,” he said.

“When they cause catastrophic environmental concerns to the community, they’re going to answer (for) it because we’re not going to take a back step anymore.”

Over the course of two trips in the past month, a team of journalists on joint assignment for Ricochet, IndigiNews and The Real News Network has been following the story of Secwépemc resistance to the federally-owned Trans Mountain pipeline, and a recent route change that will dig an open trench through one of their most sacred sites. Led by award-winning Indigenous journalist Brandi Morin, alongside IndigiNews journalist Aaron Hemens and cinematographer Geordie Day, our team is working on a longer feature and a documentary that will be released in the new year. Please help support the costs of this reporting, and the upcoming documentary, here.

This story was produced by Ricochet Media and IndigiNews, and is being co-published by The Real News.

It’s 4 a.m on Sunday, December 10, and Khursten Bullock and Crissy Fox (an alias she prefers to use) are ready for their mission. The mist of their breath trails hangs in the moonlight that dimly lights the rolling grasslands near Kamloops, B.C.

They’ve been tasked with dropping tobacco into one of the bore holes inside the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion’s construction site. A Secwépemc prophecy holds that the tides will shift in their favour once the ceremonial medicine touches the bottom.

They move silently in the darkness ahead, and barely a word is spoken on the short trek from the site of a sacred fire lit by the Secwépemc to the open pit construction site. As they approach the area, they drop off the gravel path, and into a rocky trench alongside it. Floodlights pierce the darkness, lighting up the construction site and anyone approaching it.

They don’t want to be spotted by Trans Mountain security. Not yet.

Crouching parallel to a barbed wire fence, they approach a small wooden ladder and clamber over the fence. From there, they sprint to the shelter of a clutch of pine trees on a hillside, and tiptoe to their lookout spot. Another ally meets them there, Tim Takaro, a Yale-trained physician-scientist and retired Simon Fraser University professor. He’s already been arrested after spending 16 months in a treehouse protesting the TMX expansion. And in 2022 was sentenced to 30 days in jail for his dissent.

The three sit on the hillside, looking down on the tall chain-link fence, and plan their approach.

About 10 minutes later, Bullock and Fox are at the fence. They shimmy through and frantically race to a wooden staircase that leads to metal scaffolding above the hole.

The noise of the chains they’re wearing around their bodies locking onto the metal scaffolding reverberates in the hollow chamber of the hole’s opening.

Security remain, for the moment, unaware of their presence.

Sacred, and threatened

The construction is happening at a sacred Secwépemc site called Pípsell. Out on the land, a crisp scent hangs in the air, with sage growing in endless clusters mixed with the dry ponderosa pine and Douglas fir trees blanketed with a fresh layer of snow. A trail of clouds lingers over the nearby Jacko Lake, which is home to a Secwépemc creation story.

Yet, the constant banging and shrieking of machinery echoing in the foreground, along with the unnatural pollution of industrial flood lights, is an abrupt juxtaposition.

This is where some of the last of Canada’s TMX project is being stitched together. The project is a cash cow for the Canadian oil economy as it’s the only pipeline carrying crude oil from Alberta to the West Coast. The expansion will increase the current TMX pipeline (built in 1951), from 300,000 barrels per day to 890,000 barrels per day and allow oil companies better access to export markets.

The project has faced continuous delays since its original owner proposed an expansion in 2012. Protests quickly erupted from environmental groups, the City of Burnaby, and Indigenous nations expressing opposition to the expansion cited serious concerns of damage to ecosystems along its route.

It was then bought by the Trudeau government in 2018 after its original owner Kinder Morgan pulled out due to economic uncertainty given the setbacks and public outcry.

Subsequently, the costs of the project have ballooned during its construction from the initial estimate of $5.4 billion to $30.9 billion.

But the pipeline wasn’t supposed to run through the grassland hills near Jacko Lake in unceded Secwépemc territory. The community had opposed the original plans, and had secured assurances from the company that they would avoid parts of the area and use micro-tunnelling instead of the more destructive trenching.

But in September, the Trans Mountain Corporation requested permission from the Canada Energy Regulator to modify the pipeline route by about 1.3 kilometers in the Jacko Lake area, replacing plans for a micro-tunnel with an open trench. The company said it was necessary due to challenges encountered while attempting to micro-drill a tunnel. If the route wasn’t changed, it would delay the completion of the pipeline by at least 10 months and cost an estimated $2 billion of lost revenue.

Despite opposition from the Secwépemc Nation, the regulator approved the route change.

“Since time immemorial, our people have had an ancestral, cultural, and spiritual connection to the area known as Pípsell, which is considered a ‘cultural keystone place,’” Stk’emlúpsemc te Secwépemc Nation, which consists of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc and Skeetchestn Indian Band, states in a news release.

“Through engagement and collaboration over the years, Trans Mountain is aware of the spiritual and cultural significance of the Pípsell area and our obligations to these lands. The sacredness of this area is also recognized by the provincial and federal Crown.”

The Nation only consented to the project under the condition that the project acknowledges and respects their inherent jurisdiction over their territory, as well as their right to safeguard their cultural heritage.

“As I continue to do this work, I am constantly reminded that Pípsell is not just a lake, it is an inseparable area that is also a burial and prayer ground,” Unceded Law Response Group Commissioner and Secwépemc knowledge keeper Mike McKenzie said in an interview.

“We have to do what we can to stop this because it is some of the last if not the last of its kind.”

McKenzie described it to Canadian Press as “our Vatican. This is our Notre Dame. This is a place that gives our people an identity and kept our people grounded since time immemorial.”

‘I want to get arrested’

Cree land defender and Secwépemc ally Bullock has been camping out in and around Pípsell for over a week. Before sneaking past the TMX injunction construction barrier to put down tobacco, she had a plan to stop work and get arrested.

Bullock is one of several allies who arrived in Pípsell, answering a plea for help from the Unceded Law Response Group (ULRG), led by a group of Secwépemc people upholding Indigenous rights and law. ULRG states that it creates, “Indigenous-led spaces for Indigenous peoples and allies to solve complex challenges. We are serving Indigenous peoples while strengthening legal protections and strategies… to prevent harm and to promote the well-being of all on unceded land, including wildlife, the natural world, and the supernatural.”

“The premise was I want to get arrested out here,” Bullock said the day before, with a wide grin.

The Saskatchewan native believes her life purpose is to travel in her camper van to various land defence zones around Canada and put herself on the line for Mother Earth.

“(I do this because) my fear is that there’s going to be no planet left for my grandchildren. That’s what keeps me awake at night. Going to jail for the cause, doing these things, it doesn’t scare me at all,” she declares, decked out in a white and gray-coloured snow suit. Her long brown hair falls out from under a black toque with “LAND BACK” etched in red, and an Indigenous man wearing a Mohawk warrior scarf in the center.

“Leaving this planet a mess for my grandkids, that’s what really scares me. If my grandson or granddaughter isn’t able to see old-growth trees or these bodies of water or all these places that we’re just desecrating, then I didn’t do right by them if I didn’t try as hard as I could to stop; to protect that.”

She’s wrapped chains around her chest and torso and holds the keys in her pocket. Her red-haired comrade Fox pulls on a t-shirt reading, “No pipelines” with intertwining hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ language over her long, black puffer jacket. Her chains are also secured around her body.

The two are working with Vancouver-based environmental group Protect the Planet and say they’re aligning with ULRG in solidarity. The two visited Secwépemc Elder Barb Larson at her home in the Skeetchestn Indian Band just days before to seek her blessing to stop work on the TMX pipeline here.

“We wanted to follow protocol,” said Fox, an ecological scientist. “To get permission to block work and get arrested because I’m not Indigenous. Barb said we can do it on her behalf because she can’t be here.”

Bullock adds, “She wishes she could do it, but she can’t. Her husband is dealing with medical issues, and she doesn’t want to be thrown in jail.”

‘This was not their land originally’

For years, Larson has worked diligently, along with the Stk’emlupsemc Te Secwepemc Nation, to establish Secwépemc sovereignty over Pípsell. She has led extensive environmental studies, gathered historical and oral testimony, and established Secwépemc jurisdiction in the area, evidence that was used to stop a multi-billion dollar, open-pit copper and gold mine in Pípsell in 2016.

“We’re caretakers of the land, and this is our duty and it’s too bad that we have to fight you (TMX) to protect the land and do the duty that the Creator gave us,” Larson said.

It was Larson who gave the signal to light a sacred fire at Pípsell.

That ceremonial fire was lit by Secwépemc Matriarch Vi Manuel on the windy afternoon of Saturday, December 9, with singing, drumming and prayer just hours before the land defenders chained up.

The fire represented a new hope for the Secwépemc, some of whom feel powerless to halt the destruction of their sacred land.

A young Tkʼemlúps te Secwépemc woman attended the ceremony with her four-year-old son Trayson. McKenna Smith wore a satin blue, white fringed shawl wrapped around her shoulders, a ceremonial ribbon skirt and a single eagle feather secured to the top of her long, dark hair. “We heard there was an event online and thought it would be fun to come out,” she says, while her son jubilantly ran around nearby enjoying the snow.

It’s important to her to teach her son about the topic of reconciliation and the ongoing injustices against her people, she points out.

“Just recognizing that a lot of reconciliation still needs to be done and a lot more acknowledgement needs to be done by government. So, it’s a good way to honour our land… and making him (her son) aware that this was originally not their land, (for them) to say that we can’t be on here.”

Witnessing the pipeline construction at Pípsell is “disheartening,” she adds.

“It feels like voices aren’t heard no matter what. I have so many friends that have relatives that work on the pipeline too, so being open and honest and having my own opinion is kind of hard as well. But being clear that I’m here and attending this event with my son has given me a lot of confidence. And it’s given some power back to our people.”

Livestreaming land defence on TikTok

Back on the scaffolding, Bullock and Fox embrace with pants of relief, and toss a pouch of tobacco into the open pit below. They proudly extend their fists in the air, staring defiantly toward the brightly shining lights and heavy equipment moving above them to the north.

Bullock mounts her phone against a wooden plank in front of her and begins a TikTok livestream. She then sprinkles tobacco around her body and passes it to Fox who says she has a new appreciation for the medicine, which acts as a spiritual barrier of protection.

Bullock is shocked they got in so easily, “We thought it was going to be so difficult,” she laughs. “Now we’re chained in. We’re feeling good! We’re ready to sit here all day if we have to.”

Fox is thankful their mission was accomplished, “I’m also feeling good that we didn’t get hurt.”

Bullock assesses the depth of the pit below them, shrugs and says, “Yeah, it’s pretty deep. We’d probably die if we fell in there.”

Despite the danger, Fox says she’s grounded in her convictions, and is doing her part to help save the Earth.

“I’m feeling humiliated to be a Canadian right now, (with this project happening). And not everybody can do this. I’m really feeling privileged and I’m using my privilege as a shield — I want to be some white skin in those prisons. Over 250 people have been arrested trying to stop this thing. And I know that we’re at a critical moment. I’m glad I took the time out to put some time into something that’s really important, which is the future of the livability of this precious biosphere.”

At least 15 minutes pass and TMX security, which patrols the area 24/7, still hasn’t noticed their worksite has been invaded by the land defenders. Bullock and Fox decide to unchain themselves and scurry down the steel stairs to the bottom of the pit. They use the flashlights from their cellphones to navigate the murky cavern, as I watch from above. Once they reach the bottom, they discover a pipeline hole that cuts underneath the hilly terrain and climb inside.

Reveling in their daring undertaking, they throw more tobacco inside the pipe hole and take pictures of their conquest.

The two women are putting their bodies on the line for what they passionately believe in.

While at the sacred fire the previous night, Bullock said, “I feel like everything has led up to this moment and the universe has opened this path for us. And we just gotta take it and I think this is gonna make some big change…everything in my life has led up to this. Creator brought us all together here at the right place, right time, with the right mindsets. And look what we can accomplish.”

They rush back to the top of the scaffolding and re-chain themselves. Half an hour has passed, and no one from the construction site has taken notice.

‘They’re in it! They’re in it!’

Just then a TMX employee slides his feet down the dirt enclosure leading towards the gated hole furiously yelling, “They’re in it! They’re in it!” to someone on his phone.

Soon, another employee opens the gate from the other side and steps in. Shaking his head in dismay, he declares that everyone, including members of the press, is under arrest for breaking the injunction and the RCMP are on their way.

Editors’ note: Precedent has been established in the Brake case and others that journalists have the legal right to follow protestors into an injunction zone.

The two then head over to Bullock and Fox.

“I’m doing this for my kids and my kid’s kids so that they have a future that actually looks bright and doesn’t look like a desolate planet, like this shit,” yells Bullock, motioning towards the hole. “Do you have kids?” she asks the security guard. “Do you care about your kids and their future?

The workers offer us the opportunity to exit the injunction zone. I stay while my colleagues leave the area.

It’s still dark out, and I’m alone to cover these renegade women chained to the pipeline hole, and whatever comes next.

Continuous threats of arrest follow.

Bullock yells to the security officer that she’s more than happy to be arrested, “Don’t you think I knew the police would come? You think you’re doing something good, but you’re ruining the planet for our kids so that you can get rich, now. I’m protecting our planet.”

“You’re going straight to jail,” he answers.

“I know and I will, I don’t have any shame,” she hollers back.

More time passes and still no RCMP show up. After more than two hours have passed, the land defenders decide their mission was accomplished and they’re tired of waiting around. So, they nonchalantly unlock their chains and walk out the same way they came in. They’re met on the gravel road by Takaro who high-fives them, signalling a job well done.

When they reach the site of the sacred fire down the road, Bullock pulls out her hand drum painted with a charging buffalo and warms it above the flames. She then beats the hide of the drum and softly sings a warrior song.

“This sacred land really gives me a sense of peace. Being out here, being with the animals, on the land… until I hear the noise of the work — that’s what really gets me,” she says.

Fox contemplates how it was women who undertook the mission to bust into Canada’s high-stakes pipeline project.

“It’s us two against how many men? It’s all men. And for me, this is absolute sacrilege in all ways in what they’re doing to the land. And all these deep-rooted medicine plants, ancient burial sites. The holes. The trenches! An assault to the Earth is an assault on women. I’m just happy I can be a part of it,” she says, before heading out to recuperate at a cabin the group rented out nearby.

Over four hours later members of the Kamloops RCMP arrive at the sacred fire site. A corporal serves a copy of the TMX injunction to Bullock, citing he was called by construction security regarding an “incident,” earlier on.

After a few heated remarks from Bullock the officers leave. She calls McKenzie from ULRC and asks permission to burn the injunction papers in the sacred fire. He gives the go-ahead, saying the RCMP and colonial laws don’t have jurisdiction on unceded land.

Later, McKenzie commented that he is, “really glad that the two land defenders made the choice to chain themselves in the bore hole. It is an incredibly hard decision to make and I am sure they came to the decision with serious consideration.”

The TMX pipeline, which stretches over 1,000 km from Edmonton to the west coast of Vancouver is expected to be up and running by early 2024. The sacred fire continued to burn for four days and nights as per Secwépemc protocol.

More land defenders and Secwépemc members are expected to arrive. For them, this is the eleventh hour. Their last chance to save Pípsell.

In an emailed statement Trans Mountain wrote that they were aware of the incident, and “the individuals have since left the site and the RCMP are investigating.”

“There is a B.C. Supreme Court injunction in place that prevents the blocking or obstruction of access to TransMountain’s work sites and work areas throughout British Columbia.”

With reporting, photos and field work by Aaron Hemens and Geordie Day.

Canada’s multibillion dollar tar sands industry in Alberta is a climate wrecking force with immense sway over Canadian politics. ‘Killer Water,’ a new documentary produced in partnership with The Real News, Ricochet Media, and IndigiNews, exposes the long-hidden truths of Big Oil’s operations on the health and environment of local First Nations communities.

Hosted by award-winning journalist Brandi Morin, this live panel features Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, toxicologist Mandy Olsgard, physician Dr. John O’Connor, and lawyer Steven Donziger. This panel took place on Monday, Nov. 27, and was produced by Ricochet Media. It is shared here with permission.

Transcript

Brandi Morin:  Tânisi, hello everybody. Thank you so much for being a part of this discussion today. I am Brandi Morin. I am a freelance journalist based in Treaty 6 area. I am Cree, Iroquois, and French. I specialize in telling Indigenous stories, and I have recently produced a documentary called Killer Water, and it’s about the impacts of the Alberta oil sands and tailings spills on Indigenous communities. This documentary specifically focuses on Fort Chipewyan, which is downstream from one of the world’s largest industrial projects. The film was released last Friday, and we are gathering today with some of the experts that were in the film, as well as an incredible lawyer named Steven Donziger. He’s from south of the Medicine Line in the United States, who’s worked extensively with Native communities who are fighting for their rights with oil companies in the Amazon.

So thank you to everybody for being here. We have Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation chief, Allan Adam. He is featured in the documentary. He’s been in leadership for nearly two decades now. And we have Dr. John O’Connor. He is a medical physician. He worked in Fort Chipewyan for several years, and still works in Fort McMurray, Alberta, and area. And he helped raise the alarm, so to speak, of the disease and cancer rates that were significantly high in the Fort Chipewyan area.

And then we have Mandy Olsgard. Mandy is a toxicologist, she’s an environmental scientist, and she is the most prominent scientist of her kind in the province, and, arguably, the country. And she has worked for industry and the Alberta Energy Regulator, as well as many Indigenous communities. So hay hay, thank you.

Hi, Steven. Good to see you. Thank you so much for being here. This is such a badass group of panelists.

So I would really love to start today with Chief Allan Adam. Thank you so much, Chief, for being here, for making the time. And I want to express my condolences to you and your family on the loss of your father-in-law, Johnny Courtoreille, who I had the privilege of meeting when I was up there. And he was healthy and joking, and a lovely man who had just come from being in the bush, which was his love, which is what Chief Adam shared with us. And he passed away in October of cancer. So condolences to you and your family.

First off, Chief, I haven’t spoken to you in a few months. I haven’t really spoken to you directly since I was there. And I know that you had a chance to view the film last week. I am wondering, first off, what was your response to the film when you seen it?

Chief Allan Adam:  It brought out the anger, the resentment, in regards to what’s been going on for decades. It’s probably been going on for about four decades now. Looking back at when we started this crusade and getting to where we’re at today, you ask yourself, is there ever an endpoint? It just gets worse and worse as we carry on. And it just goes to show that the people in the community do have concerns in regards to what’s going on upstream from us. And we, as leaders, we’re worried about it, and we’ve questioned parties involved and everything, and we continue to question the authorities at hand in regards to what’s happening here.

And till today, ACFN hasn’t got any answers in regards to what’s going on out there, other than the fact that hidden facts are being brushed underneath the rug and nothing’s being brought out to the public. And one thing for sure, that Alberta Energy Regulators, their job is to inform the public when some kind of environmental protection order is being called out. And none of this is being done, especially when it comes to harmful water mixed with heavy materials and stuff like that that are unknown to the human body. And then you could tell from the community’s point of view, rapid rates of cancer are still being recorded, and nothing’s being done about it at this point in time.

It seems like when it comes to the environment, there is no human health concern and nobody wants to take the responsibility for your human health, and especially when it’s coming out of Fort Chip. And then when you look at the blueprint, and you start following downstream from there, and you could tell the rates of cancer are even going up downstream further than Fort Chip as well too. And all these have to be recorded and have to be taken down into consideration because these things are happening all over the place, and they’re happening to mostly Aboriginal communities downstream.

Brandi Morin:  Absolutely. I’ve seen even the stories that I’ve covered throughout my years as a journalist that it’s the Native communities that are always impacted and overlooked by industry, and how these governments, they excuse these projects in the name of so-called national or public interest. And so there were always communities that made these literal sacrifice zones, and it’s always the Native communities. And it’s like, at what point do they even draw the line? And so that was my hope in making this doc and doing other stories, to try to humanize people, so people can really see this is what people live with on the ground.

And specifically, Chief, I know that you have been advocating for years, but this year particularly, I would say the past few years with COVID and such, but this year for you, with the spills and then the wildfire which saw Fort Chipewyan entirely evacuated, and the loss of loved ones, and the election. Can you explain to people that might not understand here how all of this correlates together with the wildfires, with the industry, and these issues that we’re talking about? How do they correlate and what was that like for you?

Chief Allan Adam:  It was overwhelming, I guess, in that regard. When you take a look at the early spring when we had to deal with the report of the spill that was happening into the tributaries that led into the Firebag River and also into the Athabasca from Imperial’s Kearl site. And the AER had covered that up. And dealing with that situation, and from bringing it out into perspective and everything, and then having the wildfire occur in the community just two kilometers from the community at the airport, we had to change gears. And for the first time ever, the community has been evacuated from Fort Chip. And it was very tough on the leaders. You just don’t want to go through that again.

And I know that in my earlier terms, around 2008, 2009, I had mentioned in a documentary once that we would become environmental refugees due to climate change. And when I raised the issue back then about climate change, everybody was saying, Chief Adam, you’re crazy to talk about climate change because there’s no such thing as climate change. And I gave bold warning that climate change was coming, and it is happening, because it’s happening in our own backyard. And we, as traditional land users, we see it happening on a day-to-day basis from what’s taken place in our area, and the transformation of scenery and water, and everything, and stuff like that.

And the drying up of… The moisture content is not there anymore in the summer. In spring runoffs, you don’t feel that moisture inside there, and everything is evaporating, and it’s just getting drier. And a little spark will ignite anything. And that was pretty noticeable the past summer. Climate change is here, it’s real, it’s alive, and it ain’t going nowhere. And we live in the world’s largest complex of an industrial movement right now. And there’s nobody at the helm, I could say, because the Alberta Energy Regulator has failed to protect the communities that are downstream, and failed to warn the communities of potential contaminants coming down the river when they are the ones that issued, what you call it, environmental protection orders.

Brandi Morin:  Hay hay Chief, thank you. I’m going to come back to you. I have more questions for you.

Dr. O’Connor, so you brought up concerns, a couple of decades ago already, about different high rates of cancer, rare cancers and disease that you were seeing, and then you were reprimanded by the Physician’s Association, investigated for raising undue alarm. And then you were, what would we call it, you were resolved of that.

Dr. John O’Connor:  Vindicated.

Brandi Morin:  Vindicated. Yes. But you were seeing this a long time ago. You talk about it in the film. Now we’re in 2024 almost, and we’re talking about this. We’re talking about these tailings spills. You said, when I interviewed you for the film, you said, you know what? I wasn’t surprised at all. This is ongoing. You said these spills have been ongoing. This was just another incident, even though it was alarming for the public to find out and understand. But since then, you have done a lot of research into what’s been happening and connecting it to medical issues. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Dr. John O’Connor:  Yeah. Brandi, I started going up to Fort Chip almost a quarter of a century ago, almost 25 years ago.

Brandi Morin:  Wow.

Dr. John O’Connor:  And when I went into the community, the first few visits, I was vetted by the elders, which is a process that I understand clearly now. But I listened to their descriptions, their traditional knowledge, descriptions of the changes in the environment that they’d seen in the 10, 15 years prior to me coming up, which was astonishing. The story was so consistent across the board.

And then I started to find the amount of pathology that I did, the cancers and the autoimmune disease that exists in the community. A population of 1,200 people, the majority of which were traditional living off the land and the water. And I questioned, where could this be coming from? And at the time… And still, Health Canada is responsible for on-reserve health. So this had been an issue for a number of years before I came to the community. I just documented and brought it to light, and I questioned the origin of it.

And so historically, going back to the mid to late 90s, there have been recommendations by scientific groups, federal and provincial, and university based. Based on their analysis of the downstream environment and what was happening upstream, there have been strong recommendations and suggestions for baseline health studies to be done of the human population. Completely ignored. Twice in the 90s, then in 2009, when the Alberta Cancer Board confirmed rare cancers and higher rates of cancer in Fort Chip, they recommended it as well. 2014, University of Manitoba did a study of the community, and they strongly recommended a health study. Nothing has been done.

But in the meantime, going back to your initial question, these latest spills highlight what’s been going on, like Allan said, for decades. These tailings ponds that line the river are designed to seep and leak into the groundwater and the surface water. If they didn’t — And this is Alberta government and industry’s evidence — The dikes that keep these tailings ponds intact would collapse. So this noxious water in these tailings ponds, which contain Class 1 human carcinogens as well as fish and wildlife carcinogens, have been seeping and going downstream for well over 40 years. So the delta spill is just the tip of the iceberg.

Brandi Morin:  Yeah. And so as far as you know, what have been the reasons why any of these recommended health studies by scientists and health professionals, why have they not been done?

Dr. John O’Connor:  I believe because industry is being protected. Governments, provincial and federal, do not want to know the truth.

Brandi Morin:  Wow.

Dr. John O’Connor:  It came close to having a health study after the Alberta Cancer Board confirmed rare findings, rare cancers in Fort Chip. In 2009, there was a scientific team struck to look at putting together terms of reference for a health study. I was invited to be part of that team. We met for a year, put together terms of reference. And at the end of the year, the chair of the committee, who was himself a physician from Calgary, working in Fort Mac at the time and was the medical officer of health, he inserted a clause, but insisted that this clause be inserted, that industry should be part of the management oversight committee.

Brandi Morin:  Wow.

Dr. John O’Connor:  Leadership in Ford Chip totally rejected this. They rejected the idea of industry being part of it. As one of the chiefs said back then, this could be like the fox looking out for the hen house. So that was the closest that it came. The government, of course, walked away when industry was not accepted as being part of the committee.

But astonishingly, with all the recommendations, with all the independent findings, with the traditional knowledge, especially, which has been completely ignored, and the industry’s own admission [with] support of the government that these tailings bonds are designed to leak this toxic water to get into the layer of the river where fish spawn. So when you consider that, for instance, the findings of traditional knowledge keepers in Fort Chip of the deformities in fish, the fish with missing parts and —

Brandi Morin:  I was there a year and a half ago, and I just went to one fish camp. I was only there for two hours. And out of that catch that they had been fishing all week, and out of this one catch that they brought in of like 50 fish or something, there were two deformed ones that I witnessed. And so I found that alarming, but apparently that’s kind of normal around there. I was stunned.

Dr. John O’Connor:  And this was part of the traditional knowledge that I was made privy to when I started going up to Fort Chip in 2000. So these deformities and anomalies in fish downstream, obviously if you’ve got toxins in tailings ponds — And among those toxins are a group called naphthenic acids. And among other impacts, naphthenic acids are hormone disruptors. So fish are being born with these deformities, and they get into the food chain. And of course, traditional Fort Chip, eating fish and subsisting off the land. Is it any wonder that illnesses abound in Fort Chip?

And governments just have washed their hands. They’ve paid lip service, they’ve raised their hands to their face, oh my God, we’ve another spill. All the time realizing the spills that have been happening for decades are monumental compared to the latest spills. At one point, I was calculating just a few months ago that from a fraction of the 19 tailings ponds that line the river, that the seepages, leakages, amount to an Exxon Valdez disaster every week. One a week.

Brandi Morin:  Which kind of disaster?

Dr. John O’Connor:  The Exxon Valdez, [inaudible] went down up the coast of Alaska over 20 years [inaudible].

Brandi Morin:  Every week. Yeah.

Dr. John O’Connor:  [inaudible]

Brandi Morin:  Yes. So Mandy, you are an expert. You’re a toxicologist. Can you explain this from your point of view? Now, from what I understand and from what you told me when I interviewed you in the doc that there’s human health studies that are only done initially and in relation to the environment, and then nothing else after that. And there are chemicals that aren’t even tested for, that they’re not looking for. Can you elaborate a little bit further on that, what that means and what needs to be done? Please and thank you.

Mandy Olsgard:  Yeah, thanks, Brandi. Just quickly, I’ll correct. I didn’t actually work for industry. I’ve never worked for industry. So I was a consultant that would’ve done the assessments to get projects approved. And then I was with the regulator, and now I’m a consultant that, again, works for clients like Indigenous communities. So just quickly, I’ve never worked for industry.

Yeah, it’s an extremely complex system. And so, as Dr. O’Connor said, often Indigenous people observe tumors and fish, and those types of bumps and lesions. When we do ecological risk assessments, so when you are doing an assessment and applying for a project, there’s a lot of modeling and predictions in that assessment. One component is the ecological risk, and the other component is the human health risk. And both of these are done quite detailed and in depth. However, ecological risk assessments do not consider cancer. They don’t consider that chemicals can cause tumors and cancers in animals. So that’s not an endpoint they look at.

But in the human health risk assessment, they do look at cancer, and they’ve often predicted that there could be a potential higher rate of cancers. So the way we, in Western science terms, in Alberta, an acceptable rate of cancer, maybe from natural exposure or just your lifestyle, would be 1 in 100,000 people. So you could have 1 case of cancer in 100,000 people. That’s kind of our risk benchmark when we do do an assessment.

Brandi Morin:  Because it’s way higher in Fort Chip.

Mandy Olsgard:  And so that’s the thing. So when they do these assessments, that’s the risk benchmark, 1 in 100,000 people. And they use an incremental lifetime cancer risk to predict that. And almost across the board in these EIAs that industry have completed to get their projects approved, elevated cancers have been a potential risk.

Then a project gets approved and we move into the monitoring phase, and we see really heavy environmental monitoring. So the water, the air, I wouldn’t say the wildlife though, the mammals and the birds, the foods and the medicines, we don’t see a lot of monitoring there. But we do monitor the environmental media, water and sediment, those types of things.

And so this is where the disconnect really happens, in my view. Even though there were human health risks predicted, risk to the immune system, the skin very often, and cancer, there’s no monitoring component. Alberta Health doesn’t step in and support the Alberta Energy Regulator in developing a human-focused monitoring program. Health Canada doesn’t step in. Indigenous services Canada now. First Nation Indigenous Health Branch. All these different provincial and federal health regulatory agencies, they sit tangentially on the outside and hear about these things, but they’re not looking at an approved monitoring plan or a monitoring plan that industry’s submitting, and making recommendations about how to actually monitor, to understand and assess potential risks to the downstream communities or any member of the public, really.

And so this gets back to that conversation. We have the most stringent environmental regulations in Canada. I would agree. We have very stringent environmental legislation. The Canadian Environmental Protection Act, Alberta’s Environmental Protection Enhancement Act. These are very robust pieces of legislation. It’s the policies and the regulation, how they’ve been regulated and interpreted, and then how they actually regulate the industry using this robust legislation, that’s where we’re seeing these systemic flaws, in my view. And that’s really where I do my research.

Brandi Morin:  Well, thank you. So what monitoring and testing specifically needs to be done, where you’re seeing the gaps? What needs to be tested for that’s not being done?

Mandy Olsgard:  Yeah, so I would say you’d need to go back to the original human health risk assessments that were done in those project applications and look at the single chemicals or groups of chemicals and the health effects in humans that were predicted. And then you would have to work with health agencies, medical doctors, different groups of experts to design those monitoring programs. And so Alberta Health, through the Primary Care Network, puts out the community profile in the Wood Buffalo region. And they themselves are reporting that, through doctor’s visits and the health statistics, that there are higher rates of cancer in the Indigenous populations in the Wood Buffalo area compared to Alberta populations. 

So this data’s being collected through health networks, but then we don’t see Alberta Health reaching into the regulator and acting on that. So that’s the first level of monitoring, I would say, what’s coming in through the public health networks when people visit their doctor, those high level statistics that we collect.

If you are observing something, then we would want to move into surveillance, as Dr. O’Connor’s talked about here, getting into the populations. And I’m not talking about going straight to monitoring people, but monitoring the foods people are eating, monitoring natural surface water bodies as a drinking water source. That is something I’ve fought for in my career in Alberta, just for industry and the Alberta Energy Regulator to acknowledge and assess rivers, and lakes, and muskeg as a drinking water source. So apply drinking water guidelines that consider humans. So right now, all the guidelines that are applied in the oil sands region by industry and the Regulator are focused on the protection of ecological receptors in those surface water bodies. They don’t consider cancer-causing agents. Groundwater’s a different situation — I’m talking about surface water.

So there’s low-hanging fruit here, applying guidelines that consider that humans are exposed to these chemicals through their interactions with the environment, traditional foods and medicines. Right there we’d have a better understanding of how those community members could be exposed. Then when you consider the Indigenous knowledge, what members are telling us day in and day out, we would be seeing more focused health studies, I think.

Brandi Morin:  Amazing. Thank you, Mandy. I’m going to come back to you as well.

I would love to hear from Steven. So like I said, Steven represented Indigenous tribes in Ecuador for many years and was successful in gaining a judgment against Chevron for this mass of oil poisons that were left behind. They were kind of like tailings. They were pits, right? They just didn’t clean up. They didn’t clean up their mess.

Anyways, Steven, for those that you don’t know, he was prosecuted, these oil companies vindictively went after him. And he is a very renowned advocate, human rights advocate and environmental lawyer, and he’s a friend of mine. And I wanted to bring him in to gain your thoughts on this situation in regards to your own experiences.

Steven Donziger:  Thank you, Brandi. And thank you for making a great film. It’s amazing.

Brandi Morin:  Thank you.

Steven Donziger:  And Chief Adam, pleasure, honor to meet you, sir. And I don’t know, Dr. O’Connor, I’m so bad with names. Mandy, Dr. Olsgard, thank you for your work. It’s so important that people come together in support of these frontline communities.

I’m just a white dude from the United States who got involved as a lawyer in this big case against Chevron in Ecuador. And when I hear these descriptions of what happened in Fort Chip, it reminds me very much of what I experienced at the hands, or what my clients, I should say, experienced at the hands of Chevron in Ecuador in the Amazon where Texaco, later bought by Chevron, went in there in the 1960s and essentially designed a system of oil extraction to pollute the environment. They didn’t even attempt to try to minimize the impacts. They essentially decided that they would dump, systematically, billions of gallons of cancer-causing toxic oil waste into streams and rivers that Indigenous peoples have been using for their drinking water, bathing, and fishing.

My experience is pretty simple. Industry will do anything it can if it thinks it can get away with it. You see this in Canada, you see it in the United States, you see it in Ecuador, and you see it everywhere I’ve looked at it. Without sufficient and robust regulation by authorities, there’s just nothing that will be done to stop this. And even with well-meaning regulators, often it’s very difficult to stop it because industry is so powerful. People who often, in government, who do their jobs conscientiously end up losing their jobs because they’re just not supposed to really do their jobs. They’re supposed to balance it all out such that industry always seems to have the upper hand. And in my experience, the only way to stop that is through frontline organizing, political organizing, really, to support the regulators and the scientists so they’re able to actually do their jobs correctly despite the massive resistance that industry often generates to block their work.

And it doesn’t surprise me to hear what’s happening in the Fort Chip area, as distressing as it is. But I will say that the film, and having panels like this, and doing advocacy, and understanding the relationship between advocacy and the need to do serious, rigorous science, is absolutely critical. Science, the scientific part of it always seems to be diminished by industry lobbying and advocacy efforts by what I would call BS industry scientists who really are out there to create confusion and to sow doubt about the truth, about the evidence. So it really does take, I think, a high degree of awareness of the tricks the industry uses in how they do their so-called science, which is what I would call junk science, versus how real science is done. And how, really, the truth needs to be put out there, and it’s only going to come through organizing, through social media, through independent journalists like Brandi.

Brandi, you do such amazing work, not only on this issue, but across so many issues. And so few journalists are really focused on these issues. Far too few. And it’s just unbelievable to me that why is it that you as a Cree Iroquois take on these burdens? Where are all the other journalists? Why are they not focusing on these issues? And it’s really important that we keep pushing and we get the journalistic community to write about this, and to publicize this, and that other Indigenous and First Nations peoples in Canada support Chief Adam and the work that his people are doing. It’s really, ultimately, at the end of the day, about political organizing and political power, supporting truth, and science, and fairness, and protection of the earth, and the planet. So there’s a lot going on here in this issue that, to me, symbolizes so much of what so many communities around the world are dealing with. And I salute all of you for taking this on and for pushing it, and I will do my best personally in my own little way to help you try to amplify what you’re doing.

Brandi Morin:  Hay hay, Steven, thank you so much for joining us, for being here.

And Chief, you’ve been in this on and off. And you told me specifically when I was interviewing you in the film, you said, they could be giants and walk all over us, but you take out their knees and they will fall. And I know that you are very resolute in your belief of your rights as a nation, and how unjust this is, and where you stand. And I know that you said there was legal action prepping to be taken. But can you tell me, from your point of view, how you feel, what your stance is when you say, they might fight, but they’re going to fall, in regards to industry and getting justice for what’s happening?

Chief Allan Adam:  Well, it’s quite evident that the evidence is out there, and it’s been out there for a long time. And when people say, how come they’re not fighting anymore? Why are they continuing to sell out? Well, when you look at the whole circumstances, we’ve raised this issue in regards to the AER, to the environment, to human health, to the growths that are happening in the fish, in the wild, food as well. There were even reports from our area that when a bull moose was taken down and it had a deformed horn on it and everything, and they did analysis on it and everything, and it had cancer. And it was still consumed.

That’s just the lifestyle of the people out there. They don’t know what’s going on. Nobody knows nothing. They didn’t talk to no scientists. But somebody took a look at that moose and took some samples of it and sent it in. And by the time it came back, the people were eating the moose already. This is continuing. I’ve seen stuff myself as a gatherer because I go out and use the land. I was out fall hunting this fall. We harvest our moose, we distribute it out to the people and families and everything, and it’s a continuation of tradition [inaudible]…

Brandi Morin:  Is that me or Chief that’s frozen? I think Chief just froze up a bit.

Mandy Olsgard:  Yeah, I think.

Brandi Morin:  Yeah. So we’ll just wait for him to come back. Sometimes that happens. So yeah, I mean, it’s all connected and sometimes it’s like, okay, is it a choice between keeping tradition and culture alive, or your health? And ultimately, in Native communities, your culture and your tradition is intertwined with everything that you are as a human being. So it’s like stripping away of that. Dr. John, I see your hand is up. Go ahead.

Dr. John O’Connor:  Yeah, it is interesting. One of the comments that was made after the Alberta Cancer Board report came out was that the community of Fort Chip was of great concern, but the sample size was too small to be considered significant. That’s one way of using statistics to push your point of view and your agenda. Very frustrating, totally inappropriate for the community of its location and what it’s exposed to.

Me and my wife were up in Inuvik in March of this year at the Dene Water Summit, worked for a couple of days, and listened to communities that had come from across the far north, accessible by boat, by fixed-wing. But their evidence, their traditional knowledge, and some white men’s knowledge as well, pointed to findings that they were getting in their own communities, their own little small sample sizes. Again, too small a community to be considered a problem. If we all banded together, all these communities, including Fort Chip, we would no longer have a small sample size.

Brandi Morin:  So basically they said they don’t matter because they’re only a community of 1,200 people, is what you’re saying.

Dr. John O’Connor:  Exactly. And also, the fact that they’re Indigenous. If this was happening south of Edmonton or south of Red Deer or south of Calgary, it wouldn’t have happened.

Brandi Morin:  Yeah, I agree. Mandy.

Dr. John O’Connor:  Environmental racism at its worst.

Mandy Olsgard:  Yeah, I just want to interject. There’s no doubt in my mind there’s environmental racism happening in this region. Statistically, it’s very difficult to significantly prove an increased cancer rate in a small population. We see it all across the world, right? Toms River down in the States, it took them decades to prove that there was this increased cancer rate in children when it was just evident. There’s books written on it, and it was dyes being released. So I don’t want to discount that there is very clear environmental racism going on. But statistically speaking, small sample sizes for showing significant increases in cancer, it’s like a mathematical error, not entirely racism. So sometimes it’s a little bit difficult as a scientist working in this region, and I just want to make it clear that there’s a lot happening there.

Brandi Morin:  Hay, hay, Mandy, thank you.

So Chief Adam, I just wanted to follow up. Okay, so we know that there’s been another spill… They’re not calling it a spill, it’s a “release” of water from one of Imperial Oil’s containment ponds from, it’s used as runoff and different things, but it was over the sediment guidelines, and that was released last week into the Muskeg River. Again, another failure. And it’s not just one company that’s doing this. We focus on Imperial Oil because it was where these significant releases happened last spring. We know that Suncor had a major release within that time period, and that these things are ongoing.

But Chief, this is something that you’re living with all the time. Right now we’re talking about it, and it’s in the media, but what’s going on behind the scenes? I know that tomorrow the AER is speaking to the environmental committee again in Ottawa. And apparently Laurie Pushor at first refused after he was called up to go and testify to them again. And he had to be summoned by the governmental committee to actually go, and that’s happening tomorrow. I don’t really know what’s going to happen. They’re going to be questioning the AER after it absolved itself in September of any wrongdoing in regards to following protocol to notify communities, even though it apologized.

What’s going on now, Chief? What’s happening right now in regards to your relationship and actions with the AER, and with oil industries, and governments?

Chief Allan Adam:  Right now, this must be a hot topic, because I lost my phone service there because my phone overheated.

Brandi Morin:  [Laughs] Yes.

Chief Allan Adam:  But when you look at the whole structure of everything, there’s a lot of moving parts happening as we speak. And it’s unfortunate that we had to come to this component. It could have been all avoided if the Alberta Energy Regulator just lived up to its name: a regulator, energy regulator, but it failed to do so.

And I was getting to the point earlier that never before have we been into a situation like this where we had an opportunity to do something. Even though we talked about it in the past, we knew that there was something wrong, but there was never an opportunity to catch them in the cookie jar, I guess you could say. And over the years, we kept on fighting, telling people, telling the media, telling the public, that there’s something going on here, there’s something wrong here, the Alberta Energy Regulator is not doing nothing. They just stayed back, stayed silent. Everybody stayed silent on that notion.

Nothing came about until the spill happened. And when the spill happened, and then the Energy Regulator came out and started saying all these other things, and next thing you know, just like, what’s going on here?

And this is the evidence that we needed. This is what we needed as a nation to fight and to go after them under the treaty, because they broke the treaty in our regard. And because it states in the treaty that life will go on, life never even disturbed anything. As settlers coming in, you’ll continue your way of life undisturbed, you’ll be able to eat the food that you’ve eaten throughout the whole time you’re there, travel wherever you want to travel and everything. All these are playing into effects on our community and everything. And now we got the Alberta Energy Regulator.

We caught them, we got them for negligence. Poor response. We got them for anything. And that’s when I said to you earlier, you said it yourself, that they may be giants, but when you take out their knees, they’re going to fall. And it’s too bad that the Alberta Energy Regulator is going to fall this time because of poor mistakes that have been done that they should have carried out properly. I don’t think we would be in a scenario that we’re in today if it was carried out properly.

But when you take a look last year, the profits alone from the oil and gas industry here in Alberta is $47 billion to shareholders outside of Alberta. So you could tell the stakes are high here in this region, and it’s not going to get any better because of the demand for oil that’s out there.

And we live in a safe zone. Nobody’s doing nothing about it. We’re not in the Middle East where there’s war and everything. We’re not in Nigeria. We’re not all these other countries where there’s uncertainty. But here in Canada, here in Alberta, they have certainty, and they abused it. They abused it for their own power, for their own will, and they forgot about one thing: they forgot about the people that live downstream. And we the people who live downstream, we have had enough, and we’re going to do something about it. And I guarantee you, man, I’m quite 100% sure that the Alberta Energy Regulator will have a Christmas gift before Dec. 25, coming to them from the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.

Brandi Morin:  Yeah, I get that. I get that. So Chief, can I ask you, and I think this is kind of the consensus out there, that the AER is in bed with the governments as well as industry, and they’re supposed to be separate. Can you comment on that?

Chief Allan Adam:  They’ve always been together. I myself called the CEO from the AER in the past to resign. And I asked him publicly, even through the media, to resign. And that was before Laurie came involved. And he was hired to regulate the Alberta Energy Regulator, but he was a former CEO for an oil company, or some kind of company… So you could tell that they… How would you say? They just keep rewashing and they keep bringing it back. They don’t have no solutions to anything. They hire people that were part of the problem, and then they hire them again to solve, to see what would happen. In my view, it doesn’t make sense to hire people that were part of the problem to create a solution.

Brandi Morin:  Yeah. Wow.

Now, Steven, I have a question. Are you there? I’d like to know…

Steven Donziger:  I’m here.

Brandi Morin:  You’re there. Do you think, Steven, that, ultimately, it really comes down to power and politics? Is that the number one barrier? Nothing else is considered. It comes down to power and politics. Is that your opinion?

Steven Donziger:  There’s a lot of factors. I do think, though, that the issue of politics, political structures, and political power tends to get not integrated with the legal and scientific strategies enough. So while I wouldn’t say that it’s only about politics and power, although I think that has a great deal to do with explaining why these things keep happening all over the world, I do think that we need to be smarter in terms of integrating different disciplines. 

Even on this panel, we have a lawyer, we have scientists, we have frontline defenders, the chief, we have a journalist. All of those communities need to work very closely together and create these new alliances, this new broad-based movement. Of course, in service of the frontline defenders. It is Chief Adam and the people, the frontline Indigenous peoples in Canada and around the world that need our support, that are the frontline defenders of life on this planet. And so I think we need to be really smarter about how we integrate different disciplines, how we integrate different communities, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, toward our common goal of justice in this world and saving our planet. 

So the awful situation of this killer water that you document in the film is a function of a power structure. The fact that the problem exists is a function of a power structure. It is not just one lax regulator. It’s not just one captured bureaucracy in Alberta. It is part of a global power structure created by an industry to keep extracting natural resources, mostly from under Indigenous lands around the world, to power this insane growth that the world economy, that is the owners of the world economy, need to keep maintaining their profits at the expense of the rest of us, the rest of us people, the rest of all of species, and the rest of life’s ecosystem. So I think that yeah, it does have a tremendous amount to do with politics and power.

Brandi Morin:  But Steven, when you’re saying this, what makes them fall? I’m going to use Chief Adam’s words. If you take out their knees, they will fall. You had success. Even though it kind of backfired when the oil company came after you, but in the judicial system in Ecuador, you had success. What does it take to make them fall, so to speak?

Steven Donziger:  Well, it takes a lot [laughs]. And we’re still battling, but I do think, and I think the chief makes a really good point in the film, is that in any given situation, in any given context, they can fall. You can make them fall. I think globally the structure is very difficult to dismantle overnight. It takes years and years of organizing. I do think though, that in particular situations, they can be defeated and justice can be won. And I’m hoping that obviously what’s happening, what you’re describing, what the chief is dealing with, is one of those situations where true accountability can be had.

I mean, obviously damage has been done already. If the regulators had been doing their job, this never would’ve happened. Now that it’s happened, there needs to be accountability, there needs to be compensation for the harms, and those who are responsible need to pay a price. They need to be moved out of their jobs, with responsible regulators put in.

But these people can fall. There’s no doubt in my mind. The fact that Chevron, just talking personally, spent literally $3 billion on 60 law firms and 2,000 lawyers in the United States to go after our team after we won a $10 billion pollution judgment tells you how weak they are. That’s just weak, how they perceive themselves as being really under threat and facing enormous risk.

And our situation was unusual for various reasons, but the fundamentals are the same. It’s a battle. They don’t want to pay for the pollution that they caused, and they want to spend money paying lawyers and lobbyists to keep First Nations at bay and their allies at bay so they’re never held accountable. And they calculated it’ll be cheaper to pay lobbyists and lawyers than it will be to pay the people they harmed. And that calculation is at the heart of this entire battle. And it’s up to us to change the calculus.

In other words, it has to be so expensive for them to do this because they know they can’t get away with it. They know there will be costs to them, could be legal, could be financial, could be reputational, it could be Brandi writing an article that’s part of the cost. The chief, the organizing, it’s a hassle. These bureaucrats go to bed, they can’t feel good about themselves at some level. So all of that factors into it. Yes, they can be defeated on an ad hoc basis.

I think the broader picture is a little more complicated, but it all starts in your community, and it all starts on battles like this, whether they be Fort Chip or whether they be in Lago Agrio, Ecuador. The same battles, they can be won. It just takes interdisciplinary organizing and lots of good leadership and alliance building, and obviously some level of resources. So it can definitely be done. I didn’t mean to leave the picture that it was all…

Brandi Morin:  No, it’s all good. No, thank you, Steven. That’s so important, that perspective, even for me to learn to think about what maybe ACFN and others are going into.

But did anybody want to speak to that question, how the authorities and so on are just dismissing the concerns of the people on the ground when we hear about these things happening, and how they’re so easily able to do that? Does anybody want to speak to that, Chief or Dr. John?

Dr. John O’Connor:  Oh, yeah. My perspective, Brandi, having lived in Alberta for the last 30 years, is that industry owns this province. There’s a very blurry line between who is a politician and who’s a CEO of an oil company. When industry can parachute into Fort Chip and have consultation with the community at the community hall and provide a lavish meal and door prizes and cash and present this PowerPoint description of what they’re doing accompanied by politicians, totally supported by politicians, it is no wonder that the little voices from the likes of Fort Chip or other little communities downstream, those voices are not heard at all. And the evidence that’s been produced and publicized, backed by robust, reputable science, they just wait. The headline disappears a day or two or three after, and it’s gone. It’s a very different matter at grassroots level downstream, but very easy for authorities to ignore.

Brandi Morin:  Yeah. Chief, I just want to give Chief a moment to respond too, and then we’ll go back to Mandy.

Chief Allan Adam:  It’s a challenge when you look at all these things and everything. And as a leader, you have to look at all sides and everything, and you’ve got to do the proper analysis to do what’s best for the community. One of the things that I always look for, and maybe Mandy could answer this one, or Dr. O’Connor, with all the damages that are done already within the region, is it repairable? And if it’s not repairable, is it safe for the community of Fort Chipewyan residents to remain in Fort Chip or do we have to pack up and become environmental refugees? I think that would be the most prominent question that could be answered here today. And if that could be answered, then we’ll determine what’s our fate from here.

Brandi Morin:  Dr. O’Connor?

Dr. John O’Connor:  Yeah. Truth and reconciliation has to start with honesty and accountability, and if this start was made in Alberta along those lines, and an admission of the harm that’s been caused by industry, and an undertaking to put a moratorium on the development or the maintenance of these tailings ponds, that would go a long way towards mitigating the damage or at least preventing issues from happening in the future. Obviously, independent authorities, independent science that have nothing to do with Alberta, nothing to do with industry need to be involved in this. And they have been over the years, but like I said, their voices have been ignored. But I think it must start with a discussion, a conversation, a candid, honest attempt at accountability, and then taking on the responsibility, and then moving from there.

Brandi Morin:  Hay hay. Mandy, is the damage done? Is it too late?

Mandy Olsgard:  Yeah. Technology exists to remediate and remove the chemicals that are being placed in the tailings ponds, that are being emitted in the air. Scientifically and technologically, we can address all the chemicals. And from what I hear from communities, other than water levels and the drop in water levels, which is really caused by the dams in British Columbia, to a greater extent, the chemical emissions from oil sands can be controlled. But it is all about dollars and cents and stakeholder profits. So until we see that shift in society, and pushing for it, and a regulator that’s requiring oil sands to clean up, we’re in the situation we’re in.

And I can’t speak for any individual member, but I know what I hear from members. I’m in Fort Chipewyan all the time. And so that situation’s not going to change until we see either the federal government step in and require these technologies to actually be used to remove the chemicals that could be causing harm and the studies that tell us.

So Chief, to be honest, we need to see the studies. I do independent research with your community, with several other communities. We’re trying to fill the gap, but we’re this small group who recognizes this and is seeing this. So if we can get these larger groups, the money behind us, a true regulator that’s looking at the data being provided to them and then making real action.

Like when you have leaking tailings ponds, there’s a requirement to remediate groundwater that’s been contaminated. This is done in every other sector, every other energy sector, but the oil sands is a money making business. We had the CEO of Suncor come out and say they’re getting back to the fundamentals. We’re in a position where we now know quite honestly where industry stands. So we need a true regulator to turn this ship around.

What I was going to show you, to me, this speaks volumes. You don’t need a master’s in toxicology. This is the surface water. This was the industrial wastewater report that Imperial sent to the AER. Everywhere you see yellow is an exceedance of a guideline.

Brandi Morin:  Wow.

Mandy Olsgard:  That’s the approved water that’s released daily, continuously.

Brandi Morin:  Wow.

Mandy Olsgard:  So this is what —

Brandi Morin:  That’s just the approved?

Mandy Olsgard:  This is the approved. So when you see an incident that was a higher concentration, add more yellow, turn that yellow red because it’s actually over a limit. Even higher. This is what’s acceptable on a daily basis from 43 approved releases, 36 of which release. That’s surface water. That’s not even talking about tailings ponds. This is what the Regulator receives, their scientists review — And they are good scientists, I believe, who are technical experts in their field — But to make a decision, they need support of the leaders within the Alberta Energy Regulator, the management, and that’s where we find industry is having a say at stopping decisions.

Brandi Morin:  Absolutely.

Mandy Olsgard:  Anyone can speak to this. We go to the groundwater issue. This is what was submitted by Imperial, one of the two monitoring wells offsite. So you can see that elevated naphthenic acids in that red box, go to the far right-hand side. That’s been increasing since, arguably, 2017. So I don’t say it lightly when I say they knew that tailings pond was leaking, something was changing in the environment. This is Imperial’s own reporting to the Alberta Energy Regulator years before the environmental protection order. And I’m not doing this to scare people. It’s not a fear tactic. This is what Alberta Energy Regulator receives monthly, annually, weekly, daily from industry, from oil sands operators, and they are allowed discretionarily to make all decisions on that.

We don’t see it publicly. I had to request these reports from the Regulator, independently review them. That takes some education, experience. But anyone can read this and say, I have questions. And then when you hear what communities are telling us about what they’re seeing changing on the land, to me, that’s when the story became inexcusable and unignorable, as a consultant, as a scientist. I couldn’t do my job ethically working at the Regulator because I couldn’t follow through on the decisions that I knew that needed to be made.

Brandi Morin:  So what needs to be done specifically in this instance? Is it the health studies? Is it the reporting, the regulating? Mandy, can you break it down for us in layman’s terms? From your standpoint with seeing these graphs and this information, what needs to be done?

Mandy Olsgard:  I feel like Steven could be better here. I sit from a position where we’re in a province that is so divisive right now. If you don’t support the oil and gas industry, you are an enemy of the state. It is the language we see coming out of the premier’s office and pervading into every decision being made. As a scientist, I actually can’t even figure out how to navigate it. And I’ve had to take time off recently just to understand if I maybe knew what I was doing. The gaslighting scientists in this province are experiencing right now is real, and it’s hard to walk the line and keep doing what we’re doing because what’s right and wrong, what’s black and white?

It’s very difficult because industry is so well organized in their lobbying effort. They do studies. I read that study and I come to a completely different conclusion than those scientists. The science, the study might actually be quite robust, but how it’s been interpreted, and then how COSIA or CAP or registered industry lobbying agencies then move that through Pathways Alliance, it is so concerted. As a single scientist, I actually can’t answer that because I don’t know anymore, but I know what I’m looking at, and I know we have an issue with chemical exposures in that region. So I don’t know, Steven, if you can add to that, how to move this forward.

Brandi Morin:  And he did speak to that. And then I had a question like, okay, so these health studies, somebody that’s watching wondered what is the estimated cost and lengths for these health impact assessments and these studies? What are the barriers to getting them done other than industry not wanting to be found out?

Mandy Olsgard:  Well, industry controls the flow of money in this region, whether it’s to scientists like me often, applying for something, or paying the Regulator’s levy, or putting in for the liability, or working with communities through agreements. I think this is all pretty well known, that industry controls that flow of money. And so even when we’re proposing to do studies, they have the ability to vet those and be like, well, remove this component. Do this. Not always. We go for grants and research as well, but yeah.

Brandi Morin:  How feasible is an independent study? Is it a matter of resources, or do you know?

Mandy Olsgard:  Yeah, for sure. There’s independent scientists who do this type of work. I’m an independent consultant. I can take contracts from whoever has the money to fund them. And so you need a group of independent consultants which are willing to do this type of work and maybe publish a study and results that might be an opposition to a study that came out from a different researcher. You have to have that space to be able to speak to it.

And thankfully, we are in Canada. We have the space. If we were in a different jurisdiction, it could be very different to speak out as a scientist. I still feel fairly free to do that. So you need scientists who are willing to take that stand.

I’m the only independent toxicologist that doesn’t work for large consulting firms that support industry. There’s a handful in the region. And then you have to find contaminated groundwater, like contaminant hydrogeologists, who don’t work for the big industry consulting firms. So it’s a lack of resources, I think, to get the work done. It’s a lack of funding for this independent work.

And then you have communities who, Chief, maybe you can speak to it, people just want to live. They didn’t take on the job of fighting big industry so that they can go about their way of life. Does everybody want that? Hunting season comes, members are like, fine, Mandy, we’ll meet with you, but we’re meeting out in the bush, right? People just want to live. So it’s really complex, I think there’s a lot of factors, Brandi, but yes, it’s absolutely possible to do these studies. Science is there. Science and technology are not limitations to anything we’re discussing here today.

Steven Donziger:  Can I have a quick word?

Brandi Morin:  Yeah.

Steven Donziger:  So first of all, Mandy, thank you for that. You really nailed it, I think, in many respects. Now, all these studies can be done in Canada, and generally in the United States, with money. It’s a question of money. Industry has massive sums of money to do their fake studies, and the communities usually have almost no money, no money or almost no money to do the studies they need to do, even if they can access the expertise to do a study, to know how to do a study, to design the study, to do the right data collection. And I understand what Mandy is saying because there are very, very few independent scientists in the world who are willing to take on industry because most scientists, unfortunately, just like most lawyers work for wealth and power, most scientists work for industry because that’s where the jobs are. And what I think has to happen is really two things.

One is there needs to be a pot of money created to do independent science in conjunction with the communities by qualified scientists. And I think that money should come from the industry. The industry should be forced — And this is where you get back into the politics — Should be taxed, basically, on their profits to put aside funds so the communities can do their own independent assessments of the impacts of operations on their lands, water, et cetera. There’s got to be some independent source of funds that should come from industry.

Now, obviously industry would fight this. Obviously there’s probably not a lot of elected officials in Alberta who would support this. But put it out there, put the aspiration out there. You never know what might come of it. Suddenly there’s some big-ass spill, and then there’s a whole impetus politically to do something. And then your proposal that no one paid attention to for six months is sitting there like, hey, what about that proposal proposed by Chief Adam in conjunction with this toxicologist to tax the industry to fund for studies?

And also, I think in the scientific community, we’re seeing more and more in the United States small independent groups of scientists who understand exactly what Mandy is talking about and are trying to design systems or structures where they can do the independent science, understanding they will never work for industry their whole lives. You really have to make a choice as a scientist. You’re going to work for industry or you’re going to work for communities. And you really can’t do both because once you start working for communities, industries won’t hire you. Once you start working for industries, you’re tainted.

There’s a group that I work with in the United States in the Ecuador case called Stratus Consulting, just one example of a few. They have like 75 scientists, and they did almost all their work for municipalities, and they worked for the communities of Ecuador once we got funds to pay them. It wasn’t as expensive as scientists who worked for industry. but I also found that these are the best scientists.

A lot of the industry scientists, the scientists that Chevron used to try to create doubt and to do all sorts of what I would call BS science were really second, third rate scientists from really marginal programs, but they were more than willing to sell their souls and whatever little expertise they had for political purposes. They really were political scientists. They were on the other side. They would use their studies or their non-studies, or they designed the questions in such a way that they knew the answers in advance, and they would use them to help industry. And then Chevron’s PR machine would put out their study, see, this is a new study, blah, blah, blah. But then you’d look at the study and realize it was completely flawed on a thousand levels.

So it’s really important, I think, to find resources, to put out a proposal to tax the industry to pay for independent science, and to organize so the communities, Chief Adam, know the available toxicologists and independent scientists that can help. And they don’t necessarily, by the way, have to be from where you are. They can be from the United States, they can be from Ontario, they can be from Nova Scotia, they can be from British Columbia. Science is science, and many people are willing to travel to do the work to give people like Mandy support.

Brandi Morin:  Hay hay, Steven. Chief?

Chief Allan Adam:  Brandi, when it comes to these issues in regards to some of the stuff, you’ve got to take a look at what the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and other First Nations are doing in regards to the area. We have our own community-based monitoring program that’s up and going, which is funded by industry. We collect the data on the water issue. We start taking collections from animals as well as they’re being harvested, just to get a collection and to get the numbers that we’re out there telling everybody that there’s something wrong here. Not only to that, just recently, probably within a month or so, we’ve just introduced a new policy for the nation, and it’s a water guideline policy, that if industry and government doesn’t meet the threshold of safe drinking water for our community and for our members, then we’re going to question everything.

And it’s a game changer for industry because we are, as a sovereign nation, we have the ability to create laws to protect our own people. And it states that as long as we don’t create policies or laws to protect our people, the governments will create these for us. So now we went beyond that point, and we’re totally not reliant on the government, both federally and provincially. We’re doing this on our own. We’re putting our own guidelines in place, and we’re saying that in order for you to get approved, you have to meet our standards of water level. And if it’s not at our level, then it does not get approved, and we have to do something about it, and we have to bring it to that state of mind. And that’s probably going to be another game changer in light of everything that’s going on. And we developed that water policy in light of what had happened over the last year and years past.

So this is one of the things that gives us more sovereign rights as a nation, because under treaty you had to be a sovereign nation to sign treaty. And when we signed treaty, we were a sovereign nation back then, and we had our own environmental laws, we had our own governance laws, and we had our own space about where we had to go and travel at all times. And today, now we’re just secluded to one area, and the environmental component is way out of whack. There is no conductor at the helm. We got a ghost train going out of control.

Brandi Morin:  I didn’t know about that policy, Chief. That sounds incredible. And does that come into effect immediately, or how does that work?

Chief Allan Adam:  Once we get this thing and everything, then we’re going to send notifications out that these are going to happen. And I gotta take it to our team, Lisa, the LRM team. I think Mandy might have been involved with it as well too, to develop all these things. And we’re doing these things from our own perspective and from our own nation, and we’re doing it with our own funding and all these stuff because not only do we want to walk the talk, we want to do it and make sure it gets done because we’re tired of relying on government, and we’re tired of relying on industry to make things happen for us.

Brandi Morin:  Wow. And then these initiatives as well as the lawsuit that I understand is coming, it’s not like the lawsuit is going to fix anything immediately. These things take years. But they are initiatives, like these policies that you’re developing, that it’s going to help?

Chief Allan Adam:  That’s going to help our nation, yeah.

Brandi Morin:  I would love to see that when it comes out and a copy of it, because that must be pretty, your nation, how often is that done that you know of?

Chief Allan Adam:  This would be the first one done in that regard to environmental policies, for the protection of water and all these other things. And it’s just one of many that probably could keep coming down because we know our rights. I’ve said it before in the past at public meetings, in our own meetings, that if we ever wanted to get anything done, we would have to create our own constitution out of that. We have to create our own laws and everything and stuff like that. So we’re working on a constitution, and out of the constitution we will develop our own environmental laws, our own health laws, and everything that goes with it, and stuff like that. So it’s basically a start in some way, even if it’s a little small start, it’s a start that we’re doing something.

Brandi Morin:  And that’s something that industry and governments or whoever, they have to adhere to because of your sovereignty as a nation, and you’re creating those laws and policies?

Chief Allan Adam:  Yep. They have to because it’s our law and it’s our guidelines, and if they don’t meet the guidelines, and if they exceed the guidelines, then there’ll be damages reputed to it.

Brandi Morin:  Wow, that’s interesting. That’s pretty cool. Mandy, did you want to speak to that?

Mandy Olsgard:  Yeah, I just want to say thank you, Chief, for bringing up that project. It’s a great example of how communities and First Nations and sometimes Métis communities are bringing the science that we’re talking about here to the Regulator.

So that project specifically is called the Water Quality Criteria For Indigenous Use. Took us four years, almost five years. And because we saw independent scientists like myself and I have a team of other scientists, Dr. Thompson and Dr. Thomas Dick that I worked with, so water quality experts, social scientists, human geographers, to actually work with ACFN and a few other nations to understand how communities use water, rely on water, their rights tied to water, how it supports their lives. And then we develop the criteria to protect those. Their water use categories consider drinking water, traditional plant medicines, foods, and then you have guidelines, criteria that protect those uses for surface water and sediment. We’re doing the same thing for terrestrial ecosystems. So soil, forest, the animals, and the birds and that. So moving those things forward.

But these criteria are more stringent than anything government will have ever required industry to use. So like Chief spoke to, it’s getting it into policy linked to rights and moving it forward because this is what it takes to protect human health. Humans are not distinct from the environments that they live in and rely on, and especially in these communities.

And it is available. It’s on ACFN’s website. It’s a huge report. Hundreds of pages, thousands with the appendices, but ACFN has made that available for everyone to review. We just went to a conference and presented on that research with other Indigenous groups who are doing this from British Columbia and across Canada and internationally. So there is a body of scientists and communities doing this work and pushing it forward. So thank you, Chief, for opening that, and bringing some positivity and solutions.

Brandi Morin:  Wow. That is. That’s something. You feel like often when you’re doing this work or doing these stories, it’s like you don’t find that you have the solutions. And this is representing some of that. We’re going to wrap up here in a few minutes. I was wondering, Chief, if you had anything to say to the fed or provincial and AER about where things are at right now? What would you say to them?

Chief Allan Adam:  As a chief, I think we’re at a state of emergency in regards to the environment, in regards to what’s happening with our ecosystem. We need to get down to the nitty-gritty and bring it all out and notify the people. Are we safe in the community? And the only ones that could tell us and give us the answer to that is the government agent bodies like the AER, Environment Canada, DFO, all these agencies could play a part in doing something, but unfortunately they choose not to do so in that light itself.

Is there hope? There’s always hope. It’s just a matter of how much effort do you want to put into it? And right now with this happening and everything, it’s a big game changer for ACFN. It’s a big game changer for everybody. Everybody involved with what’s going on sees it’s a big game changer. And if we don’t do it right and we don’t correct the problem, it’s just going to get worse from here on in. It ain’t going to get better. We have a lot of legal rights that are on our side. I wouldn’t know how to say it, but maybe Steve or Mandy or even Dr. O’Connor could say, we finally got them.

Brandi Morin:

Hay, hay, Chief. Steven? Wrap up words, respond?

Steven Donziger:

Well, let me just say I’m talking a lot, but there’s a lot I don’t know as well. And the things I said on this panel, I really say with great humility and respect for the chief in particular and the other panelists. But I do think the monitoring program that the First Nation is doing in Fort Chip is really significant. That’s the basis for information that can really be used with the support of scientists who can help interpret it to raise a lot of help with these regulators and call them out and capture, I think, more support around the nation of Canada.

I’ve seen this a lot. I’m down here and I haven’t traveled for a bunch of years, by the way. Chevron took my passport, otherwise I’d be up there visiting if I could. I really mean that. But it seems to me there have been a couple of instances in recent years where First Nations have captured the imagination of the whole country. I think the Wet’suwet’en to some degree with the —

Brandi Morin:  And internationally. Yes.

Steven Donziger:  And internationally. And I think this film is the basis to project this out much further. So there might be ways for all of us to think about strategies to do that in light of the film and in light of the opportunity that the film offers.

Brandi Morin:  Just a second. So just saying that the chief, one of the people that works with the chief have said that they’re showing the film during one of their sessions at COP in Dubai. I don’t know how big of a difference that’ll get. I know that that’ll get to these officials that they’re giving information to at COP. But I think it really does need to get to a wider audience in order to create that grassroots awareness and pressure. Is that what you’re saying, Steven?

Steven Donziger:  Yeah. And I would say yes, I am. And I would say two other things, which is… Am I, can you see me? Yeah, there I am.

Brandi Morin:  Yeah, I can see you.

Steven Donziger:  So the other thing is think big. It is just as much energy to go to the premier of Alberta as it is to the prime minister of Canada. It’s just as much energy to go to the environment minister of Alberta as it is to the environment minister of the whole country. And if Alberta is so captured by industry, I think we ought to consider strategies to go outside Alberta to get pressure back into Alberta, because this is embarrassing. For a country that purports, at least in its rhetoric, to care about First Nations, this is not good.

And I think that, again, affords opportunities. In other words, there’s never really a problem or a resistance that is out there that doesn’t have some major opportunity in it to try to flip the frame and really advance what you’re trying to do.

Now, having said all that, it’s easy for me as an armchair person in the US to say all this stuff. You folks are doing the actual work. I am highly sympathetic to what Mandy said. People just want to live. It’s not your fault they did this. You just want to live as you’ve lived, as your people have lived for millennia. So why is it on you that you have to deal with this shit? Why is it on you that you have to listen to a guy like me say you need to organize politically? Why is it on you that you got to find scientists and money to do the studies? So it’s hard, and I get it, and nothing but sympathy.

But I’m telling you, these people, the chief is right. They can be slayed, they really can. And how it gets done, I’m not really sure. There’s a lot of good ideas. The chief probably knows best. The monitoring program that you’re doing is phenomenal. I’m really happy to hear about that because that can be used to parlay into something more. And I’m willing to help to the extent that I can.

So I don’t know what else I can say except I have tremendous respect for all of you folks, starting with the chief and all your colleagues and the scientists and Brandi, you, it’s amazing what you’re doing to raise the profile of this issue and let’s just see where it goes with the film and what kind of opportunities that might create.

Brandi Morin:  Yeah. Hay hay, Steven. I’m again grateful for your time to be here to share your expertise and your perspective.

I just had one more quick question for Chief, and then I was going to give Dr. John a wrap up. So Chief, I’m just wondering, how are other First Nation leadership in regards to this issue? I know that you’re on the Treaty VIII executive Council, I believe. And do you know, is there any unified front to support these kinds of issues? Again, we have focused on Fort Chip, but Fort Chip is not the only community that is experiencing this up there. But is there anything going on politically within the assembly of First Nations or within your treaty area?

Chief Allan Adam:  No, there’s nothing in that regard going on, other than the fact that business is normal. I could say this for a fact that I’ve been elected official chief for 16 years, and I’ve been on council for four years, so I’ve been in council 20 years, and I’m going into another four-year term. And I haven’t really had to deal with being the chief of the nation other than the fact of fighting with industry and government with the environment. Ever since I’ve taken the position as the chief, and raising the concerns, and the dilemma of everything that’s going on.

If the proper mechanisms were in place and everything to counter all of these things and the resources were there, could you imagine what we could have built and did right in regards to how to develop an industry, to protect the environment, to protect the community, to protect the health, and to provide education and let the people be aware of what’s happening at all times. If we were to do that, we wouldn’t be in a predicament that we are in today.

And it goes to show that ignorance and racism still plays a big part here in the oil sands region. And that we as First Nations people are looked down on, not looked upon, and that’s going to change.

Brandi Morin:  Wow. And any word from the MP or follow up from the premier’s office or anything? I know it’s kind of early in regards to response to the film, but —

Chief Allan Adam:  I find this ironic that COP28 that’s happening, the Alberta government is sending a delegation of 150 to go and tell —

Brandi Morin:  Oh my gosh.

Chief Allan Adam:  …To go and tell the world that everything in Alberta is fine, nothing wrong. And we are sending a delegation of probably four, and we’re also sending some of the footage and documentaries and stuff like that down there. And we’re going to let the world know that this is happening in our backyard, and it’s time to expose the whole thing, and let everybody know that what Canada’s been telling the UN and what other government agencies have been telling the UN about how good things are in Canada and in Alberta with the First Nations communities, we’re there to go and tell the world that everything is not good.

Brandi Morin:  Wow. It’s really representative of these giants that we’re talking about when you’re talking about these numbers of 150 and all of these resources, and then you’re sending four people to go there and speak the truth of what you’re experiencing. I mean, wow. Wow.

Chief Allan Adam:  So that just goes to show how much of a cover-up they’re willing to do and to take and to lobby all these other groups of people whatsoever. But we will make a note on this, and it’s time that we do what we have to do. And I’ve always said it before, we have to go to the UN and expose Canada for what they are, and we have to expose Alberta for who they are.

Brandi Morin:  Hay, hay, Chief, thank you.

And then John, Dr. John.

Dr. John O’Connor:  As Mandy and Steven have said, this is a very complex situation. About 12 years ago, myself, my wife, and Andrew Nikiforuk, a legendary environmental journalist, were invited and participated in a Scandinavian venture through Nordic Greenpeace to publicize what’s happening downstream. We actually were given shares in Statoil to be able to address their AGM, their shareholders AGM in Stavanger in Norway, about 2010.

And we got actually a topic for debate. Do we stay in the, what was called the oil sands, the tar sands, or not? We got an opportunity to actually go on stage and address the shareholders. And for the first time in their history, they had to vote. Now, about 99% voted to stay. 1% said no. These are the shareholders, and they withdrew. And of course since then, Statoil have left the tar sands.

So I think going abroad and revealing the story, informing people, educating people just with the honest, real picture of what’s happening at a grassroots level, that is so important.

2008, we had a call from Richard Rockefeller. So Richard Rockefeller was actually a family doctor in Maine, but one of the Rockefeller family. I was living in Nova Scotia at the time, and we were back and forth. So he set up a time to meet us in Nova Scotia, flew his plane into Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. We sat together for half a day. He’d been up to Fort Chip because of the issues that were highlighted about two or three years before. Confirmed what we’d found. And after listening to us, he said, John, he said, don’t stop what you’re doing. You’re on the right track. And this is coming from Standard Oil, the Standard Oil family.

So there’s awareness. There are bureaucrats and CEOs who I’m sure can’t sleep at night. Once the information is out there, once people realize what’s happening, that is so important. It’s not the only thing. Like I said, the picture is very complex.

A few years ago, Syncrude put pressure on the MCFN chief regarding their CEO. Their CEO had gone around the world, publicized what was going on in Fort Chip. He said, this will have implications for your nation if you don’t rein in the CEO. So unfortunately, the CEO had to quieten down. But to illustrate how powerful they were, Syncrude canceled two contracts that the MCFN had on site just to show that, economically, we hold the purse.

And that, unfortunately, is the issue. There’s no other show in town. If it wasn’t for big oil, what would Fort Chip look like now? It would be a healthier place. That’s another of the complexities of this issue. We must continue to talk, and to publicize, and to answer questions, and spread it as wide as we can.

Brandi Morin:  Thank you. Well, hay hay, everybody. We’re going to wrap up now, but I just want to thank each and every one of you for participating in this discussion. I respect and admire your knowledge and your experiences and your input into this. And I just pray that injustices such as this one that we’re discussing, the toxins and the corruption that’s happening to Fort Chipewyan, that this is addressed. And my dog wants to make an exit appearance, so I’m going to wrap it up and say hay hay. Go watch Killer Water. Stay tuned. I will be following the nation of Fort Chipewyan. I’m going to follow them from here as we go to COP. Thank you, everybody.

Dr. John O’Connor:  Thank you.

Chief Allan Adam:  Thank you.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories, and struggles that you care about most. And we need your help to keep doing this work. So please tap your screen now, subscribe, and donate to The Real News Network. Solidarity forever.

In Northern Alberta, Canada, sit the Athabasca tar sands—the world’s largest known reservoir of crude bitumen, and a major driver of Canada’s economy. The vast majority of Canadian oil production comes from the extraction and processing of the crude bitumen found in the tar sands. But while Canada prospers off the tar sands industry, Indigenous communities downstream are in the grips of its toxic impact. It is well documented that the people of Fort Chipewyan, in northern Alberta, have been struck by disproportionately high rates of cancer, and their proximity to the tar sands has long been the suspected dominant factor contributing to their sickness. 

In a new feature documentary, Killer Water, award-winning journalist Brandi Morin and award-winning filmmaker/director Geordie Day delve deep into the heart of the environmental crisis plaguing the Alberta oil sands, uncovering the hidden truths that have long been ignored. The film exposes the detrimental impact of toxic tailings ponds leakage on the delicate ecosystems, water sources, and human life in and around Fort Chipewyan. Through stunning visuals and compelling narratives, Morin and Day take viewers on a journey that highlights the injustices faced by the Indigenous community living in the shadow of this industrial development.

Killer Water was produced in partnership with The Real News Network, IndigiNews, and Ricochet Media.

Pre-Production: Brandi Morin, Geordie Day, Ethan Cox, Andrea Houston, Cara McKenna, Eden Fineday, Maximillian Alvarez, Kayla Rivara

Studio Production: Geordie Day

Post-Production: Brandi Morin, Geordie Day, Ethan Cox, Andrea Houston, Cara McKenna, Eden Fineday, Maximillian Alvarez, Kayla Rivara

TRANSCRIPT

Brandi Morin:  This is a stretch of Lake Athabasca, in northern Alberta, Canada. Jason Castor is going as fast as he can, but the waters here are shallow, too shallow. If he slows down, his boat could get stuck in the mud, or even flip over. The water here is low due to industries drawing out water like the WAC Bennett Dam in British Columbia. The other culprits are climate change and the relentless industrial mining of the Alberta tar sands.

The Peace-Athabasca Delta is the second largest freshwater delta in the world. And under the delta is the world’s largest known reservoir of crude bitumen. A black, viscus, semi-solid form of petroleum, [bitumen] is the main component of Canadian oil production, growing from 48% of total production in 2008 to 73% in 2021 according to the Canada Energy Regulator. In 2021, crude bitumen production totaled about 3.3 million barrels per day, and in 2020, it was worth $42.7 billion in sales value.

But while Canada prospers off the oil sands industry, Indigenous communities downstream are in the grips of its toxic impact.

Jason Castor:  On the riverways, there’s this slurry of foam that looks like oil, or some kind of chemical in there. And they said it’s supposed to be safe to drink. So, I don’t know, would you feed your family this? I look at this stuff and most of the time, I find this substance in it, mixed with the foam itself. And once it dries, it doesn’t come off. You pressure wash it, it won’t come off.

Back in the day, elders used to take water, a cup in their boat, and they used to drink it. Nowadays, I wouldn’t want to drink this.

Brandi Morin:  Jason is a member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, ACFN for short, located in Fort Chipewyan. He’s been a traditional hunter, trapper, and fisherman for nearly 20 years. Over that time, he has documented strange changes in the water, the land, and even in the animals.

Jason Pastor:  And they say that it’s natural. Well, I know that that’s not natural, because I’ve been on the river my whole life.

Brandi Morin:  Jason worked as a heavy equipment operator for a major oil extraction company in the oil sands for several years. But over time, he says, being that close to the site of extraction gave him reasons to be unnerved.

Jason Pastor:  I was working out on site, and then, there’s so much things going on on site. There’s oil trucks moving around, and all the spills, and there’s always the smell of bitumen. I just felt sick to my stomach when I went to work [inaudible]. And in my mind, what am I doing to my land, or what I’m doing to our water?

Brandi Morin:  Jason was raised in the foster care system, away from Fort Chipewyan, after both of his parents died while ice fishing on Lake Athabasca when he was young. Then, nearly 20 years ago, Jason moved his wife and children back to Fort Chipewyan, and did the hard work of learning a traditional lifestyle, the lifestyle his ancestors created over countless generations. But those traditions are now at risk.

When you were a kid, did you swim in the lake?

Jason Pastor:  Yeah.

Brandi Morin:  And now…?

Jason Pastor:  Now I don’t go in the water. I just don’t.

Brandi Morin:  What about your kids? Do you tell them not to?

Jason Pastor:  I don’t take them on the lake over there. I take them elsewhere. I tell them, ‘You don’t go swimming at the dock, you don’t go swimming at the beach park, you don’t go swimming anywhere around here. You want to go, we go to Inland Lake, or I’ll take you way up the lake to the beaches.’

Brandi Morin:  That life-giving, life-sustaining river is now a little more than a transportation route. When he travels the river to pick up supplies or visit friends in Fort McMurray, Jason doesn’t take his hunting or fishing equipment anymore.

Jason Pastor:  From this area, I usually hunt for another… about 40 minutes, and I won’t go any further. That’s my area of hunting. Even though my reserve is still up here, ACFN Reserve, I choose not to go hunting in that area because the oil plants are getting closer. When we get so close to the oil and gas, we have animals, they’ll be just walking right along the bank. And it seems like they just know that we’re not going to hunt them, because we already passed our buffer zone and put our guns away, and we decided we’re not hunting in that area because there’s too much contaminants. They know, because they know we’re not going to hunt them.

Brandi Morin:  Jason and other local residents have suspected pollution from the oil sands has been affecting them for years. Their fears aren’t unfounded. It is well documented that the people of Fort Chipewyan have been struck by disproportionately high rates of cancer, and their proximity to the tar sands has long been the suspected dominant factor contributing to their sickness. And a recent tailings pond spill reiterated their concerns.

In February, Indigenous communities downstream from Imperial Oil’s Kearl Mine, about 75 kilometers upstream of Fort Chipewyan, learned of a massive spill of 5.3 million liters, or 1.4 million gallons, from the mine’s tailing area. Oil sands tailings are where the mining companies store the byproducts of the oil sands mining and extraction process, including water, sand, clay, residual bitumen, and various chemicals.

Imperial Oil’s Kearl Mine spill was one of the largest releases of toxic tailings in Alberta’s history. However, Fort Chipewyan’s leadership was only made aware of the toxic spill through an environmental protection order, issued by the Alberta Energy Regulator, that called on the company to immediately contain and remediate the spill on Feb. 6. Then, in March, the Canadian press obtained a document that showed the province stalled the initiation of an emergency response for a month.

Meanwhile, Indigenous leaders found out that another tailings pond at the same Kearl Mine site had been leaking for at least nine months prior to the major incident in February.

Soon after the incident, Environment and Climate Change Canada launched a formal investigation into potential violations of the Fisheries Act by Imperial Oil.

Speaker 1:  …An official investigation into the Imperial Oil Kearl Facility.

Chief Allan Adam:  For some reason, it has become my job to come to this place in order to remind this government and its duties and its responsibilities. Your responsibility for properly regulating massive industry projects that potentially threaten the health and safety of Fort Chipewyan and other downstream communities. For 10 months, this leak went unreported, despite the Alberta Regulator and the oil sands operators being fully aware of what was going on.

Brandi Morin:  But the nightmare didn’t end there. Just one month after the Kearl Mine spill, Suncor reported 6 million liters of tailings water that exceeded sediment guidelines were released into the Athabasca River from its Fort Hills oil sands mine. Imperial Oil maintains its spill did not affect nearby waterways or wildlife.

Brad Corson:  Monitoring continues to show there have been no impacts to local drinking water sources, and there is no indication of impact to wildlife.

Brandi Morin:  But the AAR’s own tests indicated the presence of industrial wastewater in a fish-bearing waterbody near the mine, and subsequent testing detected F2 hydrocarbons at levels exceeding the surface water quality guidelines for the protection of freshwater aquatic life. Still, the AER claimed in April there was no indication of a change in drinking water, and no adverse impacts to fish or wildlife had been observed.

Laurie Pushor:  …We have had no test results that suggest any of those compounds have left Waterbody Three.

Brandi Morin:  Chief Adam doesn’t buy that, and he’s not alone.

Francis Scarpaleggia:  The lake, which feeds into a tributary of the Firebag River, also contains naphthenic acids, which are formed from the breakdown of petrochemicals, et cetera.

Heather McPherson:  You are finding toxins outside of the Kearl site, there is an impacted area, and you are continuing to allow Imperial Oil to put tailings into that system.

Brandi Morin:  Chief Adam says his band is preparing a lawsuit against the company in the provincial and federal governments.

Chief Allan Adam:  Regardless of what government forms, or what government’s in place, when your back is up against a circle of a wall, try to find the curve, and I’ll put you there. But right now, that’s where they’re at, and there’s nowhere for them to go.

From ACFN’s point of view, how the justice scale goes, we will find out, because that’s where we’re going. And this is going to court.

Brandi Morin:  Is there a lawsuit launched, or —

Chief Allan Adam:  It’s going to happen, yeah. And it’s not going to look good for anybody, and it’s not going to look good for Canada, and it’s not going to look good for Alberta. But Alberta will fight. But Canada will buckle. And we can’t allow our water to be tainted.

Brandi Morin:  Chief Adam has been fighting this fight for decades. He’s been ACFN’s elected chief for almost 16 consecutive years, and he became internationally recognized for speaking out about the adverse impacts of the oil sands.

Chief Allan Adam:  Climate change has affected our people in more ways than one, with the depletion of our water, the drying up of our ecosystem in regards to one of the largest freshwater deltas in the world.

Brandi Morin:  Celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Neil Young, Jane Fonda, James Cameron, Desmond Tutu, and Greta Thunberg have visited Fort Chipewyan to help amplify the concerns.

Greta Thunberg:  Yeah, we continue the struggle, and yeah, we won’t give up.

Chief Allan Adam:  And neither will we.

Brandi Morin:  Then, in 2018, chief Adam announced he wanted to either buy a stake in Canada’s federally-owned Trans Mountain pipeline, or partner to build another future line.

Chief Allan Adam:  We want to be owners of a pipeline. We think that the pipeline is the most critical component to the oil and gas sector, especially from this region, and if Fort McMurray and Alberta wants to survive, the Athabasca Tribal Council has to be alongside both Alberta and Canada to make it run.

Brandi Morin:  He was labeled a sellout by some people, who claimed he abandoned the cause. But Adam said he couldn’t stop the oil industry, and he was tired of fighting against it, so he switched tactics to ensure his community at least receives long-overdue financial compensation.

Chief Allan Adam:  The sad scenario is that I would have loved to fight, and I still love to fight today, but there has to be a time when you have to draw the line.

Brandi Morin:  Then in 2020, Chief Adam again made international headlines when he was brutally arrested and beaten by RCMP officers in Fort McMurray for an expired license plate. Several months later, charges of resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer were dropped against him, following public backlash when footage of the incident was released [muffled shouting].

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau:  We have all now seen the shocking video of Chief Adam’s arrest, and we must get to the bottom of this.

Chief Allan Adam:  If I had my way, in five years, the RCMP should be gone from all Native reserves across the country.

Brandi Morin:  Amidst all this, the chief never gave up caring about what happens to his homelands.

Chief Allan Adam:  Regardless of what and who we say we are, we have to work together as a community to stand as one, and that’s the only way we’ll be able to survive here in this community. How you say it, [speaking Dene]?

[Speaking Dene] means, I love you. I love you. That’s what that means. [Speaking Dene], I love you with all my heart, I guess the old timers would say, back in the day.

They could be giants and walk over us and everything, but you take out their knees, they will fall. Because our treaty trumps everything. We have legal rights, we have legal position, we have legal title, and we never, ever surrendered anything.

Brandi Morin:  What about Premier Smith? Have you ever had any convos with her? Because from what I understand, she was downplaying the seriousness of these spills, and the impacts, and she’s very, very pro-industry.

Premier Danielle Smith:  Nobody wants to feel like they have potentially been drinking water that has been exposed, and I’m pleased to report that none of this spill got into the tributaries.

Chief Allan Adam:  She hasn’t answered my text message that I sent to her when she was running for the Premier’s office and everything, and until today, she hasn’t answered my text. But I know she’s got it, because I have her cell number that goes right to the Premier’s office.

Brandi Morin:  What did you say in the text?

Chief Allan Adam:  I just told her straight out, ‘You want to continue this to go on? Well, then, give us 10% of all revenue sharing within Treaty Eight territory. That’s within a fair reason, and you don’t even have to back pay us. Just pay us up today.’ When times like this are happening, where homes are being destroyed by wildfire and everything and stuff like that because of climate change of development and everything. I raised the alarm years ago when I said that one day we’ll become environmental refugees. Where are we now?

Brandi Morin:  Chief Adam is growing frustrated with the encroaching threats to his community, threats that he believes are linked to industrial development. Like a wildfire that forced the entire community of Fort Chipewyan to be evacuated in May.

Premier Danielle Smith:  The fire danger level remains extreme in the North.

Speaker 8:  Smoke is seen billowing over the horizon as an out-of-control wildfire inches closer to the community. Residents of Fort Chipewyan forced to evacuate.

Speaker 9:  There are only two ways out of Fort Chipewyan: the first by plane. The Canadian Armed forces provided a Hercules aircraft and a convoy of flights took more than 500 people to nearby Fort McMurray. The second way out, by boat. Volunteers shuttled residents late into the night to hotel rooms once they got to safety.

Chief Allan Adam:  I’m Chief Allan Adam, and it’s 4:34. This is the last of the evacuees, and as you see in the background, we got the fire burning. We’re going to stay behind, and we’re going to help protect the community in ways that we can. Don’t worry. Don’t worry about anything. We got this. You guys take care.

Brandi Morin:  The CEO of Imperial Oil apologized for the toxic spills to Canadian lawmakers in Ottawa last April.

Brad Corson:  I am deeply apologetic for what has happened at Kearl. We are committed to correcting this situation and ensuring it does not happen again.

Brandi Morin:  The president of the AER also issued an apology.

Laurie Pushor:  It is clear that neither Imperial nor the AER met community expectations to ensure they’re fully aware of what is and what was happening, and for that, I am truly sorry.

Brandi Morin:  [Drum beating] But the damage is done, and Chief Adam has lost trust in all stakeholders involved.

Chief Allan Adam:  When you look at your grandchildren and everything, and you say, ‘Is that my legacy that’s going to continue to happen?’ And yet, we’re watching our own grandchildren, our own kids, pass away with diseases of cancer and everything, and we can’t do nothing.

15 years ago and everything, when we first brought it out to the public about what was going on here, just because nobody talks about it? It’s still going on, it’s still happening. People are still being diagnosed with cancer, but we live it because it’s our normal.

Brandi Morin:  Back in April, when Chief Adam testified in Ottawa, he learned his father-in-law had been diagnosed with liver cancer.

Chief Allan Adam:  My father-in-law today is going to get his results back. Because they found a big growth in his liver last week, of cancer. And I’m supposed to be with my wife, to be with her, to comfort her when she hears this news. But I’m here giving testimony to all of everybody across Canada about the issue, about what’s going on in our community.

Brandi Morin:  I watched when you were testifying to the Environmental Committee in Ottawa, you were talking about the cancers, and you said, nobody ever brings this up anymore. And you said, my own father-in-law is being tested.

Chief Allan Adam:  Well, we got the results back then. But yesterday, because my wife don’t fly, and the water being low—because BC Hydro Site C is filling up right now and reducing our water level—we have a hard time traveling. My wife has to make a decision now, because yesterday, the doctor told us, ‘Expect one month to one year.’

Brandi Morin:  Chief Adam is familiar with the pain of losing loved ones, including his own father, to cancer.

Chief Allan Adam:  I went through that moment, and my dad went through this process. I had to make a decision as a Chief back then. What do I do? Do I run the Nation, or do I step aside? I stepped aside for six months and spent time with my dad.

Everything inside, everything that’s here, will affect people, regardless of what. And my father-in-law lived off the land all his life. He still goes out in the bush today. He’s 88 years old. He just came back yesterday from the bush. Can’t stop him. His love for the land is who he is. And like I said, it all connects together, everything connects. The water, the land, and the people.

[Drumming and singing]

Water’s everything, water’s life. It gives life to everything that we thrive on, everything that we believe the Creator gave to us.

When we were young, when we were growing up, when my mother and dad took us out in the land, we didn’t have a deep freeze, but our deep freeze was right here, and it was fresh. Within the year, I probably take, probably about, maybe four fish. And yet, fish is the healthiest thing that you could eat.

Brandi Morin:  How has your community, the people here, how have they responded to the news of the tailing spills? Are they scared?

Chief Allan Adam:  Yeah, we’re scared. Well, I’ll say that for a fact.

Brandi Morin:  How do you [crosstalk]?

Chief Allan Adam:  My name is Allan Adam. I’m the chief of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation. When it comes to the water issue, I am very scared, because it has never been resolved, and it has never been talked about ever since we raised the issue. But it’s still there. The innocent killer. Looks so beautiful, but yet, it’s a killer.

Well, good afternoon, everyone. I just want to pass on a message. My wife lost her father today.

Brandi Morin:  Dr. John O’Connor, who worked as a physician in Fort Chipewyan for nearly 16 years, alerted officials years ago about the disproportionately high rates of both rare and common cancers among community members.

Dr. John O’Connor:  Within the first couple of years, it was sort of plain to me that this community of 1,200 people, had a lot of illness. And then, as I got to know the community more, and trust was established, it dawned on me. It was quite a shock.

Cancer and autoimmune diseases, of a type and number that I really wasn’t seeing in my large practice in Fort McMurray. They hunt, they trapped, and gathered. They were very well established, very self-contained and contented. This made it all the more sort of alarming for me.

As the years went by, it dawned on me that this was probably preconceived. I thought this was something that was already in the vocabulary, in their lexicon, and I just happened to touch a raw nerve with them, because there was no undue alarm. The facts were there for all to see, documented. And not just by me, by the Provincial Health Authority. They were obviously hiding something. They were protecting Big Oil, Big Fossil.

Brandi Morin:  Yeah. When you learned of this big leak that Imperial Oil had covered up for nine months, and then this huge leak that it had earlier this year, and then Suncor a month later, what did you think when you learned that?

Dr. John O’Connor:  My first thought when I heard about these leaks that weren’t reported or were covered up was, ‘Who’d be surprised at this?’ It set me thinking and looking back to the late ’90s. Back then, they had public hearings. And at one of them, Suncor admitted that their oldest pond had been leaking at an alarming rate, for years, directly into the water table.

There are carcinogenic chemicals in these tailings ponds that, individually, are Class One carcinogens for humans and animals. There are chemicals science is unsure of the impact of when they’re mixed, the soup that’s created by these tailings ponds. There’s also, even more alarming, endocrine disruptors that are leaching directly into the environment, into the water, that are impacting fish. And, of course, fish [are] a staple diet in Fort Chip. And, of course, these fish are being caught with missing parts and growths and stuff.

Brandi Morin:  What do you think about children being diagnosed with cancer? You hear of adults and things being diagnosed, but when it’s kids, it’s like, wow.

Dr. John O’Connor:  Cancer in children in a setting like that, Brandi, represents the canary in the mine. The other health issues that are in Fort Chip are red flags. Children getting cancer should be a siren. It should be a four-alarm fire siren. And I don’t hear any concern being expressed by anyone in a position of authority, either federally or provincially.

Brandi Morin:  Do you think that that is to protect the interests of industry?

Dr. John O’Connor:  I think industry is untouchable. It owns this province, controls everything.

Calvin Waquan:  I see this lake as something that teaches me a lot of lessons. It’s my fridge, it’s my classroom, it’s my history book. It’s my solitude.

Brandi Morin:  Mikisew Cree member Calvin Waquan utilizes Lake Athabasca and its river systems on a regular basis. Calvin moved home to Fort Chipewyan after his father was murdered in Edmonton in 2014, because he wanted to reconnect with his ancestral homeland.

Calvin Waquan:  You see the beauty of our community, but that all comes with a cost. And it all comes with the thought of being sick one day.

Brandi Morin:  And even kids are getting cancer?

Calvin Waquan:  Oh yeah, for sure. My son had two friends who recently had cancer, and the same age, 10 years old.

Brandi Morin:  From here?

Calvin Waquan:  From here, yeah, and people recently dying of cancers. And that scares me. It scares my wife.

Brandi Morin:  The rates are incredibly high because of how small this community is.

Calvin Waquan:  It is. It’s astronomical. When someone like Dr. O’Connor or somebody blows the whistle, they get threatened to take their job away, or to silence them because of the almighty dollar, but where’s our share? Where’s the royalties? Where’s something that’s going to create sustainability, something that’s going to create sovereignty for our people?

My wife wanted to move away from here, and me not wanting to be here anymore, but I want to be here with my people and with my granny, and beside my father that I buried nine and a half years ago. Yeah, I could see him out my backyard in my window.

But it’s getting to a point where I don’t know if I want to stick around because young guys like me are dying from cancers, and older people are passing away, and it’s sad to see. And is it the meat? Is it the fish? Is it the air? Is it the plants? It’s everything. It’s the medicines. It’s everything—everything that we trusted in before we are guessing at now. When I’m burying my papa and my uncle and cousins and seeing other people die from rare cancers, bile duct cancers, you can’t tell me there’s something not wrong here.

Brandi Morin:  Does it bother you when you’re out here and you’re trying to enjoy that, and you’re thinking, well, it’s being poisoned?

Calvin Waquan:  Yeah, it gets me sometimes, I guess, when I’m seeing the slicks in different bays and coves. And it shouldn’t be on our minds to second guess if we’re going to eat the fish out of the water.

Brandi Morin:  After he learned of the Kearl tailing spill, Calvin showed up to a town hall held by Imperial Oil holding a water bottle tainted with motor oil and presented it to Jamie Long, Imperial Oil’s vice president of mining.

Calvin Waquan:  Now my kids that are in the back have to live with this for the next generation to come. You know what? I was going to pour this all over the projector so it would leak down the screen. That screen and that lens that I was going to pour the oil on? That fits our traditional way of life, and how you’ve tarnished it. No thanks [applause].

I was pretty riled up, as you can see. And I walked in there pretty calm, and I just told them how I felt, and I guess how my ancestors have been trying to tell people from the beginning. Just like my granny and my kôkom [grandma], Mary Rose said, enough is enough, and I just had enough. I saw my little girl there, my boy. Once industry is affecting the serenity of that and the beauty of this water and these lands, I’m going to stand up and be a warrior for my people today and tomorrow, and for every day to come.

Brandi Morin:  It’s just heartbreaking, though, at the same time.

Calvin Waquan:  Yup.

Brandi Morin:  My God, this is your traditional land. Chief Adam has told me more than once that you’ll be climate refugees.

Calvin Waquan:  Yeah, we will. Yeah. We’re going to lose the way that our ancestors left for us. And they meant for us to walk on the land and the water farther than they did, but not to this extent, to move away from home.

Brandi Morin:  Tân’si [hello]. Hi, Ian.

Ian Peace:  Tân’si [hello].

Brandi Morin:  Ian Peace, an environmental scientist who lived and worked in northern Alberta, including Fort Chipewyan for several years, wrote a thesis about leaking tailings in the oil sands in 2019.

Ian Peace:  We found results from the experiment that we did that would suggest there was process-affected water making its way from the tails impoundment area down to the river. It’s pretty widely agreed that naphthenic acids are the main toxicant of concern. And I did a little bit of number crunching on this, and between Suncor and Syncrude, there is at least 200,000 kilograms per day of naphthenic acids being discharged to tailing ponds. And that is a substance that’s been shown to kill fish in concentrations as low as 20 milligrams per liter.

So here goes all those tailings into the tailings pond, and most of the water drained out the bottom, leaving behind the sludge accumulation. The main contaminant is naphthenic acids, the one that everybody agrees is the biggest concern. It’s expressing to the river in almost the same amounts that are already dissolved into the tailings water.

Brandi Morin:  Do you think that the Alberta government and industry, do you think that they downplay the impacts, specifically, I guess, on the river, and with these leaking tailings?

Ian Peace:  Yeah. Yeah, I think that that’s very clear. You can see that it’s downplayed tactically and strategically. There’s no doubt. They don’t look for a number of compounds, and they don’t look in the areas where they might find it. And it’s been an effective strategy.

Brandi Morin:  There’s a big void when it comes to the knowledge of the combination of the chemicals in tailings, and how those chemicals affect human health.

Mandy Olsgard:  Hello?

Brandi Morin:  Tân’si [hello], Mandy, this is Brandi. How are you?

Mandy Olsgard:  Hi, I am good. Just got a little delayed on my drive, so sorry. I’m going to be in my car.

Brandi Morin:  No, it’s no problem.

Mandy Olsgard is an environmental toxicologist. She studies how chemicals affect people and the environment. She’s worked to assess water contamination for the AER and various First Nation communities throughout her career, including Fort Chipewyan.

Mandy Olsgard:  When they do an assessment so that they can approve an oil sands mine, they assess the risks to human health. There is then no regulatory body that is responsible for community or human health once that project is approved. We only manage human health through the environment —

Brandi Morin:  Wow.

Mandy Olsgard:  …And environmental quality monitoring. So there’s this gap between what we predicted as a risk to human or Indigenous community health, and then how we monitor that during the life of a project. So it’s not shocking that communities are bringing these concerns forward, whether it’s odors from air emissions, deposition of dust, changes to wildlife and plants.

Brandi Morin:  The issue at hand is proving whether the higher rates of cancer are linked to the oil sands. The provincial and federal governments have said multiple water tests they conducted found no evidence of contamination of waterways near the Kearl mine.

Laurie Pushor:  There has been no evidence presented that this reached the waterway.

Brandi Morin:  But the ACFN, the Mikisew Cree, and Meti governments in Fort Chipewyan don’t trust those findings. So they’ve been conducting their own tests at their water treatment plant. Yet, Mandy said those standard water inspections are inadequate because tests for certain chemicals are not conducted.

Mandy Olsgard:  But we’ve never really linked that to how it changed human health and the condition of human health. There’s studies that have shown chemical concentrations are elevated. So that’s why when people come at anyone and say, ‘Oh, but we’re cleaning up the world’s largest oil spill,’ that’s all bunk.

So they’re not. They process the oil sands, and they release different types of chemicals, different forms of those chemicals, and sometimes novel chemicals. They have introduced polyacrylamide and acrylamide into the environment there as use for flocculants in tailings ponds, for things that make the tailings come together and sink to the bottom to clarify the water cap.

Brandi Morin:  Wow.

Mandy Olsgard:  So there’s novel chemicals, there’s increased concentrations. They change the oxidation state of metals — and that’s important, because how bioavailable, how easily a human can absorb something, depends on the oxidation state. So when people are saying, ‘This was natural,’ no, it’s not.

Brandi Morin:  Tar does naturally exist along the Athabasca’s rivers, banks, and tributaries. Its black goo seeping from the shores, has been recorded by local Indigenous tribes for millennia, and as early as the 1700s by settler explorers. But the naturally-occurring tar isn’t what these issues are about.

Mandy Olsgard:  Development changed it fundamentally, and that’s what we need to focus on. Did it change it to the point enough that it’s affected human health? Those increased rates of cancer, mental health? That’s all in there. But I’ve never seen Alberta Health or the provincial government do anything for communities based on that report, or try and figure out why.

Brandi Morin:  I don’t even trust them. Look at what the AER has done, and…

Mandy Olsgard:  I know. I worked there. I don’t anymore. I get it.

Margo Vermillion:  [Singing].

Brandi Morin:  Marco Vermilion is a Dene Cree elder who grew up in Fort Chipewyan. She was shattered to learn of the tailing spills.

Margo Vermillion:  When I heard, actually, about the oil spill, my heart was so sore. When I was little, I used to come down to the waters with pails of water to bring home to drink. It was clean water back then. Everything was so much more healthier.

Today, you look at our water, and it’s sad. You can feel the sadness from them. You can feel that they’re crying for… Sorry, I just get so emotional, because I really believe that our waters are crying for us to help them, like everything else. Everything else that’s connected to the waters, it’s our plants and our trees and our insects. They’re also crying.

I went down to the lake, and as I was walking down the shore, what a beautiful eagle feather that I had found, on my birthday—I was gifted with a feather. Then I thought, well, I’m just going to walk over the hill, so I walked over the hill. Brandi, you wouldn’t believe… You could almost feel that the trees and the plants were in mourning. They were mourning because of the burnt, them being burnt, right?

And I sang for them. I sang, because I really felt their sadness too. So I felt their sadness of the destruction that’s happening to our earth. I think that, you know what? Again, it’s men, it’s human beings that are making all of this destruction happen.

[Drumming and singing] I don’t have no faith whatsoever in industry. How can we in the community have faith in them? They’ve broken promises, their words mean nothing. If they came and they decided to live here in the community and to be amongst us, to experience what it is that we experience, maybe I’ll listen to them.

Brandi Morin:  Exactly. But they were already covering up that spill for months or more before. They didn’t even tell you.

Margo Vermillion:  Yeah, and they didn’t say a word to the community. I don’t know anymore. I mean, you know what? When they investigate their own self like that, nothing really happens. We don’t need scientists to tell us. We have the proof here. We have our elders that talk about the changes that they see. That’s our scientists. But now, today, nowadays, if you don’t have your papers in being a scientist, nothing else is true, right?

Brandi Morin:  Meanwhile, Chief Adam isn’t convinced Imperial Oil has fully contained the Kearl mine leak, and the AER absolved itself of any wrongdoing when it released its report of its internal investigation into the spills in late September. Now, Chief Adam is determined to keep the pressure on industry, the AER, and governments to ensure they rectify their shortfalls.

Chief Allan Adam:  This is a wakeup call for Canada, and this is a wakeup call for Alberta. And this is a downfall for the AER, because they failed to uphold the protection of this community. They created a big mess, and the big mess is going to be, one day, revealed in the courts, and this is where it’s all going to, regardless of… The Alberta government can’t continue to run the AER as its own, what you’d call the gunslinger of the West.

Brandi Morin:  But even the fact that the feds are even considering allowing them to release so-called “treated” tailings into the river, that is unacceptable, as well, you’ve said.

Chief Allan Adam:  It is unacceptable, and we’re not going to accept it. Turn the tap on and find out.

Brandi Morin:  Despite all this, the feds are actually considering adopting regulations for the release of so-called “treated oil sands mining wastewater” into the Athabasca River. The new regulations are expected to be finalized by 2025.

It’s so crazy, because they don’t even know how to deal with the tailings and stuff that they already have. They’re scrambling. ‘What do we do? How do we get rid of this?’ Now, they’re proposing to the government to let them release it, because they say it’s safe and treated now, into the river. They can’t even contain what they have.

It’s astonishing that in such a small, isolated community, pretty much everyone I’ve talked to here has a loved one that’s died from cancer.

Jason Pastor:  Our people don’t really die of old age no more, more of a cancer. People don’t die naturally as they used to. I can’t speak for everybody, but I know on my side of my family, I had about four or five people, my own personal loved ones, that passed away from some cancers, and that made me have mixed feelings about this area.

Brandi Morin:  Water, the life giver, the one necessity Jason and others here make sure to stock up on in bottled form when out on the territory.

Jason Pastor:  You see [inaudible], there’s a whole story I was told, you see, about water. When you’re out of supplies, you usually go home from the bush. If you go berry picking or you go in the bushes, usually, you run out of supplies, you go home. Nowadays, if you run out of water, you have no choice to go home.

Brandi Morin:  The AER declined an interview request, citing the ongoing investigation into the tailing spills. Imperial Oil did not respond to requests for an interview.

I’m Brandi Morin, reporting in the unceded territories of the Athabasca Chipewyan, Mikisew Cree, and Metis nations, for The Real News Network, IndigiNews, and Ricochet Media.

In Northern Alberta, Canada, sit the Athabasca tar sands—the world’s largest known reservoir of crude bitumen, and a major driver of Canada’s economy. The vast majority of Canadian oil production comes from extracting and processing the crude bitumen found in the tar sands. But while Canada prospers off the tar sands industry, Indigenous communities downstream are in the grips of its toxic impact. It is well documented that the people of Fort Chipewyan, in northern Alberta, have been struck by disproportionately high rates of cancer, and their proximity to the tar sands has long been the suspected dominant factor contributing to their sickness.

In a new feature documentary, “Killer Water,” award-winning journalist Brandi Morin and award-winning filmmaker/director Geordie Day delve deep into the heart of the environmental crisis plaguing the Alberta oil sands, uncovering the hidden truths that have long been ignored. The film exposes the detrimental impact of toxic tailings ponds leakage on the delicate ecosystems, water sources, and human life in and around Fort Chipewyan. Through stunning visuals and compelling narratives, viewers are taken on a journey that highlights the injustices faced by the Indigenous community living in the shadow of this industrial development.

“Killer Water” was produced in partnership with The Real News , IndigiNews, and Ricochet. The documentary and an accompanying transcript will be co-published on November 24, 2023.

Pre-Production: Brandi Morin, Geordie Day, Ethan Cox, Andrea Houston, Cara McKenna, Eden Fineday, Maximillian Alvarez, Kayla Rivara
Studio Production: Geordie Day
Post-Production: Brandi Morin, Geordie Day, Ethan Cox, Andrea Houston, Cara McKenna, Eden Fineday, Maximillian Alvarez, Kayla Rivara

Transcript

Speaker 1:  They said it’s supposed to be safe to drink, so I don’t know, would you feed your family this? I know that that’s not natural, because I’ve been on the river my whole life.

Allan Adam:  We can’t allow our water to be tainted, and this is going to court.

Speaker 2:  Official investigation into the Imperial Oil Kearl facility.

Allan Adam:  For 10 months, this leak went unreported despite the Alberta regulator and the oil sands operators being fully aware of what was going on.

Speaker 3:  They were already hiding something, acting big oil.

Allan Adam:  They can be giants and walk over us and everything, but you take out their knees, they will fall regardless of what…

Speaker 3:  Industry is untouchable. It owns, it owns this province, controls everything.

Speaker 4:  We see the beauty of our community, but that all comes with a cost.

Speaker 3:  Chemicals in these tailings ponds are class one carcinogens for humans and animals.

Speaker 5:  They don’t look for a number of compounds, don’t look in the areas where they might find it. It’s been an effective strategy.

Speaker 6:  Seeing other people die from rare cancers, bile duct cancers, you can’t tell me there’s something not wrong here.

Allan Adam:  We’re watching our own grandchildren or our own kids pass away with diseases of cancer, and we can’t do nothing.

Speaker 3:  Cancer in children represents the canary in the mine.

Speaker 7:  Those increased rates of cancer, mental health. I’ve never seen Alberta Health or the provincial government do anything for communities based on that report.

Allan Adam:  For some reason, it has become my job to remind this government of its duties and its responsibilities. The innocent killer looks so beautiful, but yet, it’s a killer.

This story was co-produced by The Real News, Ricochet Media, and IndigiNews.

Amidst the desert expanses of rural northern Nevada lies a land of striking contrasts and breathtaking beauty. 

Washed in tones of golden yellow and burnt ochre, it is rugged, serene and captivating to the senses. In this vast stretch of parched desert, with sagebrush and other hardy shrubs dotting the landscape, there’s a sense of timelessness. 

It isn’t all desert. There are also rugged mountain ranges with jagged peaks, and deep canyons that stretch regally towards endless blue skies. Their slopes are often adorned with evergreen trees, junipers and pines.

Interwoven between the mountains are numerous valleys and basins, with open vistas that seem to stretch on forever. The land is often used for agriculture and ranching, with fields of golden grasses and free-grazing livestock adding a touch of vitality to the otherwise arid surroundings.

Water is a precious resource in this region, and rivers and lakes play an important role in shaping the landscape.

The area is also home to wildlife including antelope, mule deer, golden eagles, ferruginous hawks, prairie falcons and numerous other bird species that nest in the cliffs. A rare desert wildflower called Crosby’s Buckwheat thrives in a valley 43 kilometres north of the small farming community of Orovada, Nevada. That valley, known to locals as Peehee Mu’huh or Thacker Pass, is the site of a controversial lithium mining development owned by a Canadian mining company.

Drilling our way to freedom from fossil fuels

Lithium Americas Corporation, based in Vancouver, is constructing the mine on the largest known lithium deposit in the world. The lithium sits in the basin of an ancient, and extinct, super volcano named the McDermitt Caldera, which was formed more than 16 million years ago. The mine will stretch to nearly 2,400 hectares and dig an open pit to a depth of 120 metres — approximately the width of eight football fields, and the length of six aircraft carriers (or 37 football fields). The project requires tailings piles and processing facilities, including a sulfur plant. The sulfur (waste from oil refineries) will be trucked in by the ton and burned every day at the mine site over its expected 41 years of operation.

It will also use more than 6.4 billion litres of water per year in the driest state in America.

“It’s the end game for us — as humans,” says BC Zahn-Nahtzu, a Shoshone mother and land protector from the Hungry Valley Indian reservation, about 400 kilometres south of the mine development.

Her home is painted a bright turquoise, as is a small barn nestled on the back of her property. She keeps various breeds of chickens, and is particularly fond of the space she’s curated for native and potted vegetation on her one-acre plot of land. 

She strolls through her yard, a certified wilderness protected area, gently brushing her hand on various plants, shrubs and medicines growing there. She knows each by name, even the most menial looking ones. “That’s not a weed, it’s curly(cup) gumweed. It’s pure medicine, it helps open up your lungs.”

In another spot, a plant growing out of her front concrete curb is a traditional food her Shoshone ancestors once used for sustenance, Indian rice grass. “These seeds are really high in nutrients… and that’s the thing about Thacker Pass…”

She stops and chokes up with emotion as she describes her deep connection to the territories of her ancestors who once thrived there. And the prospect of it being flattened for extraction. 

“It’s just the wrong thing to do to the animals, to the plants, to the Earth,” Zahn-Nahtzu says. “And again, we just keep tearing up the planet. Whether it be, you know, other types of mining or logging and oil extraction, fracking. It’s not a solution. It’s just a ‘for now’ fix. It’s short sighted.”

She’s speaking to the world’s rush to transition off fossil fuels to “greener” alternatives such as electric vehicles, whose batteries need lithium, as the “for now” fix to the threats of climate change and pollution. 

The Thacker Pass mine was fast-tracked by the Trump administration, just before he left office. And President Biden has since given it his full support. 

A Biden Administration statement titled “Securing a Made in America Supply Chain for Critical Minerals” reads, in part: “Critical minerals provide the building blocks for many modern technologies and are essential to our national security and economic prosperity … The U.S. is increasingly dependent on foreign sources for many of the processed versions of these minerals. Globally, China controls most of the market for processing and refining for cobalt, lithium, rare earths and other critical minerals.”

General Motors is the main investor in the Thacker Pass mine, financing USD $650 million of the cost of the project, which holds enough battery metal to build one million electric vehicles per year. 

However, for more than two years, several local tribes and environmental organizations have tried to block or delay the mine via litigation and protests. In June, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal ruled that the U.S. government did not violate federal environmental laws when it approved the mine. 

But, to Zahn-Nahtzu, the mine will desecrate the spiritual connection she has with her traditional territories. And she’s spoken out to protect it during protests at the mine site. Now, Lithium Americas is suing her and six other land and water protectors in civil court, with claims ranging from civil conspiracy to trespassing, and tortious interference. 

The suit seeks to ban all seven from the mining area, and seeks financial compensation for their actions. 

“I don’t even remember (exactly what I’m charged with). Civil something? Trespassing? And something about disobedience? I don’t know. I didn’t really read the papers. I just threw them in a drawer,” shrugs Zahn-Nahtzu while smelling fresh sage she picked from a hill next to her house. 

She says she wanted her dissent against the project to be put on the record, for her children and grandchildren.

“Because it’ll all just be an open pit. And that’s our ancestral homeland. That’s our bones and our blood, deep, deep in the soil. I can almost see what’s really there just on the other side of the spiritual curtain when I’m there. You can feel them (ancestors) out there with you and to be looking at the same stars and seeing the same moon and knowing that my kids’ kids will never see those stars from that same place,” she says. 

“Honestly, I don’t think we’re going to be able to stop them.”

The Native tribes call Thacker Pass by its Paiute name: Peehee Mu’huh, meaning “rotten moon” in English. The name stems from a massacre that happened there before contact in a crescent-shaped area of the valley. Elders have since passed down the tale of the bloody killings of 31 Paiute men, women and children by an enemy tribe. They say attackers gutted the insides of the dead and threw them onto the sagebrush. When the bodies were discovered by Paiute men who had been away hunting, the stench of the rotting flesh was so strong they named the spot “rotten moon.” 

“It was a really rugged time,” says Paiute Elder Dean Barlese at his home on the Pyramid Lake Reservation, about 45 minutes north of Reno, Nevada. 

The era of colonial massacres began not long after. 

“The soldiers would butcher them (Natives), too. And to save bullets, a lot of times they would … take the young people and bash them in the back of their heads, and so on. And I know this because our oral history says this is how the military treated our people. To save bullets, they would grab the little kids and swing them around and hit the back of their head on the juniper trees.”

The massacre sites up there are endless, he goes on to explain, pushing back long brown hair speckled with grey that he has tied back in a low ponytail. He clutches a large, custom-made circular beaded medallion with lined details of rose, white, black, red and blue that hangs around his neck. 

“They fought hard against the military because they didn’t want to lose their land. The government wanted to get rid of the Paiute people. So, they massacred them wherever they found them. It was a five-year war. Snake war, they called it.”

Barlese is seated in a wheelchair in his air-conditioned living room. His right foot was amputated two years ago due to complications with diabetes, and he travels twice a week to receive dialysis. 

But those medical challenges didn’t stop him from being on the frontlines of the fight to protect Peehee Mu’huh and its sacred sites. In May and June, Barlese parked his wheelchair in the path of pipelines Lithium Americas was laying down to transport water to the mine site. He painted his face red for protection and built a ceremonial fire that burned cedar and sage. Then he held his sacred pipe, while thinking of his ancestors who died there. Barlese’s great-great grandfather lived at Peehee Mu’huh before being forced to move further south. 

“I’m standing there because our ancestors are there. We’ve got to defend them. We’ve got to protect them.”

Barlese said he stayed with other land and water protectors at a resistance camp they built there called Ox Sam, named after one of the only survivors of another massacre that happened near the sacred Sentinel Rock at the eastern end of Peehee Mu’huh. 

“And I sang songs and prayed.” he stops to lean in as a grin forms across his face. “And then these little whirlwinds would come up the road towards the security camp where they were standing. And we knew our ancestors were there — they showed themselves. And we were laughing, but the big ole one came and torpedoed. The security guards scattered. And (I thought) our people must be upset about this. Because we still have that belief that our spirit … the whirlwinds that come around, they are (ancestors) come to check on us.”

He’s also facing charges pursued by Lithium Americas, including civil conspiracy, trespassing and tortious interference. But he says he has no regrets. He burned the court papers in a ceremonial fire in his backyard. 

“Now they’re restraining us from prayer up there. We’re still in the Indian wars, not only here but everywhere. And I’d give my life, like my grandpa did, like the old people did, to protect this place.”

Police raids, lawsuits and intimidation

In rural Northern Nevada, a number of small towns and communities — each with its own unique character and charm — serve as gateways to the wilderness, offering a sense of respite and connection to the land.

Several hundred kilometers north of Barlese at the Fort McDermitt Indian Reservation, Dorece Sam ponders the 1865 massacre near Sentinel Rock at Peehee Mu’huh. Her great-great grandfather, Ox Sam, was one of the only survivors of the attack when he hopped on a horse to escape. She knew of the other massacre in the valley, in which the victims were murdered by the enemy tribe and their insides strung out on the sagebrush. But she only learned she is a direct descendant of the Sentinel Rock massacre in recent years. 

“We came to find out that our family was massacred, but we were there (at Peehee Mu’huh) because we want to protect the land,” she says from her home on the reservation.

She also can feel her ancestors there and doesn’t want their burial grounds to be ravaged by the mine development. 

 ”For somebody that’s connected to Mother Earth, you know, that can feel things, like me — I can feel things out there. I was up in prayer at Sentinel Rock, I heard an old man singing there, an old, old man. And I laid there and I tried to listen to see if I can identify the song or hear any words in there that I could understand.” 

For more than a month, Sam stood guard with her eagle staff (a sacred ceremonial pole), and conducted prayers in the path of Lithium America’s water pipeline construction line. 

Then in early June, the local sheriff’s department raided the Ox Sam camp, tore down the teepee and confiscated ceremonial items. 

Just weeks later, Sam learned she was named in the civil lawsuit filed by Lithium Americas, and was served with a Temporary Protection Order (TPO), banning her from visiting the construction area.  

“At first, I think I got scared because I’ve never been to court like this before, but then, you know, I just kept on praying, kept on smudging,” she says. 

“Now, I just believe that they’re just a waste of paper. So, I’m like, let Creator take care of it. I built a fire outside of my home, and I threw all the paperworks,  the TPO, and the lawsuit, everything — I burnt it in the fire.” 

She adds Lithium Americas warned her not to post about the Thacker Pass mine development on her social media accounts while litigation is going on. 

“I think they’re (Lithium Americas) doing it to try to hush us up because I know in the TPO they asked that we not post about them or anything on social media and they’re just trying to silence us. And by doing that they are violating our religious freedom by not allowing us to go up there.”

The soft-spoken mother adjusts her glasses and points to several tribal tattoos on her forearms, a testament to her connection to her culture. American Indian Movement posters adorn her walls, along with a painting of Peehee Mu’huh by her young niece that hangs over the TV in the living room. 

Her children and grandchildren know about their mother’s work protecting Peehee Mu’huh. They also know she’s facing charges for doing so. But she explains the importance of standing up for their rights and the rights of Mother Earth. 

“I said (to them) all these things that people are doing with mining and stuff like that, it makes Mother Earth heavy and she’s hurting and she’s tired,” Sam explains. “And I was telling them that every time she goes to take a deep breath, that’s when the Earth shakes. The Earth moves. She’s crying and she’s just tired of all this mining.”

The Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe signed a Community Benefits Agreement with Lithium Americas in 2022. It’s the closest reservation to the mine site, approximately 64 kilometres away, and also the poorest in the region.

Lithium Americas says the support for the project stems from the tribe’s desire to gain economic benefits. Tim Crowley, Vice President of Government Affairs and Community Relations for Lithium Nevada, declined an interview, and instead sent a statement attributed to company CEO Jonathan Evans.  

“We are pleased to have the support of the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe as we advance Thacker Pass and look forward to generations of future collaboration,” Evans states, going on to wax poetic over their community benefit agreement with the Fort McDermitt Tribe, their track record of collaboration with communities and the importance of developing a “North American battery supply chain.”

Attempts were made to reach Fort McDermitt leadership for comment on several occasions but we did not receive a response. 

Sam says her community was not fully consulted and that the agreement was hastily signed by leadership during COVID-19 lockdowns. 

“They (leadership) didn’t notify the people. They didn’t tell anybody what was going on. And so now we have our current chairman, his name is Arlo Crutcher. And he’s totally for this mine. He is just ignoring everybody and everything.” 

Crowley, with Lithium Nevada, did provide background information claiming the Fort McDermitt tribe “rejects” that there were battles at Peehee Mu’huh. 

“Tribal Elder Alana Crutcher was interviewed,” Crowley wrote. Alana was born and raised at the nearby Fort McDermitt reservation. She said she had, “never heard of a massacre.” She stated that Peehee Mu’huh “…is not the name of that mountain. That’s not the name of that place.”

According to Crowley, she told Wood that, “…she had never heard of this land being called rotten moon. She says she thinks the tribe is actually being used as a prop that could stop a project that could help her people.”  Alana went on to say, “I’m not going to say that they are liars. But where they got their information, I don’t know. We are totally being misrepresented.”   

Fort McDermitt Elder Myron Smart has heard the stories of the massacres from his relatives, and re-tells them in detail. In 1865, a local rancher called in the U.S. Cavalry stationed in Winnemucca when Paiute and Shoshone begged him for food after not being able to forage over the winter months, Smart says. 

“So, they (the cavalry) came up there and they ran all the Indian people out of there,” he says.

“They came over the Santa Rosas (mountains) and then they ended up here where Thacker Pass is and over there by Sentinel Rock. And when the soldiers finally came over the mountain, it was already late in the evening…maybe about 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning, they just started to shoot everybody. They massacred a whole village there.” 

Michon Eben of Reno-Sparks Indian Colony (RSIC) Tribal Historic Preservation Office Cultural Resources Program also refutes the claim by the company and the Fort McDermitt tribe that massacres didn’t happen at Peehee Mu’huh. She says the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) left out evidence listed in its own historical documents about the 1865 massacre when approving the mine. 

That massacre site was recorded by U.S. Deputy Surveyor Abed Alley Palmer in 1968.

“I found the remains of an extensive Indian Camp,” wrote Palmer in his journal. The same camp where the 1st Nevada Cavalry ambushed, chased down, and massacred a camp of Paiute people.

“There are many Indian skulls and other remains to be found scattered over this portion of the Township. I found some also opposite here on the east side of the River,” Palmer continued.

The RSIC is well-versed on the impacts of mining. The Tribe’s Hungry Valley land base was threatened by a proposed mining operation of clay for cat litter in the 1990s, however the tribe and other Reno-area groups were successful in stopping the project. 

Eben and RSIC THPO staff developed the “Wounded Souls: Extracting from the Land and Our Spirits,” exhibit which includes historic mining equipment, artifacts produced from the Comstock Lode silver mine, historical documents, oral histories and information about the discriminatory 1872 Mining Law and impacts of mining on Indigenous culture. 

A section of the exhibit is dedicated to the ongoing fight to stop the Thacker Pass lithium mine. 

RSIC along with Burns Paiute Tribe were plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management over lack of consultation on the mine project. After a judge ruled largely in favour of Lithium Americas in February, the tribe filed a new lawsuit along with Burns Paiute and the Summit Lake Paiute Tribe. 

“Why wasn’t the massacre mentioned in the historic properties treatment plan?” asks a fired-up Eben, from her office at the RSIC.

“Why weren’t these massacres mentioned in the record of decision? Why wasn’t it mentioned in the Environmental Impact Statement? Why wasn’t it mentioned in the cultural resources inventory? We had to bring it up. It was in BLM’s own documents. It’s junk science — they didn’t do their complete analysis and left this out. It’s a cover up. It’s been a cover up and they’re closing their eyes to it.”

She is not impressed by Lithium Americas denial of the massacre sites. 

“Lithium Nevada’s corporate attorney is implying that the tribes are lying about the sacredness of Peehee Mu’huh, calling these sacred sites the ‘allegedly sacred areas of Thacker Pass.’ This is not ‘allegedly.’ This is not lying. Our dead are treated less than — that’s why nobody cares that there’s unmarked burial grounds.”

The skies above rural Northern Nevada are vast and seemingly infinite. With minimal light pollution, the region is known for its clear and star-filled nights, offering breathtaking views of the celestial wonders above. The changing colours of the sky during sunrise and sunset paint a vivid canvas, casting a warm glow over the land and enhancing its natural beauty.

To the Native tribes, the rugged landscape is not just a backdrop, but a living testament to the resilience and beauty of nature, their histories, and traditions. 

And RSIC is not only worried about having their sacred site desecrated, but they’re also upset about potential environmental damage, explains Eben. 

“It’s (the mine) going to be 400 feet deep. You cannot destroy ecosystems, a natural habitat of the sage grouse. You cannot take gallons and gallons of water in the driest region and tell us that that’s good for electric vehicles? You still have to plug into the grid. It’s still a part of fossil fuels.”

 Missing and murdered Indigenous women

The prospect of man camps is also a concern for many local Indigenous people, who noted the potential impacts on Indigenous women and girls of the coming Lithium Americas housing units for mine construction workers. 

“What’s really scary is if you’re bringing in a man camp and you’re placing that on public land, and you’re disturbing the land, then you need to be doing a study as to where that man camp is going. That didn’t happen in the impact statement,” Eben says. 

“They’re bringing in 1000 men — you’re not going to hire 1000 men locally. You have to bring them in from other places. Those men are usually young men, they bring in illegal drug activities. And this is where the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples come in.  Just the 30 to 40 miners that are out there now working, we’ve heard they’re coming into the local stores and asking them ‘where’s all the pretty girls?’”

Recently, Michon has had concerns about her own safety. Several weeks ago, she was visiting with Elders who oppose the Thacker Pass mine in the Fort McDermitt Paiute Shoshone reservation. After driving the 3.5-hours to her office in RSIC the next morning, and parking in her spot outside her office, she heard a helicopter nearby. 

“I wasn’t paying attention. I heard a helicopter, but I’m used to them because of the medical centre here … I look and here comes a helicopter coming straight up at me, just above the power poles and it comes right here — the door was open, and I could see someone going click, click, click. I could see the flash of the light. And I realised they were taking pictures of me. I grabbed the phone and caught the last of them heading out.”

“I kinda got scared and then I got mad. And I went in and I burned my medicine and then I thought ‘little old me?’ Who am I? How come people gotta take a picture of me? What gives anybody the right? But then, I do know the president and the Department of the Interior, they do want this mine because they think it’s the answer to combat fossil fuels. They’re trying to stifle my voice? Well, it’s wrong.”

Eben has spoken bluntly at rallies against the mine and stresses the worldview that “greenwashing” lithium is harmful. 

“No, it’s not gonna save the world. You’re seeing movie stars advertising electric vehicles. People are getting brainwashed about electric vehicles,” she says. “They think they’re saving the earth but it’s not, they’re not seeing behind the scenes of what’s really going on with mining for lithium. You can’t mine your way out of a climate crisis. You can’t destroy the earth to save the Earth.”

Back in the Fort McDermitt reservation, Sam draws the curtains in her living room, beating back the sweltering July heat. She contemplates a message to Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, the first Native cabinet secretary in U.S. history. It would be a plea for help. 

“I would tell her ‘wake up, we need you, you’re Native American. Mother Earth should mean something to you. Wake up! We need your help.’”

She also has a strong message for the Biden Administration. 

“It’s Native Americans that’ve been here since time immemorial. It’s time for us to take our land back. Go dig somewhere else.”

As temperatures soar across the western United States, putting one third of Americans under excessive heat alerts, elders like Barlese are not surprised. It’s only going to get worse, he says, and extractive industries are exacerbating the threat to all who live on Mother Earth. 

“We have prophecies that this world’s gonna end by burning. And everything’s going on already,” he shakes his head while explaining the dire warnings his ancestors gave to him. 

“It’s accelerating fast. It’s a Paiute prophecy…before this there was a great flood, and there was a wind, and then ice and snow that destroyed the world, destroyed the humans. The last one, we’re in that time already. And our old people say, ‘this world’s gonna burn.’”

The Peehee Mu’huh mine site is being touted as the “Silicon Valley of lithium” and multiple other mining companies are lining up to cash in on the rush to produce the so-called white gold.

“Nevada is one of the USA’s most important mining states and is a canary in the coal mine for the U.S. appetite to sanction new critical mineral mines that are key to future industrial growth,” Simon Moores, founder and CEO of the U.K. mining data firm Benchmark Mineral Intelligence Ltd. told Politico’s E&E News. 

“What happens in Nevada and its lithium wealth will resonate through the U.S. for key critical minerals such as graphite, nickel, cobalt, manganese and rare earths,” he added. 

According to Protect Thacker Pass, the mine would burn around 43,000 litres of diesel fuel per day for onsite operations and nearly as much for off-site operations. Carbon emissions from the site would be more than 150,000 ton per year (during Phase 2), roughly 2.3 ton of carbon for every ton of lithium that’s produced. 

If reclamation were completed successfully, restoration of the site to its current condition would not be realized until at least 2162. 

The mainstream is too caught up in greed and consumption now, Barlese says, to save what’s left of the world. 

“Some white people, they continue to destroy. And, I think, we’ve gone beyond where we can come down,” he says. 

“They don’t see their children, their grandchildren, their great-great grandchildren. They don’t look ahead like we do. We look seven generations ahead and leave things the way they are for the future generations. But they don’t see that.”

This story was co-produced by The Real News, Ricochet Media, and IndigiNews.

In Nevada’s remote Thacker Pass, a fight for our future is playing out between local Indigenous tribes and powerful state and corporate entities hellbent on mining the lithium beneath their land. Vancouver-based Lithium Americas is developing a massive lithium mine at Thacker Pass, but for more than two years several local tribes and environmental organizations have tried to block or delay the mine in the courts and through direct action. The Thacker Pass Project is backed by the Biden administration, and companies like General Motors have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the project, looking to capitalize on the transition to a “green energy economy,” for which lithium is essential. While it is a vital component in the manufacturing of electric vehicles and batteries, though, there’s nothing “green” about mining lithium. Ending our addiction to fossil fuels is urgently necessary, but the struggle of the local tribes around Thacker Pass reveals the dark side of a “green revolution” that prioritizes profits and consumption over everything (and everyone) else.

In this feature documentary, Thacker Pass – Mining the Sacred, award-winning Cree/Iroquois/French multimedia journalist Brandi Morin and documentary filmmaker Geordie Day report on the Indigenous resisters putting their bodies and freedom on the line to stop the Thacker Pass Project. 

Thacker Pass – Mining the Sacred was co-produced by Ricochet Media, IndigiNews, and The Real News Network.

Pre-Production: Brandi Morin, Geordie Day, Ethan Cox, Andrea Houston, Cara McKenna, Eden Fineday, Maximillian Alvarez, Kayla Rivara

Studio Production: Geordie Day

Post-Production: Brandi Morin, Geordie Day, Ethan Cox, Andrea Houston, Cara McKenna, Eden Fineday, Maximillian Alvarez, Kayla Rivara

Transcript

Brandi Morin:  [Voiceover] Rugged. Serene. A vast stretch of parched desert in SoCal Northern Nevada captivates the senses. The low desert valleys are wide and expansive. I’ve been trying to get down here for over a year because this beautiful landscape is about to be gutted. One valley here contains “white gold” lithium and lots of it, the new commodity the world is racing to grab to try to save itself from the ravages of climate change. Vancouver-based Lithium Americas is developing a massive lithium mine which will operate for the next 41 years. It sits inside an extinct supervolcano basin named the McDermott Caldera, formed over 16 million years ago. The company is backed by the Biden administration and touts General Motors as its biggest investor, $650 million to be exact. But for more than two years, several local tribes and environmental organizations have tried to block or delay the mine in the courts and through direct action.

In June, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the US government did not violate federal environmental laws when it approved the mine. Soon after that ruling, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department raided and dismantled an Indigenous resistance camp named Ox Sam, forbidding land defenders and water defenders from accessing the construction area. When I showed up, construction workers immediately called security [end of voiceover].

How’s it going?

Security Guard:  Good. How are you?

Brandi Morin:  Good. I’m Brandi.

Security Guard:  You’re Brandi?

Brandi Morin:  Brandi, yes.

Security Guard:  All right, nice to meet you.

Brandi Morin:  We’re journalists. How are you?

Security Guard:  Good. From where?

Brandi Morin:  We’re actually from Canada. We’re on assignment with Ricochet Media, IndigiNews, and The Real News. So, we’re doing a story about Thacker Pass and Indigenous opposition to it. So, we wanted to come and check it out.

Security Guard:  It’s all good. Just so you know, this whole dozer path, all the way to the creek up over the hill, that is private property. But yeah –

Brandi Morin:  Oh. So, right here?

Security Guard:  – I see you’re not on it, so no, you’re fine. This is a BLM road.

Brandi Morin:  Right. So, are you here all the time, security? Do they have this because of the blockaders and stuff? Do they have security to make sure that people aren’t coming to obstruct? Or is that –

Security Guard:  I’m not sure what you’re asking.

Brandi Morin:  – Are they employing security here full-time?

Security Guard:  That’s something you could ask Lithium Americas.

Brandi Morin:  Oh, okay.

Security Guard:  I can give you their phone number.

Brandi Morin:  Okay.

[Voiceover] That same security guard followed us down the highway [end of voiceover].

We want to go to Thacker Pass.

Security Guard:  Oh, that’s it.

Brandi Morin:  Yeah. And is that more Lithium Americas construction site as well up there?

Security Guard:  Yeah.

Brandi Morin:  Okay. I might just drive up to the gate. Okay. Thanks.

Security Guard:  Thank you.

Brandi Morin:  He was totally following us, although he’s trying to act nice to tell us where the road is, but he’s following us.

[Voiceover] A lot is at stake here for the company, its investors, and a myriad of government and business interests looking to capitalize on the transition to a “green energy economy” for which lithium is essential. It is costing over $2.2 billion to build the Thacker Pass mine. But don’t let the prospect of green energy fool you, this mine will stretch to nearly 6,000 acres and dig an open pit to a depth of 400 feet. The project requires tailings piles and processing facilities, including a sulfur plant. The sulfur is, itself, a waste byproduct from oil refineries and it will be trucked in by the tons and burned every day at the mine site. The project will also use more than 1.7 billion gallons of water per year in the driest state in America.

BC Zahn-Nahtzu:  Oh hey.

It’s like the end game for us as humans, not even me as an Indigenous person. And that treaty acknowledges that two-thirds of Nevada is Shoshone land which, of course, it’s not anymore. They’ve used it for nuclear testing and they always want to do toxic waste storage and open-pit mining now. It’s the wrong thing to do to the animals, to the plants, to the Earth. We keep tearing up the planet where we live as a whole, whether it be other types of mining or logging and oil extraction, fracking; It’s all shortsighted.

Brandi Morin:  [Voiceover] She’s speaking about the rush to get off fossil fuels and transition to so-called “greener alternatives.” While ending our addiction to fossil fuels is, of course, urgently necessary, the voices of the local tribes here are getting lost in the politics of what green energy actually means. While it’s an essential component used in electric vehicles and batteries, there’s nothing green about mining lithium. Mining is mining, no matter what the resource being extracted is. It’s always going to be devastating to the environment.

BC Zahn-Nahtzu:  This helps get us through a lot of winters. Its common name is Indian rice grass. See these little seeds?

Brandi Morin:  Yeah.

BC Zahn-Nahtzu:  They’re really, really, highly nutritious. That was my whole thing with Thacker Pass: It’s like you go out there and you don’t see anything. Well, that’s because you don’t know how to look, you don’t have the right eye.

Brandi Morin:  [Voiceover] BC says the mine will desecrate the spiritual connection she has with her traditional territories. And she’s spoken out to protect it at the mine site. Now, Lithium Americas is suing her and six other land and water protectors, in civil court over allegations of civil conspiracy, trespassing, and tortious interference. The suit seeks to ban them from accessing the mining area and make them financially compensate the company [end of voiceover].

 I wanted to ask you about the charges that you’re facing. What are they? And when did you find out?

BC Zahn-Nahtzu:  Oh, man. I don’t even remember. Is it civil something? Trespassing? It’s something about disobedience. I don’t know. I didn’t read the papers. I threw them in a drawer. And to think that it’s going to be a big open-pit mine is hard. And that’s our ancestral homeland. That’s our bones and our blood; deep, deep in that soil. I can almost see what’s really there on the other side of the spiritual curtain when I’m there. But you can feel them out there with you. And to be looking at the same stars and seeing the same moon and knowing that my kids’ kids will never see those stars from that same place, honestly, I don’t think we’re going to be able to stop them. There are 500 lithium mines coming. I wanted my descent on record as an Indigenous mother.

Brandi Morin:  [Voiceover] It was gut-wrenching to hear her say that, yet inspiring. Despite the insurmountable odds, she’s still willing to put it all on the line to try and save her sacred territory.

BC Zahn-Nahtzu:  I don’t care if people don’t like me, or the corporations… Or I look like I’m [sniffles] doing nonsense. I do what I think is right. That’s all I can do.

Brandi Morin:  [Voiceover] There’s another more chilling reason the mine area is sacred. The native tribes call Thacker Pass by its Paiute name: Peehee Mu’huh, meaning “rotten moon.” The name stems from a massacre that happened there, before European contact, in a crescent-shaped area of the valley. Elders have passed down the tale of the bloody killings of Paiute men, women, and children, by an enemy tribe over generations. They say attackers gutted the dead and threw their insides onto the sagebrush. When the bodies were discovered by Paiute men who had been away hunting, the stench of the rotting flesh was so strong, that they named the spot Rotten Moon. The violence only got worse, of course, when the colonizers arrived.

Dean Barlese:  It was a really rugged time. The military came through and killed. To save bullets, a lot of times, they would take the young people and bash in the back of their heads. And I know that because our oral history says this is how the military caught our people and treated our people. They fought hard against the military. They didn’t want to lose their land. And the government, military, wanted to get rid of the Paiute people, so they massacred them wherever they found them. It was a five-year war. Snake War, they called it.

Brandi Morin:  [Voiceover] He is also facing charges from Lithium Americas.

Dean Barlese:  There you go. Go ahead and… You probably understand that better than I could. They’re restraining us from prayer, keeping us from praying up there. We’re still in the Indian wars. I made that statement before too. Our Indian wars continue, not only here, but everywhere. I sang songs but I’m standing here because our ancestors are here. We’ve got to defend them. We’ve got to protect them. And then, these little whirlwinds would come down the road, or go up the road towards the security camp where you were standing. And we knew our ancestors were there then because they showed themselves. And we were laughing. The big, old whirlwind made the security guards scatter. Our people must be upset about this because we still have that belief that our spirits are the whirlwinds that come around; They come to check on us. I’d give my life, like my grandpa did, like the old people did, to protect this place.

Dorece Sam:  When we came to find out that our family was massacred there, we were there because we wanted to protect the land.

Brandi Morin:  [Voiceover] Dorece is a direct descendant of Ox Sam: One of the only survivors of the 1865 massacre at Sentinel Rock near the mines’ waterline.

Dorece Sam:  Well, for somebody that’s connected to Mother Earth, they can feel things. Like me, myself; I can feel things out there. I was up in prayer at Sentinel Rock. I heard an old man sing, an old, old man. And I lay there and I tried to listen and listen to see if I could identify the song or hear any words in there that I could understand.

Brandi Morin:  [Voiceover] She too is facing charges for protecting her homelands.

Dorece Sam:  At first, I got scared because I’ve never been to court like this before. But then, I kept on praying, kept on smudging. And now, I believe that they’re a waste of paper. A waste of aim and waste of paper. So I am like, I’m going to let Creator take care of it. I built a fire outside of my home and I threw all the paperwork, the TPO and the lawsuit, everything, I burned it in there, in the fire.

They’re doing it to try to hush us up because I know, in the TPO, they ask that we not post about them or anything on social media. They’re trying to silence us so we don’t say anything or go out there. And by doing that, they’re violating the Religious Freedom Act; by not allowing us to go up there.

Brandi Morin:  [Voiceover] Her children and grandchildren know about their mother’s work protecting Peehee Mu’huh.

Dorece Sam:  Like I always tell my kids, the best way I can describe to them – And my grandchildren – I said all the things that people are doing with mining and stuff like that, it makes Mother Earth heavy. And she’s hurting and she’s tired. And I was telling them that every time she goes to take a deep breath, that’s when the Earth shakes. The Earth moves. And she’s crying and she’s tired of all this mining.

Brandi Morin:  [Voiceover] Her own tribe, the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone, signed a community benefits agreement with Lithium Americas in 2022. It’s the closest reservation to the mine site. It’s also the poorest in the region. Lithium Americas says the support for the project stems from the tribe’s desire to gain economic benefits.

Dorece Sam:  It’s hit with a slap lawsuit. And that’s the commitment that I made to protect this place. It’s in my heart, to protect that place. It means a lot to me.

Brandi Morin:  [Voiceover] I attempted to reach the Fort McDermott Paiute Shoshone leadership for comment on several occasions but they didn’t call me back. Dorece says her community wasn’t fully consulted.

Dorece Sam:  They didn’t notify the people. They didn’t tell anybody what was going on. And so now we have our current chairman, his name is Arlo Crutcher. He’s totally for this mine. He is ignoring everybody and everything.

Brandi Morin:  [Voiceover] Lithium Americas declined an on-the-record interview but provided background information stating the Fort McDermott Tribe rejects the claim that there were massacres at Peehee Mu’huh. Get that. The company is trying to tell the natives what their own history is but other Fort McDermott elders know the stories of the massacres.

Myron Smart:  They came over to Santa Rosas and then they ended up out here where Thacker Pass is, and over there by, I think they call that the Centennial Peak. They happened to camp out there. When the soldiers finally came over the mountain late in the evening, they massacred the whole village there. They massacred women and children.

Brandi Morin:  [Voiceover] Even though the company denies the massacre happened at Peehee Mu’huh, the Bureau of Land Management holds records of it in its archives.

Michon Eben:  Why wasn’t the massacre mentioned in the historic properties treatment plan? Why weren’t these massacres mentioned in the record of the decision? Why wasn’t it mentioned in the Environmental Impact Statement? Why wasn’t it mentioned in the cultural resources inventory? We had to bring it up. The Surveyor? That was in the Bureau of Land Management’s own documents. They didn’t even have that in any of their documents. So, when they say well, we’ve proven in court… It’s junk science. They didn’t do their complete analysis and left this out. It’s a coverup. It’s been a coverup and they’re closing their eyes to it.

Lithium Nevada’s corporation attorney has implied that the tribes are lying about the sacredness of Peehee Mu’huh, calling these sacred sites “allegedly sacred areas of Thacker Pass.” This is not “allegedly.” This is not lying. Come on. How we’re treated less than, our dead are treated less than… That’s why nobody cares that there are unmarked burial grounds because it doesn’t say “historic cemetery.”

Brandi Morin:  [Voiceover] The Reno-Sparks Indian Colony along with the Burns Paiute Tribe, were plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management, over lack of consultation on the mine project. After a judge ruled largely in favor of Lithium Americas in February, the tribe filed a new lawsuit along with Burns Paiute and the Summit Lake Paiute Tribe.

Michon Eben:  You cannot dig 400 feet deep. You cannot destroy wetlands. You cannot destroy ecosystems. You can’t destroy the natural habitat of the sage grouse. You cannot do the destruction and take gallons and gallons of water in the driest region and tell us that that’s good for electric vehicles. Electric vehicles you still have to plug into the grid; That’s still part of fossil fuels.

Brandi Morin:  [Voiceover] The mine will burn around 11,300 gallons of diesel fuel a day for onsite operations and almost as much for offsite. Carbon emissions from the site would be more than 150,000 tons per year: Roughly 2.3 tons of carbon for every ton of lithium that’s produced. If reclamation is possible, it won’t be realized until, at least, 2162. There’s more. There are concerns over potential impacts on Indigenous women and girls with the arrival of Lithium Americas housing units for construction workers.

Michon Eben:  What’s really scary is part of the Environmental Impact Statement. If you are bringing in any type of man camp, and I’ll explain what a man camp is, but if you’re bringing in a man camp and you’re placing that near public land and you are disturbing the land, then you need to be doing a study for where that man camp is going. That didn’t happen in the Environmental Impact Statement. When you have to hire 1,000 men to build a lithium mine, you’re not going to hire 1,000 men locally; You have to bring in men from other places. Those men are usually young men. They bring in illegal activities and illegal drug activities. This is where the missing and murdered Indigenous people come in. The 30-40 miners that are out of there right now working, are coming into their local stores, asking them, where are all the pretty girls? Because they’re coming without their women.

Brandi Morin:  [Voiceover] Recently, Michon’s own safety was in question.

Michon Eben:  Because I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t paying attention. So, I opened the door. I noticed a gentleman sitting over here because this is where our shuttle comes, and I heard a helicopter. Well, there are a lot of helicopters here because we have Careflight. The hospital’s right here. I’m used to helicopters. So, I hear a helicopter, I open the door. I open the door and I look and here comes a helicopter coming straight at me, right above the power poles.

Brandi Morin:  What?

Michon Eben:  Just above the power poles. And then it comes over here and it comes right here; Right above the power poles. Their door was already open but what they were doing is they’re hanging out. They’re so close, I could see them. The door was open and I could see somebody going, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, because I could see the flash of the light. And then, I realized, oh fuck, they’re taking my picture. I got scared, but that’s what it was. And then I got mad and I thought oh, little old me. Who am I? How come people got to take a picture of me? What gives anybody the right? And then, you think, okay. Well, I do know the President and the Department of Interior, they do want this mine because… You know.

Brandi Morin:  They think it’s the answer.

Michon Eben:  They think it’s the answer to combat fossil fuels. Even though, electric vehicles you’re still going to plug into the grid; That goes to fossil fuels.

Brandi Morin:  Michon says the worldview of lithium production is deceitful.

Michon Eben:  It’s not going to save the world. So, you’re seeing movie stars advertising electric vehicles. People are getting brainwashed about electric vehicles. You cannot mine your way out of a climate crisis. You can’t do that. You can’t destroy the Earth to save the Earth.

Brandi Morin:  If you could speak with Secretary Haaland about what’s happening in Peehee Mu’Huh, what would you say to her?

BC Zahn-Nahtzu:  I would tell her, to wake up. We need you. You’re a Native American. Your Mother Earth should mean something to you. Like I said, wake up and we need your help.

Brandi Morin:  What about the Biden administration?

BC Zahn-Nahtzu:  Us Native Americans have been here since time immemorial. It means it’s time for us to take our land back. Go dig somewhere else.

Brandi Morin:  [Voiceover] I asked tribal members for permission to visit the sacred site at Sentinel Rock. Although security told us a few days before we couldn’t cross the road to access it, I did anyway. After all, they’re on unseated land. As I began to get closer to the rock where Paiute and Shoshone tried to run for their lives in 1865, my chest started heaving. The heartache here was overwhelming [end of voiceover].

I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Everything that they had to go through. You feel the pain that’s here.

[Voiceover] As temperatures soar across the West, putting one-third of Americans under excessive heat alerts, elders, like Dean, are not surprised. He says it’s only going to get worse. And extractive industries are accelerating the threat to all who live on Mother Earth.

Dean Barlese:  The property we have… Before this, there was a great flood. Then there was a wind, and then the ice and snow that destroyed the world destroyed the humans. The last one, we’re in that time already. And our old people say this world’s going to burn; It’ll burn up. White people, they continue to destroy. And we’ve gone beyond where we can come back. They don’t see it; They don’t see their children, their grandchildren, their great-great-grand… They don’t look ahead like we do. We look seven generations ahead and leave things the way they are for future generations. But they don’t see that.

Brandi Morin:  [Voiceover] The mine is expected to be up and running by 2026. Meanwhile, land and water defenders say they’ll continue to pray it can be stopped.

I’m Brandi Morin, reporting for The Real News, Ricochet Media, and IndigiNews in the unseated territories of the Paiute, Shoshone, and Washoe Tribes in SoCal Nevada.

This story was produced by Ricochet Media and IndigiNews, and is being co-published by The Real News.

Not long past the break of dawn, along a remote road deep in the unceded, forested mountains of southern Vancouver Island, the steady blaring of a conch shell sends a warning through the trees. 

A raid is coming. 

In the Savage Patch camp, a new front in a years-long struggle over the fate of some of the country’s oldest trees, a small group of forest defenders scurry to pack sleeping bags and douse the fire that kept them warm through the night. 

Uncle Rico, a Cree land defender, streaks her face with red warpaint. A young, broad-shouldered settler land defender, known as Sandstorm, beats a drum gifted to him by a Native ally. He sings an ancestral Viking warrior song, the reverb of his voice echoing through the quiet of the woodland morning. In this camp, everyone goes by a pseudonym.

Uncle Rico begins to sing the Women’s Warrior Song as the group forms a circle and joins the call to battle. 

This fight is for the ancient forest of the Fairy Creek Watershed, which is being systematically cut down by the largest privately-owned logging company in the province.

For over three years, settler activists and Indigenous land defenders have fought to save some of the last and largest old growth trees on the planet. Thousands of forest defenders once occupied the 1,189-hectare watershed, spread across isolated camps and blockades where they chained themselves to hard blocks, set up tree sits and perched under handmade tripods dozens of feet in the air. 

Their desperate attempts to stop the harvesting of majestic red and yellow cedars, trees up to 2,000 years old, have been met with force by both the RCMP and the Teal-Jones Group. 

Teal-Jones owns the rights to Tree Farm License 46 in the Fairy Creek Watershed, which it purchased 20 years ago. Those rights allow the company to cut stands of old growth that have not been specifically protected by the provincial government. The company produces shingles and shake from the coveted cedar wood. 

These cedars are some of the oldest in the world, and their habitat is the last unprotected, relatively intact watershed on southwest Vancouver Island. Little wonder then that it has drawn so many passionate defenders. 

The problem is that Teal-Jones stands to make an estimated $20 million in profits from logging 200 hectares (494 acres) of old-growth trees in the licence area, and the elected chief and council for the local First Nation would lose out on a significant source of revenue if old growth logging were to come to an end. 

Land Defenders have said the forest is endangered and should be left intact, as logging threatens the fragile watershed. In April of 2021, Teal-Jones was granted a court injunction against persons unknown blocking access to their logging sites. The RCMP’s Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG) has spent two years and $20 million arresting protesters en masse for defying the court order. 

Those protests have been called the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history, with almost 1,200 arrests being made over a roughly eight-month period. Almost all of the charges were eventually withdrawn or dismissed, with 146 cases dismissed earlier this month over RCMP errors. 

“This is going to be that time that changes the entire future,” says Uncle Rico, moments before an RCMP raid that will end with three arrests, including her own. 

“We’re no longer asking for (our) rights, we’re telling them what those rights are.

“You have a thousand ancestors standing behind you,” she tells her campmates. “Your own, and my own.

I make sure I call them everywhere I go. As Crees, we ride together. I’ll lead you on. All the brave to the front. Today is a good day to die.”

Uncle Rico stops to chuckle and wink, “but you don’t have to die.”

RCMP operating with impunity 

C-IRG was formed in 2017, reportedly following the massive anti-pipeline resistance led by the Standing Rock Sioux in North Dakota, and amid concerns similar uprisings could occur around resource extraction projects in Canada. 

As the name suggests, the unit is responsible for managing conflicts between industry and communities. Unfortunately for those (overwhelmingly Indigenous) communities, conflicts have more often been managed by militarized commando raids than good faith negotiation. 

The unit exists to flatten opposition to natural resource projects, and has sought to do so, with mixed results, in places like Wet’suwet’en territory and Fairy Creek. 

Wherever Indigenous Peoples are halting the flow of profits, the C-IRG will show up, lock down the area, exclude journalists and then arrest everyone — far from the prying eyes of the public. 

Earlier this year, the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission, the RCMP’s civilian oversight body, announced they would be launching an investigation into systemic misconduct by C-IRG. Almost 500 formal complaints over violence and violations of Charter and Indigenous rights have been reported to the CRCC. Allegations include excessive force, harassment, illegal tactics, unprofessional behaviour, racism and discrimination. 

Many of those complaints stem from the force’s actions at Fairy Creek. 

C-IRG’s presence at Fairy Creek has been minimal since June of 2021, when the province issued a deferral of some old-growth logging permits at the request of the Pacheedaht First Nation, whose traditional territories encompass the watershed. However, in late July of this year, Indigenous forest defenders set up a new blockade, naming it the Savage Patch, on Trunk Road 11, leading to a stand of old growth near Edinburgh Mountain. It’s above Eden Grove, a sanctuary of temperate rainforest, where some trees measure ten feet thick. Despite the deferral, the group had said the Fairy Creek Watershed was still being logged. 

They constructed a giant effigy of a native, endangered screech owl, built from recovered wood, on a bridge leading to the old growth. 

‘Stand in strength together’

Pacing, Uncle Rico tells the forest defenders to hold their ground. C-IRG is on its way. 

She’s wearing camo pants, a black t-shirt printed with white text reading ‘STOP PIPELINES, SAVE FORESTS’ and a green vest. Her thick, long brown hair is tucked behind a black bandana. 

“They’re (RCMP) gonna test you, they’re gonna try to get into your head, they’re gonna try to get into your knees and make them shake. And you’re just gonna sit here, and you’re gonna know in your heart that what you’re doing is right.” 

She beats her drum and continues, “They want you to be violent… But it’s our job to keep everybody safe. So, remember when your feet feel like running, that the group is standing. Stand in strength together.”

She tells them not to be afraid, but even if they are, to know they’re helping to save future generations. 

“It’s always when you tremble the most that you’re making the biggest change in the world. Whether it’s your voice, your knees, your soul. And right now, we’re making a huge change for the next seven (generations). We’re making it so our babies won’t cry themselves to sleep.”

In unison, they sing a warrior song and raise their fists to the sky. 

From the north side of the roadway, we hear the gravel rumble under truck wheels. A fog of dust fills the air before parting to reveal a convoy of at least 13 RCMP and C-IRG cars, trucks and paddy wagons.

They pull up along the road in front of the blockaders. 

A sacred fire surrounded with stones smoulders quietly in front of the land defenders as traditional medicines of sage and sweetgrass burn on top of a piece of red fabric. 

Dozens of RCMP officers line up in front of the entrance to Trunk Road 11, just meters from the resistance group, who continue to sing and drum. 

We’re the only journalists present, the only observers as the two sides prepare to square off on a remote road in the shadow of giant trees. It’s important to be there to document this, the first raid in over two years. 

During the arrest of Uncle Rico, an RCMP sergeant grabs me and threatens me with arrest when I refuse to follow their media exclusion zones. I remind him that the RCMP have been ordered by the courts to respect media rights. In 2021, a coalition of media outlets, including Ricochet, took the RCMP to court over access restrictions at Fairy Creek, and won. 

A lone young woman from the Pacheedaht First Nation noses her pickup truck past the yellow line of police tape and throttles it, disappearing behind a cloud of dust. Known as Wee-One, she is helping lead the protection of her territories. But it’s risky for her to stay. She’s been arrested and charged with obstruction at previous blockades, more than once.

During one of her arrests in October of 2021, this journalist witnessed the RCMP use chainsaws to cut logs piled over her vehicle in a makeshift barrier. She and an Anishinaabe land defender known as gaagaagi were barricaded inside. The RCMP smashed the windows of the car and dragged them out. The two were attached at the arms to a hard lock inside a PVC pipe. Both were held down by multiple officers as they began cutting the pipe with a small hand saw. 

Wee-One screamed out in pain multiple times. Then she passed out. An officer who identified himself as a medic assured onlookers that Wee-One was “fine.” Other forest defenders shouted in horror as they watched from behind another barricade. Her limp and motionless body was then turned over and handcuffed. The RCMP carried her to the paddy wagon and shut the door. 

She doesn’t want to be caught in their hands again. 

For Pacheedaht, it’s complicated

Wee-One’s presence in the fight to save her territories is complicated. As a member of the Pacheedaht Nation, her elected Chief and Council have a partnership with Teal-Jones and the forestry industry. In fact, the Pacheedaht manage or co-manage a forest area with 140,000 cubic meters of annual cut, run a sawmill and log-sorting plant and have more forestry projects in the works. 

“We’ve been pushed out of the forestry industry for hundreds of years,” Pacheedaht Chief Jeff Jones told the Narwhal in 2021. “And now we’re at a point where we’re actually benefiting from forestry resources in the territory.” 

The nation, made up of approximately 300 members with around 120 living on reserve, created a cedar conservation strategy in 2005 to identify areas to protect. It takes 400 years for cedar to grow to the appropriate size for traditional activities like canoe-making. 

Ricochet reached out to Teal-Jones to request an interview. They declined.

We also reached out to Pacheedaht First Nation leadership but did not receive a response by press time.  

Even though the Pacheedaht elected leadership supports Teal-Jones logging activities and in the past has asked forest defenders to pack up and leave, Wee-One doesn’t accept the colonial band government’s decision to allow it. 

There is also a dispute over who the legitimate Pacheedaht traditional hereditary chief is. The elected leadership recognizes Frank Jones as the hereditary leader, and Frank has given the green light to logging. However, Pacheedaht elder Bill Jones, 82, who is against logging old growth, disputes Frank’s legitimacy as the rightful hereditary leader. 

Elder Bill says Frank, who was adopted into the Pacheedaht and grew up with Chief Jeff Jones, has created an allyship of sorts with the chief that serves the two well when making deals with industry. 

He attributes his community’s disconnection from their culture and spirituality to residential schools and other acts of colonial violence. He says he’s tired of mourning everything that has been lost and does not want the last of his peoples’ lands to be pillaged.

The true hereditary chief, says Bill, is 20-year-old Victor Peters. 

“Jasper Peters was the true hereditary chief, and his son Harry followed him, and his son Michael and then Victor, Michael’s son,” explained Bill from his long-term care home in Sooke, British Columbia. 

Victor publicly claimed hereditary leadership in a YouTube video posted in March, 2021. 

“I want to keep them (the trees) standing,” he said in the video. “I think I’d probably feel like I’d lost a loved one… I’d feel sad… and kind of more depressed if that happened.”

But Bill claims Victor and his family have been subject to political bullying from Pacheedaht elected leadership, which has led to Victor pulling back from, rather than stepping into, his hereditary role. 

‘They want the truth to be hidden’

Bill is a survivor of the Alberni Indian Residential School, where he endured beatings alongside mental, spiritual, and sexual abuse. He went on to work in the logging industry and lived on the reserve up until six months ago when health complications required him to move to an assisted living facility. He’s been an unwavering voice of opposition to the old-growth logging industry for years and fully supports land defenders protecting what’s left of his territories. 

He says the Pacheedaht chief and council are operating under oppressive systems of colonial law designed to assimilate Indigenous tribes, using economic incentives to force them into doing the bidding of colonial governments and industry. Chief Jeff Jones, who is Bill’s second cousin, and his leadership team, says Bill, “are pawns to industry and the provincial government.”

“In other words, it’s coercion. You know, the Truth and Reconciliation Act, the oppressors are living in a world of ‘let’s pretend.’ And they want the truth to be (hidden from) those that they oppress. Our (Pacheedaht) government operates much the same as the federal and provincial governments. They operate in secrecy. They don’t inform people, and they don’t account to people.”

The colonial agenda to divide, conquer, and consume has infiltrated the hearts and minds of greater society, he goes on to say. And many are too overcome with oppression and fear of economic uncertainty to realize the harm being done to themselves, others and Mother Nature. 

“There’s a basic structural part of the oppressive system — they do not want people everywhere in this world to recognize themselves… They do not want to have, in particular, First Nations people become aware that they have to be sensitive to their surroundings, so that they can know what to do in their lives, and to keep their life going in this part of the world.”

Wearing blue jeans held up by suspenders, and a t-shirt depicting a tall tree standing alone in a forest bed, Elder Bill’s long, thin white hair is tied back in a ponytail. His brown eyes, outlined with rings of blue, are amplified through his prescription glasses as he gestures with weathered hands.

He’s in full support of forest defenders and happily welcomes them to his traditional territory. 

“And that’s where we come in, you know, our hopes and dreams are in our hearts, and our souls, our values are given to us by our Great Mother, and that is always reborn in our children. Now we have to continue our fight, and yes, I do approve of anyone going up to the forest to protect it.”

He’s especially proud of Wee-One, from his own nation, for putting herself on the line to save their ancestral home. 

“She’s a valiant and courageous young woman who actually wants to live by the truth. She is a warrior looking after our Great Mother’s great gift to us.”

But he’s familiar with the C-IRG unit and their many, often notorious, raids on the forest defenders. He knows they will be coming for those on the frontlines of the new blockade.

“They invent brutal, oppressive tactics at the spur of the moment. It’s simple as that, you know, there’s nothing nice about it. It’s a brutal attack on our sovereignty… and personal integrity. They don’t look upon First Nations as persons. They look upon us as criminals, or as what the government once called us, ‘agitators’ and you know, ‘troublemakers’ and ‘shit disturbers.’”

“The RCMP have been given that authority to treat us like that.”

Elder Bill has tasked Tla’amin Nation Elder Rose Henry, affectionately called Grandma Losah by land defenders, to lead their fight to save the forest on the territory. She is a fiery, unyielding mover and shaker who has been involved in social justice initiatives since she was a teenager. 

She regularly visits land defenders to provide pep talks and advise on cultural protocols. 

“My message for the people from other countries is that behind every beautiful scene, there’s always a dark side,” she says while sitting in Eden Grove, an unprotected, old-growth forest within the Fairy Creek watershed. 

​​Listening carefully, we notice the sounds of the forest come alive. Hidden beneath the woodland floor, the constant thrumming and buzzing of wasp colonies fill the air. Rays of light break through the canopy, scattering across the trunks of towering trees coated with soft moss. As the birds sing us their songs overhead, Grandma Losah sits on a bench, drum in hand, and continues.

She shares how when visitors come to appreciate and enjoy what makes the surrounding landscape beautiful, we often don’t see the extractive nature behind some of these industries harvesting natural resources. While the industries disturb these “perfect spots because they see the beauty,” they contribute to reducing biodiversity, disrupting ecosystems and releasing stored carbon from the soil, which is a key player in helping mitigate the harsh effects of climate change. 

“Our brothers, the trees are few and far between. When you look around here, you see our most sacred medicine, the cedar,” she continues. 

Her hand-woven traditional cedar hat covers her greying long hair that falls at her shoulders as she continues to keep the beat of her drum. 

“So, when I sing some of the songs… I’m letting the spirits of our brothers know that we’re here, we hear you, and we love you.”  

She begins speaking of the prophecy of the Eighth Fire, which speaks of a fork in the road that divides into two directions. One direction speaks of materialism and destruction, and the other leads to a period of harmony where “the destruction of the past will be healed.” 

“The Eighth Fire is saying it’s time. Wake up, people. It’s time for us to come together and act as one. We are all one.”

She breaks out into the Women’s Warrior Song, and the beat of her drum reverberates through the dense, untamed oasis of the grove surrounding her. 

‘Even the animals are upset’

The day before the C-IRG raid on the blockade, several land defenders bathe naked in the Gordon River nearby. It’s a clear and gentle flowing refuge where they go to cleanse, read, sing and pray. Afterward, they take a break from the scorching 39-degree heat beneath the forest’s canopy, napping on the moss-covered earth. 

Getting a deep, full night’s sleep here is rare. They’re always on high alert for potential enforcement from RCMP and prepared to face the wrath of angry industry workers who want to run them out. Land defenders take turns keeping watch to guard the barricade they’ve constructed. 

This barrier, adorned with hand-printed signs of resistance and red dresses, represents and honours the Indigenous women and girls who were murdered or have disappeared across the country, victims of “Canada’s” genocide. 

Beneath a tarp, they’ve created a makeshift kitchen using a propane cooking stove. A cook named Dragonfly, a woman in her 50s who has been arrested more than once at previous Fairy Creek demonstrations, is creating a communal meal of donated vegetables, pasta and canned tomatoes. 

Later, they share stories and jokes before switching the tone to something more serious, the topic of what’s to come. “Even the animals are upset by what’s happening,”  Uncle Rico says. 

They’ve heard frightening sounds from the bushes on more than one occasion as a mother bear on the other side of the Gordon bridge asserts her territory and, to the land defenders’ ears, expresses her anger over the ravaging of her home by these loggers. 

But Uncle Rico encourages them never to bow to fear and reminds them of why they’re there.

“This is a worldwide problem… The government doesn’t want [blockades] because that stops money. But with the amount of old growth that were losing worldwide, things will never be the same. Everything is so connected.”

“Taking away these ecosystems, taking away our ancestors. It’s definitely not going to fix anything.”

Now, as C-IRG is closing in, the officers play a pre-recorded reading of the injunction over an echoing speaker. The land defenders, led by Uncle Rico, continue to drum and sing the Women’s Warrior Song. The police move in, wielding yellow tape, demanding the land defenders move back or face arrest. 

‘No matter what we do, you’re going to brutalize us!’

The front line slowly shifts as the land defenders are walked all the way back to a wooden gate they now lock from the inside with a chain and padlock. A C-IRG officer tells them to get behind the barricade, or they will be arrested. 

“But we can’t!” yells Uncle Rico. “Don’t you see? You either want us to move out of the way, or you want us behind the gate, but right now, you’re giving us instructions that no matter what we do, you’re going to brutalize us.”

An RCMP helicopter that has been circling nearby eventually lands in a cut block where old growth cedars were logged just three years earlier. Drones dart about overhead, buzzing back and forth over the clearing as a sea of blue-uniformed police swarm the road. 

“We’re not going to brutalize you,” the officer responds. “Get on the other side of the gate, or you’ll be arrested for obstruction.” 

“But I don’t want you blocking us in so you can brutalize us…” pleads Uncle Rico. 

RCMP officers approach Uncle Rico, who is now sheltering behind Sandstorm. The two continue to beat their drums as they are separated by the RCMP, and Sandstorm is dragged away. 

As Uncle Rico screams at the officers not to touch her drum, that it is a sacred object, a First Nations C-IRG Liaison Officer named Ben Smith steps in, directing the two officers holding Uncle Rico at each arm to stop. He asks if someone can take her drum. 

“No, this has spiritual significance, and I can’t just give it to anyone,” she yells back. 

The two had an exchange the day before when he arrived at the camp with two other liaison officers, one of them also Indigenous. She told him colonial law had no relevance there.

She tells Smith what he’s doing is wrong. 

“What happened, Neech? You just don’t respect our own laws. Your ancestors see you; you know how sick you are in your heart.”

He steps slightly away and says nothing. The other officers holding her attempt to drag her forward. 

Smith steps in again.  

“Ok, she’s going to resist, so stop.” 

He says his job is to avoid escalation in these often-traumatic experiences and to be a liaison with Indigenous peoples as they’re being arrested. He notes that his job is hard, dealing with the legacy of colonial violence against his own people. But he believes what he is doing is good. 

Uncle Rico is laid on the ground, and officers attempt to place a drag bag underneath her to pull her to their paddy wagon. She kicks it off, and four officers grab her by each limb and carry her toward the waiting vehicle. Meanwhile, an excavator is clearing some rocks and logs from the road.

When the land defenders are cleared away and one other woman is arrested, the excavator roars in, and demolishes the wooden barricade in minutes. The sounds of the machine rumble through the forest. 

The remaining land defenders who haven’t been arrested are silent. 

They follow police to the Gordon River bridge and discover the screech owl effigy has been torn apart by officers dressed in military fatigues that hiked in through a back path. The remnants of the structure were thrown into the river below. 

After being taken to Lake Cowichan, a town about an hour drive from the former Savage Patch camp, the three land defenders are released without charges. Uncle Rico says it’s the first time she has ever been arrested. 

Wee-One, her companion gaagaagi, and other land defenders embrace their comrades and smoke cigarettes outside the RCMP station. Uncle Rico gives the middle finger to an officer driving out of the parking lot.

With a smile on her face,  she says this fight is far from over. 

“This is just the start of the next seven generations. We are nothing but a prayer standing here until the next prayers step up and take our place. This is forever. We’re never going away. And even when Savage Patch is old, and we become the ground, our children will be Savage Patch. Savage Patch will never die. They can’t break us.”

This story was produced by Ricochet Media and IndigiNews, and is being co-published by The Real News.

As he watched the last plane lumber down the runway, Chief Allan Adam was finally able to breathe freely again. 

He had just posted a live video from the Fort Chipewyan airport on the evening of May 31, documenting the last flight out with evacuees fleeing impending disaster. A wildfire was advancing approximately seven kilometres from his remote community, which is accessible only by boat or plane.

But the relief was short-lived. The straight-shooting leader of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, one of three Indigenous communities in Alberta who call Fort Chipewyan home, was abruptly hit with biting pain.

“That was the stress that hit me, right after that post, that’s when the pain came to my neck,” he said in a telephone interview the evening of June 1, between back-to-back meetings with local leaders, authorities, and firefighting officials.

Despite the searing ache in his neck, he continues to roll with the punches. The homes and livelihoods of nearly 1,000 people are on the line. It’s the first time in anyone’s living memory that the hamlet, located about 300 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, has been under a mandatory evacuation order. Chief Adam — together with Billy-Joe Tuccaro, chief of the Mikisew Cree First Nation, and Kendrick Cardinal, president of the Fort Chip Métis — has stayed behind to oversee efforts to save his homelands.

“We had to get everybody out. Everything that we’ve done, that was our main focus, to get everybody out immediately. And then once that was accomplished, it was a relief for me because now we can focus our attention on preparedness (for) what’s coming.”

Record heat waves and dry conditions have sparked an unrivaled wildfire season of destruction across the country, affecting almost every province and territory.

In May, roughly 2.7 million hectares of forest — an area equal to about five million football fields — were burned to the ground in Canada, said Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair at a press conference. Over the last 10 years, the average number of hectares burned in the same month was just 150,000.

Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson told reporters at the same press conference that the rampant infernos are caused by climate change.

“It’s a simple fact that Canada is experiencing the impacts of climate change, including more frequent and more extreme wildfires,” he said.

Chief Adam is all too familiar with the consequences of climate change, and particularly the contamination of his territories. Fort Chipewyan, commonly referred to as Fort Chip, is downstream from Alberta’s notorious tar sands, one of the largest oil developments in the world.

The settlement is perched on the tip of Lake Athabasca, the largest body of water in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Known as the oldest community in the province, it once served as a hub for the Indigenous Nations who live up and down the mighty Athabasca River, as well as the European settlers who trekked north for trade. But since commercial-scale extraction of the oil sands began in 1967 — and then expanded to fuel the economic wellspring of Canada — the water, land and air quality of the vast Indigenous territories downstream has deteriorated.

Finding deformed fish and polluted water here is a normal occurrence. And dozens of Fort Chip residents have succumbed to a rare strain of bile duct cancer. 

In April, Chief Adam testified before a House of Commons committee hearing in Ottawa to decry the release of millions of litres of toxic tailings waste in two separate incidents involving Imperial Oil’s Kearl mine. Just weeks later, Suncor reported it had released almost six million liters of contaminated water into a tributary of the Athabasca River.

Earlier, he had predicted his community would become environmental refugees.

Now, Fort Chip could be swept away by out-of-control flames.

“I tell them this,” he said during the phone interview, explaining that he confronts the Alberta and federal governments about climate change.

“I speak with them all the time and we hold them very accountable. The climate change issue is not going to go away. And we’re gonna have to deal with it — and you (governments) are gonna have to deal with us.”

Feels like 2016 all over again 

About 250 kilometres south from Fort Chip, the boat launch in Fort McKay First Nation — a community of 800 people about 58 kilometres north of Fort McMurray — is clogged with dozens of docked boats. Volunteers are patrolling the river day and night, searching for evacuees whose boats may have gotten stuck or broken down.

It’s déjà vu for Fort McKay residents, who are survivors of the worst natural disaster in Canadian history. They were forced to flee their homes during the massive 2016 blaze that ravaged Fort McMurray. 

Even so, ushering Fort Chip evacuees to safety is a treacherous undertaking, according to Fort McKay Métis Nation president Ron Quintal.

“There’s a combination of the smoke, of the water coming up and having sticks in the water and traveling at night — it’s a concern for damage to your boat and could cause an emergency,” he says while visiting evacuees at a hotel in Fort McMurray. 

Quintal directed his staff to focus on comforting the displaced, including whole families with children and elders who had made the eleventh-hour trip. 

“We were there when families were pulling in,” says Quintal, his voice pinched with emotion. “You try to put on a happy face. These kids, they’re afraid, you know, they’ve had to leave their homes, given they’re an isolated community. And we let them know that you’re safe here, we’re here to help you.”

Jimmy Shortman, 64, waits at the boat launch for Ginger, his German Shepard, and her six three-week-old puppies to be delivered by a peace officer. He fled his home in Fort Chip by boat along with his wife and granddaughter. His beloved dog was cared for by officials in Fort McKay while he escorted his family to a hotel in Fort McMurray.

Shortman also fled the infamous Fort McMurray blaze in 2016. Now, he’s experiencing flashbacks of flames, falling ashes, and traffic jams holding back frantic passengers desperate to escape.

A former firefighter, he witnessed the moment the current wildfire ignited near his home community.

“When that lightning happened on Saturday in Fort Chip, I was outside my house, sitting on the deck. All of a sudden, lightning strikes.” His brown eyes widen as he describes the jolt of electricity hitting the ground.

“It started that night, because the lightning did it. It got bigger and bigger, and the wind was picking up.”

He did not expect the blaze would burn out of control and turn so many lives upside down. He describes people panicking in their rush to get out of Fort Chip. “My wife was scared and crying. Everybody was excited to just get out of there.”

“There were 14 boats trying to get out at the same time, and that’s unheard of. You couldn’t even see across the lake — it was covered in smoke. I don’t panic, but.…” His eyes briefly well with tears. “The only thing I worried about was my wife and the little girl.”

Now, he’s happy to be heading out to his cabin along the river with his brother, Stanley Shortman, about an hour and a half south of the fire. He feels most comfortable there, as do hundreds of other Fort Chip families whose cabin homes dot the shoreside. They have a kinship with the land and water. Many, like Shortman, spend half their lives in the wilderness of their territories. 

Shortman says he will clean the yard around his cabin while he waits out the fire. But he predicts the situation will intensify.

“Look how hot May was.” Shaking his head, he emphasizes that the dry weather isn’t helping. “We haven’t gotten hardly any rain yet. Wait ’til July. Wait ’til it’s really hot. Oh, it’ll be worse. It’s scary.  Maybe the whole country will burn.”

‘Praying helps’

The oldest resident evacuated from Fort Chip rests in her bed at the long-term care facility in Fort McKay. Madelaine Piche, 93, clutches a sparkling rosary, her milky brown eyes conveying a gentle naivety.

“I’m so tired,” she says with a sigh. “I’m scared, I was nervous inside the plane.”

Along with several other elders, Piche was airlifted out of Fort Chip and transported to the Fort McKay facility on May 30. She’s comfortable, she says, and the food is “good here.” 

The view of the river outside her window reminds her of home.

Now Piche — grandmother of 43 and great-grandmother to countless great-grandchildren —  patiently waits for one of her daughters to visit from Fort McMurray.

She cries as she prays for her hometown, the only place she’s ever lived.

“Fort Chip is beautiful.… Praying helps,” she says with a whisper. “I pray a lot for everybody and for it to stop burning.”

Meanwhile, hundreds of displaced residents are scattered in various hotels throughout Fort McMurray. The Municipality of Wood Buffalo’s Emergency Social Services department is accepting donations of essential supplies such as toiletries, clothing, diapers, baby wipes and menstrual products. Families gather in hotel parking lots to catch up on the latest updates about the wildfires and let their children play on the grass.

But essential supplies for cabin dwellers are needed. 

Riding the river

Mikisew Cree Nation evacuees Matthew Coutoreille and Yancey Kaskamin volunteer to deliver packages of food and water to nine cabins spread out along the river. They work alongside Coutoreille’s father, Lloyd Donovan, a resident of Fort McKay. 

After sorting through various dried goods, gassing up, and loading their boats, the crew embarks on a Friday morning mission that will last until dusk.

Coutoreille, 36, has travelled the river since he was a young boy. He knows every bend swirling throughout the hundreds of kilometres of his homelands. He studies the current and weaves in and around sandbars, islands and debris to safely navigate his boat.

“My grandpa was one of the old-timers that used to come up and down this river,” he says in a calm and steady voice.

“You always have to have an eye out here. When you’re travelling with the old-timers, they tell you where the rocks are, where the sticks are and where to go. So I’ve learned from them.”

The river is ever-changing and unpredictable. Coutoreille is an environmental monitor for the Mikisew Cree. He observes the dwindling water levels as a result of impacts from industry and B.C. Hydro’s damming system. It makes maneuvering the river more dangerous. 

“You can tell how much water dropped here and if it’s safe. And it’s gotten worse over the years because of water levels. Now everything is just drying up.”

A thick, smoggy gray haze blankets the horizon. Another wildfire to the east of the river a few hours south of Fort Chip is colliding with the smoke blowing in from there — as if Armageddon were descending upon the territory.

But Courtoreille isn’t afraid. He’s fixated on the task of helping his neighbours. Approaching the mouth of Lake Athabasca, he slows to assess the strength of the winds.  

“It’s going to be rough.” He winks with a slight smile and takes a shallow breath.

After pulling on a hoodie and securing the boat canopy, he confers with his father and Kaskamin. They will steer their boats in the direction of the northeast-blowing winds.

Courtoreille nods as if to reassure me as he explains his boat is designed to take on water at the bow. If the waves are not navigated properly, they can swamp an open boat or capsize it. He’s crossed the lake in poorer conditions and is confident in his ability to safely do it again.

“Let’s get ’er done!” yells Donovan.

Motors roar in succession. Courtoreille leads the way to create a trail for the ensuing boats to have a smoother ride. After a harrowing 15-minute journey of dodging full-length logs and climbing whitecaps that crash against the boat, Courtoreille securely guides us to a bay in Fort Chip.

Whirling sounds of helicopters flying to and from the small airport penetrate the stillness of the near-empty hamlet. Pickup trucks, emergency vehicles and ATVs intermittently race between the emergency command centre in the middle of town and areas that personnel are working to fireproof.

Sheets of smoke billow into the sky less than three kilometres from Alison Bay, a residential area of the Mikisew Cree Nation on the boundaries of Fort Chip. Workers have dug trenches to the lake there to make the water more accessible. 

Excavators clear fields of trees and shrubs surrounding the Mikisew community and Fort Chip. Pumps connected to water hoses supply a web of sprinklers attached to the rooftops of homes and other structures around town.

At an emergency meeting that evening of approximately 200 people, including local leaders, authorities, firefighters and community volunteers, one person yells out that they will work through the night to protect Fort Chip.

Chief Adam echoes the sentiment: whatever it takes to keep the fire at bay. 

“We can cut grass, remove all the garbage and debris, and do all these little things,” he tells the crowd, appearing exhausted but unwavering.

“We will make it happen. If the fire does come into the community, we will assist in some way with the fire department,” he says. “But the forest fire, that belongs to Alberta Forestry and the professional firefighters. Now a lot of prayers are with us from other communities. Stay strong.”

After a hot meal, volunteers line up to attest to their skills so officials can enter them into a database.

It has been stressful to coordinate a community-led emergency operation at times, says Jay Telegdi, intergovernmental relations senior manager for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation. Yet he has been down this road before. He helped evacuate members of Fort McKay Métis Nation in 2016. Now he buckles down to make sure every community member on the ground is assigned a task.

No time to contemplate causes

Calvin Waquan, Mikisew Cree, is the general manager of the Chief’s Corner gas station and convenience store in Fort Chip. He didn’t question staying behind to keep the store open when others closed their businesses down and left. After kissing his wife and two young children goodbye at the airport so they could fly to safety and find shelter in a Fort McMurray hotel, he sprang into action.

He cooks meals every day for up to 150 people in his store’s kitchen and caters to the varied schedules of anyone needing cigarettes, snacks or toiletries. He’s tallying the purchases on a charge basis, having buyers sign receipts for reimbursement from the province, which he says will be covering the full costs.

“I’m here to serve,” he says while mopping the store floor.

“I know one guy in town already passed out and fainted. So I’m making sure I get a lot of fruit and vegetables in me. And I don’t want my wife to come home right now.” He stops to laugh.  “Because it’s pretty messy around the kitchen at home. But I’ve been trying to listen to what she used to tell me about taking in nutrients and vitamins.”

Waquan is a former elected councillor of the Mikisew Cree Nation. He lobbied governments for compensation and accountability from the oil industry for damages to his territories. Lately, he’s noticed rapid changes to the seasons.  

“We had the winter road come in way late this year, the water was open right until January. And now this.”

But in an active emergency, there isn’t much time to contemplate root causes. Every night since the evacuation, before he heads home to catch a few hours of sleep, Waquan sets up a table outside the store with two filled coffee urns, cream, sugar and a package of cookies for workers.

He speaks to his family daily, although he tries to avoid video calling them.

“It’s tough because it’s emotional. It’s tough on my daughter, she cries and then I start crying. The way I see fires, what’s happening with Mother Nature, it’s kind of resetting and teaching us a lesson to slow down maybe and appreciate what we have. And I think that’s what the families are learning and especially myself. Not having the kids being in here grabbing a slush, kids running by to go to the park or just hanging out on the concrete outside — I miss seeing the kids and all the noise that’s always going on.”

 Lifelong Fort Chip resident Doris Cardinal works at the K’ai Talle Market a few blocks from Chief’s Corner. She and her husband, Happy, chose not to leave.

“This is my home and I wasn’t going to go anywhere,” she says while having a break outside the market. “I’d be afraid if I see the fire coming over the hills, then I’d run for the water.”

Cardinal is still processing the news that her cabin burned down two days prior. The home she and her husband built along the river just three years ago was their retirement plan. It was located north of Fort Chip, around the corner of what’s called Devil’s Gate, by Little Rapids, she explains.

She grew up on the land and river. It’s a special place she goes to wind down and take in the northern lights while sipping strong tea.

“Some of the leaders went up in the choppers and took a snapshot. And then my niece told me my house burned. I shed tears, I’m not gonna lie, and I swore. It was not the greatest feeling.”

Cardinal’s was one of several cabins devoured by the wildfire. Her husband vows to rebuild one day. For now, Cardinal is immersed in keeping the market afloat and lifting the morale of others on the ground.

“As long as the robins are singing, I’ll be okay,” she says with a chuckle.

Enter the army

That afternoon the Fort Chip airport is abuzz with anticipation as local rangers, chiefs and workers congregate to welcome the Canadian military. A gray Lockheed C-130 Hercules plane rumbles down the airstrip as a crowd watches in awe from behind a metal fence.

The warplane is carrying 65 soldiers dressed in camo and combat boots ready to battle the flames. It will return with dozens more soldiers later that evening.

The encroaching wildfire is less than three kilometres away, and smoke is descending on the site. 

Chief Adam paces the parking lot while recording a Facebook live video. His long silver hair is tied back, and his shoulders slightly droop from an overwhelming cocktail of emotions. His eyes light up at the sight of the incoming army, and a grin emerges.

Kendrick Cardinal, the Fort Chip Métis Nation president, greets each soldier with a handshake as they march to an awaiting bus that will shuttle them to their command post.

He feels relieved. “I’m happy the army is here to help us out. It’s more manpower. With their help we’ll try to extinguish the fire as soon as possible.” 

Officials are unsure when it will be safe for evacuees to return home. As of June 8, the wildfire has scorched over 31,000 hectares, and firefighters have so far been able to hold it back from Fort Chip.

But firefighters have their work cut out for them across the country. According to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, there are over 400 fires actively burning in Canada, 240 of which are deemed out of control.

The effects of the wildfires are far-reaching. A thick haze drifted into parts of the northern United States mid-week, blotting out the sun, and creating a Code Red air quality level for millions of people.

Chief Adam notes a large influx of moose flies swarming the airport. The large insects, known for sending irritated moose into a frenzy, bite chunks of human and animal flesh in order to reproduce. 

But it’s too early for moose flies, he says. They usually don’t appear until well into July.

It’s another sign something is off with the patterns of Mother Nature. 

“Climate change is such a part of this, everything ties into it,” he says with frustration.

He declares he’ll continue confronting government leaders who push the status quo of excessive oil production up the river, which is exacerbating carbon emissions. 

“(The Alberta government’s) let-it-burn policy has to change because it’s gonna get worse. It’s burning out of control.”

This story originally appeared in Richochet on May 2, 2023, and is shared with permission. This article is originally co-published with Indiginews Media, and can be read on their site as well.

I blew a tire on my Jeep driving the rough roads up to visit the Unis’tot’en Healing Centre in unceded Wet’suwet’en territory back in late March. With no cell service in the area, I was surrounded by forest and mountains a 45-minute drive away from any main roads.

I knew I wouldn’t be stranded there, thanks to the Coastal Gas Link security truck that had been following me ever since I left the main roads. Sure enough, a man wearing a balaclava and dressed in dark, navy-coloured clothing reading “security,” pulled up a few metres behind me. For a second I felt afraid — an Indigenous woman, alone, in a remote area parallel to the murderous Highway of Tears — anything could happen. This man had swerved dangerously towards me, almost running me off the road, about 15 minutes earlier when I attempted to pass his extremely slow-moving vehicle.

But I calmed myself when I thought of the near-constant industry traffic that travels these roads. No one could hurt me and attempt to hide it that fast, or so I prayed.

I got out of my Jeep to assess the damage and saw my tire deflated almost to the ground. The idea of asking the CGL security guard for help, who was staring me down from the inside of his truck, filled me with dread. But I gathered the nerve to approach him.

“Hi, look, I’ve got a flat. Can you please help?” I asked, looking into the two slits of eyes squinting at me through his mask. He was probably assessing who I was and what I was doing there — and if I was a protestor.

“I’m a journalist. And I’m headed up to Unis’tot’en,” I said.

He then nodded and rolled down his window.

“I’ll come take a look,” he said flatly, calling on his radio to a colleague.

CGL keeps tabs on everything that goes on in the area. After all, it’s the contentious territory where Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and land defenders have been opposing a multi-billion dollar liquified natural gas pipeline for the last several years — where multiple, violent police raids and arrests have made headlines in Canada and around the world. And, where the RCMP are continually patrolling to enforce a Supreme Court injunction obtained by CGL to stop anyone attempting to impede the pipeline’s construction.

His colleague soon pulled up, in another white pickup truck, CGL’s standard vehicles, and the two attempted to remove my tire and put on the spare. They didn’t have the right tools, so his colleague offered to drive me the rest of the way to Unis’tot’en.

Just then, another white pickup truck came around the corner. The driver started to slow down. I saw it was an RCMP officer — when the CGL security waved them off (signalling it was ok and I was not impeding anything) the cop waved back, grinning ear to ear. I thought it was strange the two had such a friendly rapport, but they are working together to keep order (and suppress dissent) along these isolated roads.

What made me shiver was the thought of these lands being unjustly controlled — it was just like the old days, when the colonizers first arrived. They showed up, herded our people onto tracks of land called reserves, then stole the land and did what they wanted with it. If any Indigenous person stood in their way, they were arrested and jailed.

I snapped back to the present day, but realized the forced, militarized colonization of Indigenous lands and people is still alive and well. And what a shuttering, sad situation, given we are supposedly in an era of reconciliation.

The security worker dropped me off at the end of the driveway and I walked to the Unis’tot’en Healing Centre. I was greeted with a smile and inquiry from Dr. Karla Tait, a Wet’suwet’en matriarch and program director at the centre. She’d been expecting me.

“Brandi, I was worried about you. Where is your car? What happened?”

I explained to her how I’d popped my tire and hitched a ride with CGL security. She asked a male supporter who lives at the centre to take a Unis’tot’en truck to put on my spare.

It was near dark by the time we returned. I was served steaming nettle tea, harvested from the yintah (Wet’suwet’en for land) — it’s loaded with iron, antioxidants and just overall good for you.

It was quiet at the centre as Tait’s nine-year-old daughter Oyate and Tait’s mother Helen Mitchell, who also lives there, were out visiting family in the Wiset reserve for the weekend. Freda Huson, another matriarch, and Tait’s aunt, who started the healing centre about a decade ago, was visiting her daughter and new twin grandchildren.

I asked Tait how she’s been doing since the drilling under Wedzin’ Kwa started.

Wedzin’ Kwa is the sacred river system parallel to the Unis’tot’en Healing Centre and the community’s sole source of drinking water. It’s the river the Unis’tot’en matriarchs and other land defenders have battled so hard to protect from the pipeline. Tait, her mother and Huson have all been arrested for standing in its way.

“Honestly,” she sighs, then adjusts her eyeglasses. “It’s really hard to confront that reality. And I think we’ve been focused on maintaining our space and trying to maintain our wellness and our health. And realizing the vision of this space and the work we want to do here. So, if anything, I’ve probably been trying to avoid a lot of updates [about the drilling] and following in depth because it’s distressing and hard to confront.”

Earlier that morning, Tait took me on a tour of the healing centre grounds. We walked a narrow path through the snow to the banks of Wedzin’ Kwa and drank the ice-cold fresh water. Tait, Freda and others believe the water has healing properties because it is uncontaminated and carries essential minerals from the glaciers.

While standing on the rocky shoreline, Tait fixed her gaze on a truck crossing a bridge that connects Unis’tot’en territory to Gidimt’en, another Wet’suwet’en clan. The truck stops alongside a CGL security truck that’s parked at the end of the bridge to the south, facing Unis’tot’en, 24/7. Tait looks annoyed.

“We deserve to exist here. We deserve to be undisturbed and at peace and to live as our ancestors did and to protect what’s left for future generations,” she said, while shaking her head in frustration.

“As Indigenous people, when our rights are eroded in this way, over what are our sacred responsibilities to protect and steward our territory, we need to stand together on those things and push for justice.”

She kneels on the rocky shoreline, cups her hand, and sips more from Wedzin’ Kwa. A peaceful expression appears across her face.

Tait usually spends her days applying for grants, developing Indigenous-based counselling, land therapy programs, and helps to keep the centre running. She wants more community members to come to Unis’tot’en to utilize the healing sessions, but she knows there are barriers.

“People are reluctant to send folks to our space on the land to heal when they know the police are going to come and harass and re-traumatize folks. That we’re going to be watched by CGL security, which is disgusting and abhorrent.”

The truck parked across the bridge is aimed toward the healing centre. It can be seen through a break in the trees. Several months ago the matriarchs put up a few tarps to block its view. Sometimes the wind blows them away.

“It’s a huge problem. And it doesn’t feel good for me knowing whenever my daughter goes outside to play, somebody’s probably watching, right? So, I keep very close tabs on her,” Tait said.

When young mothers with children fleeing domestic violence or individuals struggling with trauma come to stay at Unis’tot’en, the staff let them know they’re being surveilled.

“And there’s no one to hold them (CGL) accountable because the bodies that are supposed to protect us, we’re never designed to protect us in the first place,” said Tait, adding that in the past couple of months, they’ve noticed multiple drones in the sky surrounding the healing center at night.

Tait gifted Oyate a telescope on her ninth birthday recently.

“We’re trying to go stargazing at night and are surrounded by drones, so, It’s really sad and laughable in some ways. Like some nights we’ll go and see if it’s a good night to see the moon and it’s like, oh, well the brightest objects in the sky right now (are the drones).”

I asked to spend the night in the guest quarters of the healing center as I wanted to see the drones for myself. Around 9 p.m., Tait and I went outside.

It used to be pitch black out at night other than the stars and moon in the sky — now a massive dome of unnatural light illuminates the horizon. It’s from the drill zone.

“There’s constant noise (from the drill), there’s constant light,” shrugged Tait. “We used to have perfect starry lights out here with zero light pollution, now look at it. And we have security parked aiming their headlights at our center much of the time.”

This night was foggy but the moon and stars were still visible. Within 15 minutes Tait found a drone far off in the sky and then another not long afterward. I looked through the telescope and saw a small, multi-coloured object moving around.

“That’s it. That’s one of them,” said Tait.

Again, I was shocked. That this was happening in so-called Canada in 2023. That unarmed, peaceful Indigenous citizens were being stalked and surveilled in their own lands.

After leaving Unis’tot’en, I inquired with CGL as to if it was operating drones to spy on Unis’tot’en, which it denied. The RCMP did admit to using drones, but only during daylight hours and during active police enforcement.

Tait, meanwhile, is saddened her daughter is being raised under dystopian conditions, but believes Oyate will grow to be strong, understand her rights and powerfully fulfill her role as a future matriarch.

“It feels like a sacred and important responsibility (raising Oyate). But also, I’m glad that this veil of equality and justice and fairness in Canada has never been in front of her eyes, clouding her perceptions about the reality that we live in as Indigenous people,” she said.

“She’s so sharp and she sees it, right? And I think about the way that she’ll be able to walk and work to protect the land as she grows up, like with that clarity from the start. We’re going to continue and this is not going to shake us from our course.”