WET’SUWET’EN TERRITORY —A radio’s crackle broke the night’s freezing stillness, echoing inside the shelter that was once a school bus.
“Radio check. Come in, over.”
Then a pause and a reply, “Roger, checking in, over,” as various positions around the Gidimt’en checkpoint camp stayed in contact through the darkness.
Two Wet’suwet’en land defenders, wrapped tight in sleeping bags on a foam mattress, spoke in whispers to each other as they discussed what would come with the dawn.
Police would arrive. They would be heavily armed.
“Whatever they say, don’t take a plea deal,” one defender murmured to the other as they drifted into sleep. Outside the bus, beyond the safety and warmth of the wood-stove, their colleagues continued preparations long into the night.
Tensions had been mounting for days, as the camp’s intelligence network fed back information about an RCMP buildup in the surrounding towns. Dozens of police trucks were reported — command vehicles and officers from tactical units, too. They’d all come to enforce a recently granted B.C. Supreme Court injunction to allow pipeline workers entrance through two Wet’suwet’en checkpoints.
The camps are part of an decade-long effort by Wet’suwet’en hereditary leaders and members to protect unceded lands from pipeline construction. At the Gidimt’en checkpoint, they’d fortified a gate and blocked the only bridge entering their territory.
