(Photo by Unist’ot’en Camp via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 2.0 DEED)
In October 2025, the trials of three Indigenous land defenders arrested during a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) raid on the Wet’suwet’en Blockade ended. Wing Chief of Cas Yikh of the Gidumden Clan Sledyo’ Molly Wickham, Gitxsan community member Shaylnn Sampson, and Kanien’keha:ka member from Akwesasne Corey Jocko, were arrested in November 2021 for breaching an injunction that prohibited protesters from interfering with the construction of the Coastal Gaslink pipeline that ran through Wet’suwet’en territory.
After four years, the three land defenders faced guilty verdicts with suspended sentences facing no jail time. Honouring projects of reconciliation, British Columbia (B.C.) Supreme Court Justice Michael Tammen reduced the sentencing against the longstanding fight the Wet’suwet’en First Nation has faced to defend their land. Yet, despite Justice Tammen’s sentiments, the court still found the land defenders criminally guilty.
Acts of Indigenous resistance, such as those taken place at the Wet’suwet’en Blockade, are considered outside of Canada’s regularly formed policies of reconciliation. What these verdicts show is not the end of resistance, but the requirement for the continuation of decolonial efforts sought by First Nations in B.C. to maintain their inherent right to Aboriginal Title.
The Wet’suwet’en’s Time Immemorial
Since time immemorial, the Wet’suwet’en have occupied, inhabited, and acted as stewards for parts of what is known as the coastal interior of B.C., Canada. Dating back 6000 years, the Wet’suwet’en, meaning “People of the Wa Dzuen Kwuh River”, consist of five matrilineal clans and encompass 13,000 square kilometres of territory.
The Wet’suwet’en word for land is Yintah, which includes all forms of life, such as the environment, plants, animals, and humans. For the Wet’suwet’en, the Yintah is a highly connected force that serves as the centre of life. As Hereditary Chief Woos of Gildumden states, “Yintah understands all parts of the territories as interconnected and related to a greater whole. If the physical environment is harmed, then the Wet’suwet’en social world is harmed as well.”
This responsibility to Yintah serves as an essential part of Wet’suwet’en ways of life and encompasses the transmission of knowledge throughout generations. Thus, Yintah is pivotal for the life, survival, and preservation of the Wet’suwet’en as an Indigenous Peoples.
The Degamuukw Case and Aboriginal Title in British Columbia
In Canada, according to the Royal Proclamation of 1763, and affirmed in Section 35 of Canadian Constitution Act, Indigenous Peoples have the inherent right to their land. This right of Indigenous Peoples to use, exercise jurisdiction over, and claim ancestral territories is known as Aboriginal Title. However, settlers have long dismissed this for colonial expansion.
Specifically, as B.C. was among the last provinces in Canada to be settled, settlers did not consult First Nations about treaty negotiations. Thinking that Aboriginal Title had been extinguished upon their arrival, no treaties, excluding parts of Vancouver Island and some northeastern territories, were signed by First Nations, giving ownership to the Crown. This means that nearly 95% of B.C. remains unceded. Stolen from First Nations People, as they did not give consent to the settlement of their land.
This theft of Indigenous land poses a struggle for colonial law as the lands remain unresolved. As such, in 1997, the Wet’suwe’ten and the neighbouring Gitxsan First Nation brought forth a case against the Government of B.C. to assert their title over 133 territories, accounting for 58,000 square kilometres. This case, known as Delgamuukw v. British Columbia, is a landmark case concerning Aboriginal Title in B.C.
In the trial, B.C. acknowledged for the first time that settlement had not extinguished Aboriginal Title. This acknowledgement enabled future claims, such as the Tŝilhqot’in First Nation, to successfully assert title. Yet, despite this, the courts never rightfully determined the specific land to which the Wet’suwet’en and Gitksan have Aboriginal Title. Instead, the Crown insisted that a further trial be necessary to allocate lands.
The Wet’suwet’en Blockade at Unist’ot’en
The court’s inability to grant the Wet’suwet’en specific territorial claims in the Delgamuukw case ultimately created the pathway for further colonial expansion. On December 14, 2018, the B.C. Supreme Court granted an interim injunction allowing Coastal Gaslink to access Wet’suwet’en territory and forbid protest against it.
Backed by the government and costing $6.2 billion, Coastal Gaslink sought to run a natural gas pipeline from Wet’suwet’en territory to Kitimat, spanning approximately 670 kilometres. Following the injunction’s announcement, Wet’suwet’en community members began occupying the already established blockade at the Gitdumden Unist’ot’en camp.
(Photo by Jen Castro via Flickr/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED)
On December 21, they amended the injunction to encompass all camps in the territory. Tensions rose on January 6th, 2019, as the RCMP released a statement saying: “For the land in question, where the Unist’ot’en camp is currently located, it is our understanding that there has been no declaration of Aboriginal [T]itle in the Courts of Canada…. That Aboriginal [T]itle to this land, and which [I]ndigenous nation holds it, has not been determined.”
The following day, with the use of armoured vehicles, helicopters, drones, and snipers, 50 RCMP officers, dressed in green camouflage and aiming assault rifles, violently raided the blockade to enforce the injunction. The raid ended with the arrests of 14 protesters. An investigation later revealed that the RCMP were prepared to be lethal. RCMP officials “instructed officers to ‘use as much violence toward the gate as you want’ ahead of the operation to remove a roadblock” as to “sterilize [the] site.”
Echoing colonial sentiments, the RCMP had little regard for the Wet’suwet’en’s well-being or claims to Aboriginal Title. Although the RCMP would attempt to raid the blockade for several more years, the construction of the Coastal Gaslink pipeline remains unfinished due to the Wet’suwet’en’s resistance at Unist’ot’en.
Recent Arrests and Trials of Land Defenders
In November 2021, in committing another raid on the blockade, the RCMP arrested three land defenders. Among those arrested were Gitdumden Wing Chief of Cas Yikh Sledyo’ Molly Wickham, Shaylynn Sampson of Gitxsan, and Corey Jocko of Kanien’keha:ka from Akwesasne.
In October 2025, after four years, the B.C. Supreme Court found the three guilty of breaching the injunction laid out in 2019 that forbade the blocking of Coastal GasLink to bring materials in and construct the pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory. Yet, against the Crown prosecution’s wishes and to align with projects of reconciliation, Justice Tammen reduced the sentences of the three land defenders to serve no jail time.
Although Justice Tammen’s sentiments about reconciliation are rightly placed, a darker history is revealed when looking at the Crown’s insistence on justice. Within the trial, the Crown prosecution sought incarceration for the three, stating the purposes of preserving the “rule of law” and the deterrence of “similar actions”.
The Crown’s Colonial Rule of Law
Historically, the Crown has sought the rule of law as a form of stopping acts of Indigenous resistance. For example, a trial sentenced five Tsilhqot’in members to hang by an all-white settler-jury, ending the Tsilhqot’in War. Similarly, in 1990, during the Kaneshsata Resistance, or the Oka Crisis, as the Kanien’keha:ka defended an ancestral burial ground from a proposed golf course expansion, Canadian officials sought to frame the event as a law enforcement issue rather than one about Indigenous rights.
The Crown has long used the rule of law to delegitimize Indigenous acts of resistance, deeming them unlawful. It appears the federal government will stop at no cost, even the use of force by the RCMP, to stamp out decolonial efforts sought by Indigenous Peoples to reclaim their land and Aboriginal Title.
As such, despite Justice Tammen’s reduction of sentencing, these verdicts stand in the long line of criminalizing land defenders for protecting their rights. In finding the land defenders criminally guilty, the Crown has succeeded in a way to prohibit the process of the Wet’suwet’en to affirm their Aboriginal Title.
(Photo by Unist’ot’en Camp via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 2.0 DEED)
As stated by Sleydo’, “[t]he whole purpose of criminalizing us is to try and deter us from upholding our law and protecting our territory.” As the Wet’suwet’en resist colonial efforts and defend the Yin’tah, Canada criminalizes them. These verdicts are not an instance of reconciliation but part of the ongoing colonial dispossession by the Government of Canada to remove the Wet’suwet’en from their lands.
Continued Infractions Against Indigenous Title in British Columbia
Despite the federal government’s continued violence, acts of Indigenous resistance persist. Coinciding with the criminalization of the three land defenders, Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, has sought to increase construction for pipeline projects in B.C. and Alberta. Speaking with conservative Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on November 13, 2025, they laid the groundwork for a new pipeline, fortifying it as Ottawa pushes to fast-track major pipeline projects across Canada.
In response, Hereditary Chiefs and members from the Wet’suwet’en, Gitxsan, and Gitanyow First Nations promptly travelled to the proposed site to protest Carney’s unveiling. As Gitanyow Hereditary Chief Watahayestsw states, “I’ll keep fighting, I’m not going to stop because to me it’s clean air and the health of my great-grandchildren. I’m blockading because … I did not give permission, I did not give consent for them to be here.” Reinforcing the Delgamuukw Case, as well as the Wet’suwet’en’s resistance, Watahayestsaw’s claims are another in a long line of Canada’s inability to consult with the First Nations of B.C.
The governments of B.C. and Canada aim to remove Indigenous Peoples from their territories and restrict their rights while benefiting from the exploitation of their lands. As such, it is fundamental to have Canada’s centuries of colonial expansion in mind when considering the encroachment of these pipeline projects on Indigenous territory in B.C.
Edited by Gabrielle Andrychuk
