On Tuesday the Canadian federal government approved Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline, setting the stage for an ambitious $7 billion export artery that would shuttle 525,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta to a super-tanker port on B.C.’s northern coast in Kitimat.
Enbridge, a company that tallies about 73 hydrocrabon spills per year, would bore twin pipelines through several mountain ranges and cross six pristine watersheds before spewing crude into ships set to navigate a tempestuous Hecate Straight.
Near the Morice River, the company would also have to ford the backyard of Freda Huson and her ballsy Unist’ot’en blockade—a place where the conviction can be summed up as: “This pipeline will not be built”….
Via Vice: “Nearby, the only bridge into this territory is blockaded, open only to those who gain consent from the camp. To build the Northern Gateway, Enbridge must cross this bridge — though they are banned from doing so under Witsuwit’en law. A veritable border crossing, the bridge is an entry point into an unsurrendered nation. It is a point where free, prior, and informed consent — a right enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples—is ardently enforced.”
