The Wetʼsuwetʼen are a First Nation who live on the Bulkley River and around Burns Lake, Broman Lake, and François Lake in the northwestern Central Interior of British Columbia.

They speak Witsuwitʼen, a dialect of the Babine-Witsuwitʼen language which, like its sister language Carrier, is a member of the Athabaskan family.

Their oral history, called kungax, recounts that their ancestral village, Dizkle or Dzilke, once stood upstream from the Bulkley Canyon. This cluster of cedar houses on both sides of the river is said to have been abandoned because of an omen of impending disaster. The exact location of the village has been lost. The neighbouring Gitxsan people of the Hazelton area have a similar tale, though the village in their version is named Dimlahamid (Temlahan)

The endonym Wetʼsuwetʼen means "People of the Wa Dzun Kwuh River (Bulkley River)"

The Wet’suwet’en First Nation was formerly part of the Omineca Band. However, in 1984 the Omineca Band split into the Broman Lake and Nee-Tahi-Buhn bands. The Skin Tayi band later split off from Nee-Tahi-Buhn. Today, the Skin Tyee Band, Nee Tahi Buhn Band, Wet’suwet’en First Nation, Moricetown Band and Hagwilget Band make up the Wet’suwet’en Nation.

Like most First Nations here, Wet’suwet’en never signed treaties with the Canadian or provincial governments. Nevertheless, the latter took the land and leased forested acreage to logging companies. Today just 20% of British Columbia’s old-growth forests remain.

In 2020, after decades of activist pressure, the province identified about a quarter of the remaining old growth as at high risk for logging and recommended a pause while deciding their fate. Yet today, logging has been deferred in less than half of the high-risk area.

Another conflict with the settler state has been the Coastal GasLink pipeline, which seeks to transport liquefied natural gas from northeast BC to a terminal on the coast near the town of Kitimat.

The 670-kilometre (417-mile) pipeline will cut across traditional Wet’suwet’en lands that cover 22,000sq km across northern BC.

The hereditary chiefs, who under Wet’suwet’en law claim authority over those traditional territories, said they never gave their consent for the project to move forward. They have raised concerns about the pipeline’s potential effects on the land, water, and their community.

In late July, Amnesty International took the extraordinary step in naming Dsta’hyl Canada’s first ever designated prisoner of conscience, and now demanding his immediate and unconditional release.

“The Canadian state has unjustly criminalized and confined Chief Dsta’hyl for defending the land and rights of the Wet’suwet’en people,” Amnesty International’s Ana Piquer stated in a press release. “As a result, Canada joins the shameful list of countries where prisoners of conscience remain under house arrest or behind bars.”

In October 2021, Dsta’hyl was arrested and charged with criminal contempt after confiscating and decommissioning heavy equipment utilized by Coastal GasLink to construct its LNG pipeline on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory. Dsta’hyl said he was enforcing Wet’suwet’en laws as the company did not have the free, prior and informed consent of hereditary chiefs to build the pipeline.

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Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):

Aid:

Theory:

  • Comrade_Mushroom [comrade/them]
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    edit-2
    33 minutes ago

    Does therapy actually help with anhedonia? I'm generally pretty anti-therapy because I believe in material solutions for why I feel the way I do, but for years now, due to trauma, I find myself unable to feel things like excitement, passion, contentment or comfort in certain circumstances when I feel like I should feel them, or want to feel them. And, I guess I'm realizing I don't actually want to live a whole life with part of the emotional spectrum dimmed out.

  • CocteauChameleons [none/use name]
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    edit-2
    15 minutes ago

    Sucker by Charli XCX is overhated. I remember giving it a listen back when Vroom Vroom came out and was a bit put off by it but liked the song Doing It. Over the years giving it a listen to on and off as a laugh I started genuinely liking a lot of the songs, it takes a crazy amount of talent to make back to back catchy songs. And then doing it again for 6 albums afterwards is insane

  • CrispyFern [fae/faer, any]
    ·
    53 minutes ago

    If I had a copper for every time a wizard trapped my party in a chess puzzle, I'd have three copper. Which isn't a lot but it's weird it happened thrice.

  • CrispyFern [fae/faer, any]
    ·
    1 hour ago

    Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.

  • Goblinmancer [any]
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    edit-2
    1 hour ago

    "Why make guns when you can just cast a fireball" why have swords when you can just a fireball? Lets also ignore that an average peasant can be trained in just 1 week to use a gun semi competently.

    Medieval stasis fans making copium in universe instead of just stating "i want my franchise to stay in the same genre"

  • Mokey2 [none/use name]
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    3 hours ago

    Tired of being bad at music, i put so much work into this shit and i still feel like im trash.

    i work all fucking day like nearly 11 hours and then i try to go do some music shit afterwards and im too fucking tired.

    i'm trying to take it easy because a million things went wrong at the music shit besides me and my feelings but i feel like im running out of time.

    just gotta suck it up and keep pushing

  • buh [she/her]
    ·
    3 hours ago

    General Megathread sounds like some kind of textile emporium

  • dustbunnies [she/her, comrade/them]
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    3 hours ago

    once upon a time, there was an ill-tempered sea bass who needed a new name that wasn't connected to reddit-logo, so she followed a trail of dustbunnies.

  • hexaflexagonbear [he/him]
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    3 hours ago

    Guy who respects Rommel as a strategist because they were parts of events that lead to Hitler doming himself

  • AmericaDelendaEst [comrade/them]
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    edit-2
    3 hours ago

    HEXBEAR. LET'S WRITE A RAP

    I'LL START

    Sizzle sizzle my material's fissile

    so i'm bound to blow up like a nuclear missile

    i'm sharp as a thistle and toughened like gristle

    I don't wait for the start so i don't hear no whistle

  • WhyEssEff [she/her]
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    edit-2
    3 hours ago
    gathered thoughts on Hunter x Hunter now that I'm no longer sick and decrepit

    Really good. Nothing quite like it. Refreshing.

    To get my criticisms out of the way first, I'll make a list of them:

    • The beginning of the Yorknew City arc is tedious. It takes a bit too long setting up Kurapika’s job and the Phantom Troupe. It pays off in the end, yes, but I was really bored up until the point where Gon, Leorio, Killua and Zepile went on their upselling escapade. Around that point was where I got hooked.
    • Succession Battle is too wordy. It’s a bit overwhelming to see a whole page of a novel’s text stapled-on to a few panels. Eyes were glazing over at a certain point.
    • Inconsistent art. Some of it looks like sketch work, some of it looks pristine and evocative. I am aware of why specifically Togashi may have this problem, and speaking of–
    • I am not confident this work will finish, and I am saying that as someone who has full confidence that both JoJoLands and One Piece will come to proper conclusions under Araki and Oda respectively.

    Criticism over. I am going to glaze the hell out of this now.

    Chimera Ant is one of the best arcs in all of shōnen. Outstanding. I'm struggling to think of arcs that stand out as masterworks in their own right across manga like this and I'm flailing. Kino absolute-cinema

    The complete deconstruction of Gon’s mentality and character is really well-written and takes Gon from Goku/Luffy-archetype ADHD wunderkind to a refreshing “hey what, realistically, would happen if we made this teenager into a walking bomb. teenagers are a little fucked, are they not?”-take that adeptly toes the line to not regress into edgelord “what if Goku SNAPPED and KILLED EVERYONE” territory, nor regressing into the Sasuke archetype. I really really liked how it’s very clear that he’s lashing out and revenge-seeking in grief, so much so that he irrationally snaps at Killua for merely (not-so-)straight-manning him when he’s freaking out at Pitou, hurting Killua in the process in his anger. I’ve seen very harrowing fates/injuries/developments for characters across manga. Very few have made me feel the level of ‘oh no’ that Gon’s rapid-age Nen contract made me feel. It’s not even gruesome, the design is utterly comical, and yet the mere implications that it communicates—purely visually—leave a sinking feeling that “oh, Gon might be killing himself with this” in a way that words do not do justice.

    The juxtaposition of the two gangs of four are great. It kinda falls off for me after Meruem and Pitou for comparison, but it’s a good bit. Meruem and Gon both learn at an absurdly rapid pace and have a nagging curiosity whilst being walking weapons, and Pitou and Killua are both cat assassins with undying loyalty towards their groups and callous indifference towards killing. Shaiapouf is too eccentric compared to Kurapika’s paladin-avenger nature to be a foil (they're more Hisoka-like, if anything) and I don’t see the parallel between Youpi and Leorio. Maybe unintended to draw the parallels, but the first two read well and the designs sort of communicate this idea.

    I also love how it makes sure to highlight the devotion and care and curiosity of the Ants, and in the same breath highlight the brutality and callousness of the Hunters, only to swap those portrayals when you get too comfortable in seeing one side as such. It turns what otherwise would be a Heinlein's Starship Troopers ‘kill bugs glory to humanity’ plot into a genuine attempt to empathize with the beasts and deconstruct the institution of Hunters in the same breath, while maintaining a reason to still root for the hunters in the end. This arc is so well written that I literally barely give a shit about the cartoonishly-evil Kim Jong-Un expy, where I otherwise would be raising a pointed brow at it. I love the whole Komugi plot and I felt like shit (in a bittersweet way) when they chose to die together after Meruem is contracts the Rose's poison.

    Aside from that—really good worldbuilding given a map that for two separate landmasses rotates Africa and calls it a day. Nen is fun but I’m still confused but that’s ok.

    Alluka is handled in the best possible way that a character who does not look you in the eye and say “I am transgender” can be which is the clear demarcation of those who misgender her as actively uncaring. A step further in that the manga actively states that part of the reason those that misgender her do as such is because they view her like an object. Surprising depth considering the egregious transphobic moment in YuYu Hakusho. Actual growth on Togashi's end.

    Love Killua. still don’t like Hisoka but he’s hot when he's not got his clown on. Killugon may not be intended but it is effectively-canon because I didn’t even know shit about this and I’m not usually a shipper outside of explicit romance and I could only-barely read their relationship in a strictly bros fashion. This is a narumitsu-esque situation for me in terms of intent and clear reading.

    Medium-to-strong 9. This is the highest rating I am willing to personally give a work that I personally believe will not have an ending. I say this as a point of immense praise.

  • hexaflexagonbear [he/him]
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    4 hours ago

    A realtor called me because I was looking at condos on his site. I can't afford to shop here man, I'm just browsing.