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.

Megathreads and spaces to hang out:

reminders:

  • 💚 You nerds can join specific comms to see posts about all sorts of topics
  • 💙 Hexbear’s algorithm prioritizes comments over upbears
  • 💜 Sorting by new you nerd
  • 🌈 If you ever want to make your own megathread, you can reserve a spot here nerd
  • 🐶 Join the unofficial Hexbear-adjacent Mastodon instance toots.matapacos.dog

Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):

Aid:

Theory:

  • Mokey2 [none/use name]
    ·
    19 hours ago

    Im watching a retro anime called Oishinbo which on it's face is an anime about people working at a newspaper to create the ultimate michelin guide style foodie menu.

    The subplots are

    1. Main Character hates his arrogant supertaster dad. Dad killed his mom through sheer stress.

    2. A girl who works with him whom he slowly builds a romantic relationship with. She is also a supertaster and never wrong although she doesnt have the background that protagonist or his Father have.

    3. Protagonist is so cool because he knows everything about food and cooking even though on the surface hes a bum gambler. He convinces an entire room of people that French cuisine was good as Japanese because he puts mayonnaise in soy sauce and then eats sashimi with it.

    The real intention of this show is to be the mouthpiece for late 80's right wing propaganda.

    Japan is always the best and there's a weird quiet reverence anytime Japan as a nation is brought up. It's almost Hank Hill level but past that because the implication is that every other country is inferior. The traditional way is always the best and Japanese ingredients are always the best in most cases.

    Two parter episode where the MC are arguing that whaling is cool and good because Whale tastes good and is a part of Japanese culture. They frame the anti-whaling movement as (arrogant) foreigner intrusion and bulldoze over Japanese also being against whaling and the necessary bans of many endangered whale.

    Also, if eating whale meat is bad because theyre smart, then eating any meat is bad and sinning is okay because convoluted buddhist argument. I couldn't watch it all, the episode start heading in the direction of comically evil foreign non-profit trying to make money off the anti-whaling movement as the antagonist. They had some argument about Minke whale population actually growing but I'm sure that number is skewed in someway.