The government never changed its
agenda: take away their land, take away their food sources, especially the food
sources, if you take away the food you take away the people and then we would
become even more dependent upon them, fully assimilated and believe that we’re
Canadian. This makes us more wiling to
participate in the destruction of our lands and waters for so called financial
benefits or economy or jobs.
–Goot-Ges
I feel at times in my life I’ve been really
disconnected from the earth. I’ve lived in the city, you know spent a lot
of time in places where there is just concrete around you and eating foods form
stores where I have no idea who harvested the foods and no idea how to be
responsible for feeding myself. I have come to realise that here we have
everything we need in this region to live and thrive and the more wild plants I
learn that I can eat the more grateful I am and realise that we don’t need to
be looking elsewhere and manufacturing all kinds of harmful awful things that
are bad for you. I’m grateful and I feel like when there are things that
you are grateful for you have to work damn hard to keep them and honour
them.
–Christie Brown
The way things are going today as indigenous people we’re
heavily criminalized for saying “I want the right to clean air,”
“I want the right clean water” and “I want the right for our
food sources to be protected for not only my generation, but my children’s generation
and the next generations to come."
-Goot-Ges
Goot-Ges is a Haida, Nisga’a and Tsimshian woman from the
village of skulls, Gingolx, in the Nisga’a Nation whose clan is Raven from the
house of T’tanihaulk. She is a
land defender, freelance writer, radio producer and independent mother of
three. In August of 2015 in
collaboration with four other Indigenous women Goot-Ges began an occupation at
Lax U’u’la, which continues to protect the island and surrounding waters from
destruction to this day. Her work is
rooted in cultural practice: prayer, story telling and medicine as healing and
an integral aspect of resistance to ongoing colonization. She has founded and supported countless
projects assisting her people in healing inter-generational trauma and ending
gender based violence.
Check out
Goot-Ges’ most recent project Yakguudan, which means ‘to respect all life’ in Haida.
Christie Brown of Gitxan and Scottish descent has worked to
defend the lands, waters, salmon and lives of her people against the Northern
Gateway pipeline and Petronas’ Pacific North West LNG export facility. Her creative forms of resistance merge the
contemporary tools at hand with the revitalization of traditional skills and
hereditary systems. In August of 2015 in
collaboration with 4 other Indigenous women Christie organized and began an
occupation of Lax U’u’la on unceded Tsimshian territory. Christie’s work defending Lax U’u’la, the
Flora Banks and it’s protective eelgrass and the Skeena River continues to this
day.
Support Christie and her work
upholding Tsimshian Law to protect Lax U’u’la for future generations.
https://www.voicesfrontlines.com/the-government-never-changed-its-agenda-take-away/
