A Rally in Support of Wet'suwet'en Land Defenders was the title of the Facebook page that put the call out for people to gather at the Prince George RCMP detachment Saturday starting at 10 a.m.
By 11 a.m. there was about 60 people in attendance.
Hosted by Meg Labron, the event was held in support of a group of Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs and others who have have been blocking construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline on the territory located on the Bulkley River near Burns Lake, Broman Lake and Francois Lake.
The local people were joined by out-of-towners like Seth Macdonald who came from Dunster because he said being a Facebook warrior wasn't doing anything.
"I think this is an issue all Canadians have to take to heart and it's not just an Indigenous issue, this is a human rights issue and a trespass issue."
Macdonald said he believes the pipeline protest is not an accurate description of what's going on between the Wet'suwet'en and the RCMP.
"The first issue is sovereignty," Macdonald said. "The first issue is going against our own Canadian law as handed down in 1997's Supreme Court decision that did recognize the Wet'suwet'en had title of their land and authority on their territory and when we send goon squads in to remove them from their homes what are we saying to the world?"
Lebron sees the big picture.
"I am a white settler who is really committed to seeing reconciliation and decolonization in my lifetime," Labron, a UNBC social work student, said. "I think that's really important because of what our country has put people through. We have to start doing things in a better way. It's really exhausting to hear leaders like Justin Trudeau and John Horgan say they're committed to reconciliation and they care about having a nation to nation relationship, ensuring all people are treated with respect and then they stand by while RCMP drag people off their traditional territory. It's hard to watch and I just want to see us find a better way to work together to find an actual solution."
When Labron heard the reports about the conflict between the RCMP and the Wet'suwet'en people she said she felt inspired to take action and set the call to put the Prince George rally in motion, she said.
"So I figured if I set a time and made a Facebook page, people would show up and they did," Labron said.
Marion Erickson of the Beaver clan attended the rally in support of the Wet'suwet'en.
"I have an ancestral responsibility to take care of the land," Erickson said. "I found it important to come here today with my children to support the Wet'suwet'en in taking Coastal Gaslink off their unceded territory."
The rally continued until 1 p.m.
