A small nest-egg of money has been collected for an aboriginal group symbolically connected to the nighthawk. This bird is indigenous to B.C., it is a master of camouflage, and it is a species at risk.
This also describes the Unist'ot'en community, an ancient branch of the central interior Wet'suwet'en. Their traditional and ongoing territory generally lies west of Houston, east of Kitimat, and south of Highway 16.
This landscape is the subject of interest from industrial companies like forestry, mining and pipeline firms. In 20th century times, such interests would have been rammed through with little regard for First Nations legal rights. The Unist'ot'en people are taking no chances, these days, despite aboriginal assertions getting the backup of the Supreme Court of Canada. They are outspoken about preventing any industrial activity in their homelands without their permission.
The Prince George Unist'ot'en Support Group is now up and running. Two recent events collected $257 to help the aboriginal neighbours to the west, and more events are planned now that interest in Prince George has been raised.
"Freda Huson, the Unist'ot'en Camp spokesperson, was in attendance, and told the audience about how the Unist'ot'en Camp came into being, and what the future plans for the camp are," said the P.G. group's co-founder Erin Bauman. "Upgrading the healing center is one of the top priorities for the near future. The healing center is a facility where traditional First Nations healing techniques are put into practice, and the facility was built with the intention of healing from the impact of colonization."
The Unist'ot'en have set up checkpoint barriers and sentinel cabins in strategic spots on their asserted landbase, and the entire community operation has been dubbed the Unist'ot'en Camp, although it is not a single, rustic, temporary locale.
Music has been the driving force of the money raised so far, including the talents of the Khast'an Drummers, Doug Koyama, Saltwater Hank & The Saline Solution, Samson's Delilah, and Kym Gouchie.
In addition to the performances, a workshop was also held on ways of beefing up your online anonymity in order to protect your privacy when engaging in social protest.
"We would like to say 'nenachailhuya' to all those who have contributed to and attended these events," said Bauman.
She also wanted to clarify some of the facts around the Unist'ot'en people, since local people including herself were freshly learning about these neighbours. Some misinformation had been disseminated as these events unfolded.
"With events like this, things move pretty quickly and the Prince George Unist'ot'en Support Group would like to acknowledge and apologize for a few mistakes we made in our haste to get things off the ground," Bauman said. "First of all, the name was misspelled on some of the promotional documents that were distributed.
"Secondly, while the Unist'ot'en of the C'ihlts'ehkhyu are the original Wet'suwet'en Yintah Wewat Zenli distinct to the lands of the Wet'suwet'en, they are not 'the Big Frog Clan' as we had also stated in some of our literature.
"We have now incorporated the Nighthawk into our Unist'ot'en Support Group logo, drawn by Jennifer Pighin, as this is the symbolic animal of the Unist'ot'en. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused, and we thank everyone who continues to support us and the Unist'ot'en Camp in their important work. We have had our information sheet reviewed by Freda and hope to avoid mishaps like this in the future."
There is a Facebook page for the Unist'ot'en Camp and another for the Unist'ot'en Support Group. These sites will be the primary online mode of communicating upcoming events.
