standoff

‘I stand with the Wet’suwet’en and all the Indigenous land and water protectors’

‘I stand with the Wet’suwet’en and all the Indigenous land and water protectors’

A longtime Indigenous rights activist wants Wet’suwet’en land and water defenders to know they’re “not alone,” that their power is “in the Spirit,” and that it’s time for Canadians to start “upholding their share of democracy.” Ellen Gabriel is a Onkwehón:we rights activist from the Kanienkehaka (Mohawk) community of Kanesatake. She lived on the front lines of her people’s resistance to the construction of a golf course and townhouses on Kanienkehaka lands in 1990. The 78-day standoff became known as “the resistance at Kanesatake,” also known as ‘The Oka Crisis’ as images of Indigenous warriors facing off with heavily armed RCMP officers became memorialized in the country.