Klabona: headwaters of four salmon rivers: Klappan, Spatsizi, Nass and Skeena. Photo: Gary Fiegehen

www.firstnations.eu | Mining | Tahltan | Klabona

Klabona, Tahltan Territory.
Photo: Klabona Keepers

Klabona (Tl'ab'ne) is the Tahltan name for the headwaters of four salmon bearing river systems. The Klappan and the Spatsizi run north into the Stikine; the Nass and the Skeena run south then west (left). Klabona is located in the Klappan highlands, a traditional Tahltan hunting grounds. The invasion of Klappan by the mining industry is the source of a land rights battle as the Tahltan assert their ancestral ownership and duty to protect the land from environmental depredation.

Klabona Keepers Elders Society website heading.
Photo: Klabona Keepers

The Klabona Keepers Elders Society is dedicated to protecting the indigenous resources in Tahltan Territory: "The Sacred Headwaters is a highly traditional use area valued by many Nations that depend on it for their very survival" Klabona Keepers. The spectacle of First Nations people being arrested and taken into custody by the RCMP for their stand to protect their homeland is shocking (right).

To ensure the long term sustainable stewardship of Klappan, in 2006 Iskut First Nation elders formed a group called the Klabona Keepers Elders Society, they founded the Headwaters Educational Centre and they initiated a website. The photo on the left is the heading of the Klabona Keepers.

Arrest of Tahltan elder, 15 September 2005.
Photo: Klabona Keepers

Arrest of Lillian Moyer, 15 September 2005.
Photo: Klabona Keepers

Protests by the Tahltan and Iskut elders began in Telegraph Creek on 17 January 2005 and are continuing at the Klappan blockade near Iskut. Talhtan elder Lillian Moyer has been arrested twice at the Klappan blockade, on 15 September 2005 (above) and on 9 September 2006. When the Tahltan elder was arrested a second time, she asserted her Aboriginal Rights: "I am being arrested today for the people of Iskut, for the people of Telegraph Creek, and especially for our grandchildren. This is from my heart. I believe my ancestors are speaking through me."

Village of Iskut, Tahltan Territory.
Photo: Tad McIlwraith

The small village of Iskut is at the centre of a volatile conflict over who has the right to land useage (above). Tahltan traditionalists and grassroots activists want to protect their age old occupation and sustainable use of the land by declaring Klabona a "Tribal Protected Area." Mining operations, dams, roads, powerlines, railways and airstrips threaten to change the Tahltan homeland and culture forever. While Tahltan Aboriginal Title remains unresolved, the government openly and aggressively promotes lucrative development deals. Pressure on the Tahltan communities is unrelenting and causes painful social division.

The staking and claiming boom is due to record breaking global mineral prices and to development incentives by the BC government. The effects of climate change are also increasing the pressure: glaciers are fast disappearing and mining companies are rushing to grab newly available mineral claims previously hidden under thick covers of ice. As a result of the rapid surge in large scale mining projects, the three Tahltan communities are facing major social, economic and environmental upheavals (below).

Three Tahltan communities.
Map: Karen Wonders

Golden Triangle - Encroaching On Tahltan Territory.
Map: Karen Wonders (Click to enlarge)

Current mine projects in the Northwest are said to represent over two billion dollars in investment potential. The over 100 new mine projects are concentrated in the Golden Triangle, an industrial zone covering most of Tahltan Territory and the Stikine watershed (left). Red Chris, located 18 km from Iskut, is planned to be the largest new open pit copper and gold mine in North America.

To facilitate mine development, a new powerline along Highway 37 from Meziadin Junction to Dease Lake is being heavily promoted by industry and government. In 1952, the Cassiar Asbestos Mine began a cycle of industrial boom & bust mines that has wrecked havoc on the Northwest. Today Tahltan Territory continues to be ravaged by an international mining industry made rich and powerful from its century old dual practice of lawless colonial plunder and ruthless human and environmental depredation.

Iskut River headwaters, Spectrum Range, Tahltan Territory.
Photo: Gary Fiegehen

"We make our living here by hunting moose, caribou and sheep on the mountain ... . They, the companies, just come into our land and use it ... We hunt. We trap a little. We fish a little in the winter. All my life here, I have never gone a day without a meal" (Iskut elder Loveman Nole).

Not many areas in the world at the same latitude have the biodiversity of Tahltan Territory. Legendary as a big game paradise known as the Cassiar, it was the subject of a popular book written in 1966: "Because people will want to know what these wild places were like when there are no more wild places" (Edward Hoagland, Notes from The Century Before). Tahltan Territory encompasses the Stikine watershed, a wilderness treasure celebrated in the book by Gary Fiegehen: Stikine, the Great River (1991).

Lower Iskut River, Tahltan Territory.
Photo: Gary Fiegehen

The Iskut River is the main tributory to the Stikine River and supplies critical spawning, rearing and migration habitat for up to 40 percent of five species of salmon and steelhead (left). The irreplaceable biodiversity of the Stikine watershed would have been destroyed during the 1980s had the government developed its hydro electric project with two mega dams on the Stikine and three dams on the Iskut River. For a history of the battle to save the greatest wild river remaining in North America, see: Friends of the Stikine Society.

The Tahltan remember with bitterness how Cominco Corporation despoiled the lower Iskut River during the 1980s when it owned the Snip Gold Mine. The mine was in a roadless area and Cominco used a hovercraft operation from Alaska to service it, landing at a base built on the Iskut estuary. No effort was made to protect this fragile riparian zone despite the huge production volume and profits of the mine. This wanton destruction of salmon spawning habitat not only endangers the survival of this specially evolved species but also the traditional Tahltan way of life.

The health of the Tahltan fisheries in the Stikine watershed has always been an issue of vital importance to the Tahltan who still prepare salmon in traditional smoke houses (right). Salmon fisheries and smoke houses are important traditional gathering places where Tahltan families have socialized and worked together for thousands of years:

"Salmon was by far the most important fish for our people. We honour the importance of salmon to our people ... We do not abuse the fish, either through overfishing or in the way we handle the fish. We put the bones from our first fish back into the water to say thanks to the salmon and the river. If we do not respect the fish, then perhaps they will not return to the River" Salmon (Tahltan Nation CD Rom).

Tahltan smoke house, Stikine River.
Photo: Gary Fiegehen

Henry Quock, Iskut and Stikine confluence, 1991.
Photo: Gary Fiegehen

For good reason, the Tahltan elders are concerned about the culmulative impact of mining development on their ancient and culturally important fisheries such as at the confluence of the Stikine and Iskut Rivers (left). This fishery is in the so called "Golden Triangle," an industrial zone where government incentives have spearheaded intense exploration and mining development by powerful international corporations.

The long term economic value of preserving the wild salmon and its importance to the Tahltan is ignored. More sinister is the government's refusal to recognize Aboriginal Title. Tahltan elders have no choice but to take direct action to protect their territorial lands and waters and to assert their traditional role as "Keepers of the Land."

NovaGold's Galore Creek Mine Camp is located in a valley that not long ago was covered in glacial ice over 400 feet thick and several kilometers long (right). In 2005 NovaGold spent over $40 million here, preparing for an open pit mine to extract 6 billion tonnes of copper, 3.7 million ounces of gold and 40 million ounces of silver. It is planned to be the largest mine of its kind in North America and will primarily serve the huge demand for copper from China.

Iskut elder Bertha Louie, who is a director of the Tahltan Central Council, says: "We are being forced to sign an agreement with NovaGold before the Environmental Assessment process for the Galore Project is even complete. They only came to our community once with this agreement and then they expect us to agree on it - it's too rushed" 2 December 2005, Iskut Elders Press Release. See also comments to the BC Environmental Assessment Office by Iskut Chief Marie Quock, and by non aboriginal groups Cassiar Watch and Friends of the Stikine Society.

Galore Creek Mine Camp, 26 August 2006.
Photo: Poecile (Click to enlarge)

Tahltan confront Shell, Iskut, 2 March 2005.
Photo: Oscar Dennis

Shell backed down at least temporarily, and withdrew its Klappan operations giving a victory to the dedicated indigenous land defenders. Fortune Minerals was next to attempt to invade the Klappan Valley. On 16 July 2005 Tahltan protesters blockaded the Ealue Lake access road:

"Blockaders are stopping access to the Mount Klappan and the Sacred Headwaters where the first trickles of four magnificent rivers flow - Spatsizi, Nass, Klappan and Skeena. The surrounding Stikine is a globally significant natural area and the centre of Tahltan culture. The salmon from these rivers and the wildlife and plants have sustained the Tahltan for thousands of years" Tahltan Bulletin.

To protest the invasion of their hunting grounds by Shell, on 2 March 2005 members of the Tl'abanot'in Clan, Iskut First Nation and Tahltan Elders confronted company officials in Iskut (left). Chief Louis Louis told them: "There will be no business on Tahltan lands in respect to resource development due to the Moratorium that was imposed by our Hereditary Elders Council." Iskut elder James Dennis added: "Our land is our kitchen. When you bring your poison onto our land you are poisoning our kitchen. We will not stand for that, so go back to where you came from." See YouTube videos: Saving the Sacred Headwaters, and British Columbia: Nigeria North?

Upper Klappan, Tahltan Territory.
Photo: Poecile (Click to enlarge)

Guujaaw, Klappan blockade, 23 August 2005.
Photo: Oscar Dennis

On the behalf of Fortune Minerals, the BC Court issued an injunction to prohibit the Tahltan from the blockade site. A circle meeting was held on 3 September 2005 to discuss the injunction (right): "We view this as a minor setback in a much longer struggle for the Tahltan to protect the future of their people and the air, land and water on which they rely" Rhoda Quock, spokesperson, Klabona Keepers.

"We can see our Tahltan heritage in landmarks in our country. Our land carries these marks to remind us of who we are as a people. Some of these are the land's way to remind us of valuable lessons of life and are part of our traditional legends" Tahltan Nation CD Rom.

To demonstrate his support, Guujaaw, president of the Council of the Haida Nation and a prominent indigenous rights activist and environmentalist, visited the Klappan blockade in 2005 (right): Guujaaw Speaks at Blockade (Tahltan Bulletin).

Circle meeting, 3 September 2005.
Photo: Tahltan Bulletin

Brendon Quock leads the Tahltan elders to their point of arrest, 15 September 2005.
Photo: Tahltan Bulletin

First Nations supporters, 15 September 2005.
Photo: James Dennis 3rd

"The land, water, animals and plants of these Sacred Headwaters have nourished us for untold centuries, and still do. We have lived and died here for millennia, and like our ancestors, here too we will die. What has been proposed for this place by the despoilers would enrich a few, for a short time, but would leave us dispossessed of the very thing which defines us as a distinct people" Tahltan Bulletin.

First Nations supporters attended the Klappan blockade in full regalia with drums to demonstrate solidarity with their Tahltan neighbours. The Nass and Skeena Rivers flow through Gitxsan and Wet'suwet'en territories and the mining industry encroachment on the headwaters of these salmon spawning rivers also threatens their peoples.

Tahltan elders at the Klappan blockade stopped the heavy equipment and excavators belonging to contractors of Fortune Minerals from passing. As a result, the mining corporation brought about a Court ordered injunction giving RCMP officers authority to arrest the Tahltan elders on 15 September 2005 (right). Expressing their traditional wisdom and generosity as hosts of their land, the elders say:

"This place can remain a wonder and inspiration for all, for all time, if only we respect its beauty and richness. We are not opposed to economic development on our homeland and deeply desire economic justice and opportunity for all people, and especially our children. There are places within our territories we are willing to share with those who come to us in respect, those who recognize our place on this land, and those who understand we have traditions and laws we are obliged to honour" Tahltan Elders Statement.

Arrest of a Tahltan elder, 15 September 2005.
Photo: Klabona Keepers

Elder James Dennis arrested, 15 September 2005.
Photo: Tahltan Bulletin

Lillian Moyer is a Tahltan Band Councillor and Director of Tahltan Elders Society in Telegraph Creek. She took part in the Klappan blockade: "because so many mines are being talked about and we don't know the details. We have been kept in the dark for too long ... What is going to happen to our game, our fish, our wild berries?" Lillian was arrested on 15 October 2005 with eight other Tahltan elders (right).

Iskut elder James Dennis was arrested in protest over the invasion of his family's traditional hunting ground in Klappan (left). Hunting grounds are as important as fisheries to the Tahltan. In 1979 the Tahltan protested against BC Hydro plans to inundate and destroy their traditional hunting grounds on the Stikine and Iskut Rivers. In 1997, when an industrial access road was built in prime moose habitat by Golden Bear Mine, the Tahltan blockaded the road in protest.

Elder Lillian Moyer arrested, 15 September 2005.
Photo: Taylor Bachrach

Iskut Chief Louis Louie, 15 September 2005.
Photo: James Dennis 3rd

Iskut elder Bertha Louie participated in the Klappan blockade together with her sister: both were arrested. The stress on Tahltan communities caused by unethical resource development shows on the expression of Iskut Chief Louis Louie as he witnessed the arrest of his wife and sisters (left).

The Louie Family has a spiritual birthright to their traditional territories near Iskut. "Like a mother, our land provided food, medicine, and shelter ... People needed a good knowledge base and a set of skills which enabled them to live on the land. Knowledge and skills were taught by our relatives and our elders. So, everyone learned about the land in detail. Our people observed and remembered every feature: appearance, colours, smells, sounds. They knew every landmark, every clump of trees" Tahltan Nation CD Rom.

Kukdookaa Terri Brown.
Photo: Working TV

Kukdookaa Terri Brown (above) is a spokesperson for the Tahltan elders from Telegraph Creek. She is a member of the Crow Clan and the granddaughter of Emma Brown, a remarkable woman who lived to be 106 years (right). Emma was born in Telegraph Creek in 1888 and experienced the Klondike Gold Rush as tens of thousands of miners passed through the isolated Tahltan community. She became one of the first Indian celebrities in Canada when a photo of her was published on the front page of the national newspaper.

Kukdookaa graduated in economics and linguistics at Simon Fraser University. She was the first Aboriginal president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women and she spearheaded the Sisters In Spirit campaign by the Native Women's Association of Canada. See a video of Kukdookaai speaking on Aboriginal women, colonialism and genocide at the Public Forum on Ending Prostitution and listen to a speech she gave at the World March of Women.

Emma Brown, Telegraph Creek, 1905.
Photo: BC Archives

Tahltan artist Demsey Bob and sculpture.
Photo: Demsey Bob

Another Tahltan protester from Telegraph Creek is the long time guide outfitter Pat Etzerza (left), seen here camping out with Clarence Quock Jr. Many traditional trails still exist and are used today such as the one along Klastline River that connects Telegraph Creek to Iskut via the spectacular Mount Edziza (below). This is part of the Etzerza Family territory and today is protected as a park. Here for thousands of years obsidian was quarried for making arrowheads and knives. See the exhibit: Obsidian from Mount Edziza.

Mount Edziza, Tahltan Territory.
Photo: Neil Baker

"Nanaook Edzerza Marten Trapping Party," 1926.
Photo: BC Archives

During the winters in the old days, the Tahltan travelled by snowshoe and sled as they hunted and trapped. A photo taken in 1926 (left) entitled "Nanaook Edzerza Marten Trapping Party" shows a white and black Tahltan Bear Dog coming around the nose of the sled. The right of the Tahltan people to continue to live on the land according to their culture and traditions is an issue at the heart of the Klappan blockade.

Newly elected Iskut Chief Marie Quock says: "I would rather not see any development in the Klappan ... We utilize the sacred headwaters in the winter and summer. This is where our children have the knowledge passed on to them. They learn everything in the camps including hunting, trapping medicinal value of plants, and the oral history from our elders" Klabona Keepers.

Pat Etzerza is a member of the Crow Clan (Tsekiye). He is a spokesperson for the Tahltan Elders Council and a former president of the Tahltan Tribal Council. Other members of the Edzerza Family include: Louise Framst, author of a Tahltan cookbook and daughter of fiddler George Edzerza; Stacey Edzerza; and John Edzerza, Yukon Minister of Education. Pat Etzerza plays a Tahltan dice game, entertaining supporters and visitors at the Headwaters Education Centre (right).

Elder Jenny Quock, Headwaters Education Centre.
Photo: Klabona Keepers

Pat Edzerza (right), Headwaters Education Centre.
Photo: Klabona Keepers

The Headwaters Education Centre was established with the support of Iskut First Nation. It is a courageous demonstration of traditional values in a small community dependent on employment by BarrickGold, one of the world's largest mining corporations with a dark legacy of environmental and social collateral damage wherever it has operations: MiningWatch Canada.

International recognition for the Centre has come with visits by David Suzuki, Wade Davis and Iona Campagnolo, BC's Lieutenant Governor.

Sacred Headwaters Gathering, 5 August 2006.
Photo: Klabona Keepers

On 5 August 2006, over one hundred people from eight First Nations gathered at the Headwaters Education Centre (left) to demonstate solidarity with the Tahltan: "At this Sacred Headwaters, where so many river are born, we the people of the Stikine, Nass, Finlay, Bulkley, Morice, Skeena commit ourselves to protect our lands from unwanted resource development. In the memories and spirit of our ancestors, and for all our childern to come, we commit ourselves to defend our headwaters wild, beautiful, and sacred forever."

First Nations people have witnessed how massive amounts of contaminated waste water, drill slurry and muds from heavy metal mining operations despoil fragile riparian ecosystems and kill off the valuable wild salmon stocks which they have sustainably managed through the ages.

During a circle ceremony, Iskut Elder Bertha Louis welcomed visitors to the Sacred Headwaters Gathering (right). One fo the invited speakers was Hereditary Wet'suwet'en Chief Kloum Khun (Alphonse Gagnon). He says: "We watched the logging take place in our territory for years. All the big timber cartels have left us with is a big moonscape. The elders say the trees will grow back, but we know if you pollute a river, the damage can last forever" Office of the Wet'suwet'en.

Joining of the Waters Ceremony, 5 August 2006.
Photo: Klabona Keepers

Sacred Headwaters Gathering, 5 August 2006.
Photo: Klabona Keepers

A Joining of the Waters Ceremony (left) was part of the Sacred Headwaters Gathering. At a location close to the headwaters of the Little Klappan tributary of the upper Stikine River, leaders from eight First Nations mixed water brought from their home territories with water from the Stikine, Skeena and Nass Rivers. Iskut elder Loveman Nole adds Spatsizi waters to the cedar bentwood box (center left). Each indigenous leader took home a portion of the sacred mixture to sustain their resolve to protect the Sacred Headwaters.

BC government geologists have charted the stratigraphy, distribution and mineral potential of every square meter of BC. To further promote mining, the government initiated "Mineral Titles Online" in 2005 to fast track GIS claims staking. An explosion in mining claims and profiteering has resulted. At the same time public scrutiny over mispractice has ceased despite the serious risks of toxic contamination. See a technical review of waste water disposal from coalbed gas operations in BC: Center for Science in Public Participation.

The president of the Council of the Haida Nation, Guujaaw, says the battle of the Klabona Keepers to save the Sacred Headwaters is "everybody's fight ... all of us have got to be concerned about what's happening to the earth. The message has got to be that these companies and government can't assume that they have the authority to keep spoiling the earth. It's got to stop."

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and the BC Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) do not adequately protect indigenous rights, the environment or local economies. They are essentially pro forma coverups to serve mining companies and are validated by the court system so that the legal requirement of consulting and accomodating First Nations can be run ramshod over. Until Aboriginal Title has been resolved, land tenures in Tahltan Territory must be administered by the rightful Tahltan land owners.

Red Chris Mine (owned by bcMetals, formerly Cominco) is located 18 km south of the village of Iskut. It was approved by the EAO in 2005 despite being rejected by the Tahltan Central Council. See: Aboriginal Comments (EAO). Public rejections came from Monty Basset, director of the acclaimed film "Sheep of Stone," James Bourquin of Cassiar Watch; Ray Collingwood, guide outfitter; and Wade Davis of the National Geographic Society. See: Public Comments (EAO).

Guujaaw, Klabona, 5 August 2006.
Photo: Klabona Keepers

bcMetals preparing to cross Coyote Creek, 16 June 2006.
Photo: Klabona Keepers

On the same day that Lillian Moyer was arrested at the Klappan blockade, on 9 September 2006, diesel fuel from bcMetals equipment was leaked into the spawning grounds of Coyote Creek. "[This] oil spill is our worst nightmare coming true" says Rhoda Quock, spokesperson of the Klabona Keepers: "It shows what happens to our lands when development is rammed through." For an impression of the intense scale of development around Iskut, see the "properties" map on the right. The use of this word by the mining industry to describe a government granted tenure on sovereign indigenous land is an insult to the Tahltan.

On 16 June 2006 employees of bcMetals (now Imperial Metals) attempted to secretly drive industrial vechicles through Coyote Creek, a trout spawning habitat near Iskut (left). They were stopped by the Klabona Keepers: "We will not allow bcMetals to degrade the spawning grounds surrounding the Todagin Plateau in the Sacred Headwaters without the free, prior and informed consent of our people," said spokesperson Rhoda Quock: "Fish and wildlife are the lifeblood of our people, and we cannot let them be destroyed simply because bcMetals is in a rush."

Mining "properties" near Iskut.
Photo: Firesteel (Click to enlarge)

"Our responsibilities as Tahltan Elders requires us to inform all those who would come to this land and desecrate it for their own financial gain that you can no longer negotiate agreements in secret. Tahltan Elders are the true, legitimate governing body. We will apply Tahltan laws to stabilize, build, and strengthen our nation. We will protect our way of life and Mother Earth from further harmful assaults" 25 February 2006, Talhtan Elders Declaration.

The Klappan road blockade was monitored by officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. A fully armed officer at a First Nations celebration organized by the Tahltan elders seems an oppressive display of force (right). In reality, the protesters say that the RCMP are supportive as fellow community members hard hit by the same negative social pressures caused by excessive mining development.

RCMP at the Klappan blockade, 5 August 2006.
Photo: Klabona Keepers