Band finds it's not alone in fight for wilderness

MARK HUME
[Globe and Mail]

VANCOUVER -- There are few places in the world more beautiful than the
wilderness area that British Columbia's Tahltan people call home. There
are great sweeping mountains, volcanic cones, surging rivers and lakes
so clear that you can look down from a float plane and see fish
swimming. On dark cliffs, white mountain goats shine like flecks of mica
and driving the Stewart Cassiar Highway north from Kitwanga, it is not
unusual to round a curve and find a pair of black bears sitting on the
centre line.

In that stunning landscape, the Tahltan have some special places and few
are more spiritual than the place they call Klabona, or "sacred
headwaters." Here in a range of mountains can be found the beginnings of
three of the West's great salmon rivers: the Skeena, Stikine and Nass.

Over the long weekend the Iskut Band, part of the Tahltan First Nation,
played host to an unusual gathering in those mountains that included
hereditary leaders of four other northern bands: the Gitxsan,
Wet'suwet'en, Haida and Haisla.

They were there to talk about the sacred headwaters and the threat they
see in the growing demand for access to the area from resource companies.

In addition to being rich in wilderness values, the Tahltan country also
has gold, coal, methane gas, timber and potential hydro power.

Last year, the Iskut band blockaded the main access road into the
headwaters in an effort to keep Fortune Minerals from developing the
Klappan coal fields. In June, some elders tried to block bcMetals from
drilling in the area. The Iskut Band had also made it clear to Shell
Canada last year that they are opposed to the extraction of coal bed
methane gas in the region.

In the past, the Iskut Band may have felt a little lonely on the front
lines way up there, 400 kilometres north of Prince Rupert, but with the
leaders of so many nations showing up to give support over the weekend,
Chief Marie Quock said she realized just how many friends they have.

"We really don't want development here," she said in an interview via
satellite phone from Mount Klappan. "There are certain areas sacred to
the Tahltan and this is one of them. This is not to say we're against
all development, but certainly we don't want to see it in the Klabona."

Chief Quock said she hoped the gathering would lead to more support from
people around B.C. and "globally maybe."

Guujaw, president of the Haida Nation, said that saving places such as
the sacred headwaters is something that he thinks a broad spectrum of
the public will support.

"Is it only a native fight? No. It's got to be everybody's fight . . .
all of us have got to be concerned about what's happening to the earth."

Guujaw said the headwaters are sacred because the three rivers that
start there produce salmon that are caught all over the northwest.

"The message [from the conference] has got to be that these companies
and government can't assume that they have the authority to keep
spoiling the earth," Guujaw said. "It's got to stop."

Adam Gagnon, hereditary Wet'suwet'en leader, said native tribes
throughout the north want veto power over proposed developments.

"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."

Over the past few years, native leaders have been increasingly trying to
get a stronger say over developments proposed within their traditional
territory.

The provincial government, which has been reaching out to First Nations
with a promise of a renewed relationship, has made a lot of chiefs and
councils assume that things will change.

In the sacred headwaters, the Iskut Band is determined to put that to
the test. And for resource companies such as Shell, bcMetals, Fortune
Minerals and others, that means it can't be business as usual. Just what
system will replace that, isn't clear. The weekend conference sends a
signal, however, that the next time a band blockades an access road,
even in the remote wilds of Tahltan territory, they won't be alone.

mhume@globeandmail.com