There’s no reconciliation without truth

MY ARREST WHILE REPORTING ON THE WET’SUWET’EN PIPELINE PROTESTS IS PART OF A LARGER PATTERN OF POLICE SUPPRESSING JOURNALISTS WHO COVER STORIES ABOUT INDIGENOUS RESISTANCE—AND IT NEEDS TO STOP

Words and photography by AMBER BRACKEN

SOME OF THE first advice I was given as a baby journalist was:

“Don’t get arrested. You can’t make any pictures from the back of a police car. ” This maxim has served me for most of my 14-year career, which has taken me into zones of conflict and protest across North America.

But last winter, while documenting opposition to Coastal GasLink’s building of a pipeline at a protest site called Coyote Camp near Houston, B.C. —an issue I’d been covering for three years—the RCMP made that impossible for me. I could not both avoid arrest and continue to cover a story of national importance. Instead, I was forced to become part of it.

For more than a decade, Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs have directed an occupation of this site, which is a fraction of their 22,000-square-kilometre traditional territory. It’s culturally important land, home to glacial headwaters for salmon and habitat for moose. It is newly crossed by roads that cut all the way through to the west coast, and tunnelling under Wedzin Kwa, their river, is imminent. Unist’ot’en spokesperson Howihkat (Freda Huson) told me the only way to make the government and industry respect her nation’s rights is to claim the land in the same way settlers did—to occupy it.

Last November, photojournalist Amber Bracken was arrested by the RCMP while covering Wet’suwet’en protests of the Coastal GasLink pipeline for The Narwhal. She recounted the experience for The Narwhal last winter; now we’re bringing that story to you, with photographs of her time at Coyote Camp.

THIS PAGE: Police breach a locked house at Coyote Camp in Gidimt’ en territory near Houston, B.C. The Gidimt’ en clan had held the camp, near Coastal GasLink’ s pipeline and drill site, since September 2021.

A crowd of police, including militarized officers, approach the house that Gidimt’ en spokesperson Sleydo ’ (Molly Wickham), her supporters and two journalists had locked themselves into. After breaking down the door, everyone inside the house—including Bracken, who took this photo— was arrested.

Bracken documenting police enforcement in Unist’ ot’ en Village in 2020.

Headlines celebrated my release as Gidimt’en supporters sat in jail cells.

I was documenting as Gidimt’en spokesperson Sleydo’ (Molly Wickham) and her supporters locked themselves inside a tiny house adjacent to the pipeline right-of-way. With us in the cramped space was Michael Toledano, a freelance reporter filming a documentary for the CBC. After the RCMP arrived by helicopter, they surrounded the building, cut the cords for wi-fi and radio, and then broke down the door with an axe. Chunks of wood flew across the small space before they switched to a chainsaw. As soon as there was a big enough hole, they pointed weapons at the unarmed group standing inside with hands raised. The scene has since become known across Canada.

Just outside, a dog barked incessantly as police arrested everyone—including me. “I’m a member of the media, ” I stated clearly. But one police officer responded, “Well, you’re under arrest right now, so step out. ” It didn’t matter that The Narwhal, the publication I had been reporting for, had notified the RCMP ahead of time that I would be on site. Or that I was displaying a press pass. Or that the RCMP had already been tracking me as a journalist. They knew what I was doing there. My arrest, and those of other media covering Wet’suwet’en that day, is part of a pattern of police interference with reporting on Indigenous resistance movements.

As I was escorted away from the camp, I was pained by all the photos I couldn’t take: the mountain forest road lined with Coastal GasLink trucks and heavy machinery. The worker who waved to RCMP officers as we drove by. A Gitxsan woman holding her cedar headpiece in her hands, a discordant echo of the two steel handcuffs on her wrists. Eyes peering through food slots and cheeks pressed against the floor, straining to see and hear past heavy metal doors in a series of cellblocks from Houston to Smithers to, finally, Prince George, B.C. In all, 30 people were arrested at that opposition over the course of two days.

We were charged with breach of injunction. If the charges had been criminal (i.e., more serious), we would have been afforded the right to see a judge within 24 hours, where I could have signed release conditions and regained my freedom. Instead, police officers took most of our clothes, denied us soap and toothbrushes, and detained us for days in cold cells. We all listened as

Wet’suwet’en, Gitxsan and traditional struggle songs reverberated through the metal and concrete halls, their rounds of harmony transforming the cellblocks into cathedrals of the human spirit.

I was released from Prince George, B.C., four days later and four and a half hours away from where I had been arrested. I had to literally dig my personal belongings out of the wreckage from Coyote Camp, which had been scooped up with heavy machinery and dumped along with ice, rocks and mud at the bottom of the mountain. I came home to notes of concern and solidarity from other journalists in Canada who had been through similar experiences.

On one of my first freedom calls, I was asked, “How does it feel to be treated like a native?” My good friend, who is Indigenous, was proud of me for following the story, but her joke made a clear point: Indigenous people are criminalized like this every day, and most of those arrested were treated far worse than I was. Officers cut a medicine bag and ripped cedar regalia off Sleydo’ —she says it was the only time she cried during the whole experience. They put her in a cell alone to worry about her kids, since her husband had also been arrested. Two racialized trans women were asked invasive questions about their bodies, denied medication several times, and put into the men’s side of prison

Sleydo ’ (Molly Wickham) peers out of a locked house in Coyote Camp, watching police move in.

and addressed using male pronouns. When I was released, headlines across the world celebrated my freedom, even as Sleydo’ , the two trans women and several other supporters still sat in the Prince George correctional centre. They would be released a day later, but not before Sleydo’ says Coastal GasLink lawyers questioned her Wet’suwet’en identity through her lawyer and the Wet’suwet’en identity of Chief Woos’ daughter Jocey Alec in court.

Hereditary chiefs oversee the eviction of Coastal GasLink workers from the camp in Wet’suwet’en territory near Houston, B.C., on Saturday, January 4, 2020. Front, left to right: Dinï ze’ Knedebeas, Warner William; Dinï ze’ Hagwilnegh, Ron Mitchell; Dinï ze’ Woos, Frank Alec; Dinï ze’ Madeek, Jeff Brown; and Dinï ze’ Gisday’wa, Fred Tom. Back: Dinï ze’ Ste ohn tsiy, Rob Alfred.

In an era enamoured with the concept of reconciliation, images of militarized officers wielding advanced weapons are uncomfortable for the RCMP and the Canadian government.

My experience of jail is not unique, but RCMP efforts to suppress press freedom— especially around stories that focus on Indigenous issues—is critically important in this moment. The public record of what happens in Wet’suwet’en territory should be beyond police interference. The arrest of Indigenous Peoples on their land concerns every single person in Canada, as we wrestle with our collective history and future.

THE WET’SUWET’EN NATION has never signed a treaty or ceded their territory, a swath of land the size of New Jersey. In 1997, the Supreme Court of Canada affirmed this fact in Delgamuukw v. British Columbia, a case brought by Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan hereditary chiefs against the province. In the case, the hereditary chiefs established that the Wet’suwet’en have a system of Indigenous law that predates the existence of elected band councils, which was imposed along with the Indian Act and the reservation system. Within Wet’suwet’en law, hereditary chiefs hold responsibility for territorial lands—and it’s these chiefs who are the forces leading the opposition to the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

Although much has been made of the elected chiefs who vocally support the pipeline project and the benefit agreements they ’ ve signed, the question of whether or not the project’s approval is in violation of Wet’suwet’en rights has not been resolved in the courts. The hereditary chiefs maintain, however, that the pipeline being forced through their territory is in violation of Wet’suwet’en law.

Elected Wet’suwet’en chiefs fulfill a crucial role for their communities on multiple reserves. But the Coastal GasLink pipeline route doesn’t cross Wet’suwet’en reserve land; it crosses traditional territory where hereditary chiefs are tasked with ancient responsibilities, and where they have been recognized as stakeholders by B.C. ’s Supreme Court. Despite the staunch opposition of the hereditary chiefs, the government has permitted a project through the most intact portion of Wet’suwet’en territory without consent—and the RCMP has been directed by the courts to suppress pipeline opposition, a task they ’ ve taken on with paramilitary force.

REGARDLESS OF WHO has a right to consent to the project, the RCMP’s show of force against Wet’suwet’en occupation camps—and the suppression of related coverage—is in itself worth talking about. Over the last three years, police with authority to use lethal force have arrested more than 60 people on behalf of Coastal GasLink.

In an era enamoured with the concept of reconciliation, this reality—and the images of militarized officers wielding advanced weapons that accompany it— is uncomfortable for the RCMP and Canadian government. British Columbia recently passed its two-year anniversary of codifying Indigenous rights in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. Last June, Canada implemented the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which calls for free, prior and informed consent of natural resource and development projects on Indigenous lands. With Canada’s Minister of CrownIndigenous Relations Marc Miller saying things like “It’s time to give land back, ” as he pledged in a press conference last October, it’s no wonder Canadians and Indigenous Peoples are experiencing a kind of reconciliation disorientation.

Stories that fit the comfortable reconciliation narrative are easier for reporters to tell. I’ ve never seen tactical weapons at a press conference announcing a benefits agreement between an industry company and a First Nation. To my knowledge, no journalist has ever been arrested while reporting on new federal funding for Indigenous protected areas, or when politicians are included in First Nations’ ceremonies.

Like many companies, Coastal GasLink runs a sophisticated press strategy. Its narrative—of economic benefit for all, including nearby First Nations— gets coverage in the regular news grind, often generated by industrysupplied press releases. It’s much more difficult to report unmediated stories about the pipeline’s impact. I’ ve talked to multiple journalists who have also been frustrated by their interactions with company spokespeople. And forget about any unsupervised conversation with workers or consistent access to see what’s actually unfolding on project sites and in construction zones.

To get a full understanding of what actually happens to Indigenous people who assert land rights or challenge official narratives, it’s critical for every Canadian to have the opportunity to see what’s happening on the ground.

THE MOST FAMOUS photograph of a standoff between Canadian military and Indigenous land defenders—the young military man facing off with an Anishinaabe warrior at Oka, Que., in 1990—was taken by a photographer named Shaney Komulainen. Not many people realize she was arrested, stripsearched and detained for five hours as she left the scene. Army operatives

From left, Gitxsan supporter Wilpspoocxw Lax Gibuu (Shaylynne Sampson) and Sleydo ’ (Molly Wickham) watch an RCMP helicopter circling Coyote Camp on November 18, 2021. It was the 54th day the group held a blockade to prevent tunnelling under the Wedzin Kwa, or Morice River, the glacial source of their drinking water. Hereditary chiefs evicted Coastal GasLink workers from their territory in January 2020 and authorized a renewed enforcement of that eviction order in November 2021.

Left to right: Haudenosaunee supporters Logan Staats, Teka ’tsihasere (Corey Jocko) and Skyler Williams ride a CGL excavator as they help close the road in Gidimt’ en territory. After hereditary chiefs served an eviction order to more than 500 CGL workers and subcontractors at two camps, only a small handful of workers left.

tried their best to discredit Komulainen and the other journalists who ventured inside the razor wire. Months after her arrest, Komulainen was charged with possession of a weapon or an imitation of a weapon, threatening and interfering with the work of a peace agent and participating in a riot. Komulainen says she had so much pent-up emotion from the months of the trial that she surprised herself by bawling, instead of celebrating, when the “not guilty ” verdict was read.

At the 1995 Gustafsen Lake standoff, a dispute over land rights for a Secwépemc Sun Dance ceremony, RCMP responded to the group of 24 protesters with at least 400 heavily armed officers. No media was present when, on September 11, the situation culminated in a 45-minute firefight, during which police deployed buried explosives and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Despite the incredible show of militarized police force and continued calls for an official inquiry, there is no public record of that day. Gustafsen Lake remains one of the most obscured Indigenous land rights disputes in Canada.

In 2016, Justin Brake, working as a freelancer for The Independent, followed a group of Inuit and their supporters into Muskrat Falls, a dam site in central Labrador, and spent several days inside as the occupation stopped work on the project. When an injunction accused him of trespassing, Brake had to decide if he would face arrest in order to cover the story. He decided to leave before police enforced the injunction, but was still burdened with civil

To get a full understanding of what actually happens to Indigenous people who assert land rights or challenge official narratives, it’s critical for every Canadian to have the opportunity to see what’s really happening on the ground.

and criminal charges. When the civil charges were dismissed in 2019 in the Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal, the ruling affirmed the rights of journalists in Canada to report from injunction zones, like I did. In his judgment, Justice Derek Green outlined specific parameters that apply to journalists following newsworthy stories. He emphasized that “particular consideration should be given to protests involving Aboriginal issues. ” Most recently, the ongoing protest against old-growth logging at Fairy Creek, B.C., became notorious for RCMP harassing and unreasonably restricting journalists. The situation was so bad that a coalition of media organizations launched a successful legal challenge last year against the RCMP’s illegal suppression of press freedoms at Fairy Creek. On July 20, 2021, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Douglas Thompson addressed the RCMP practice of creating exclusion zones and media access points, stating the “geographically extensive” areas weren’t necessary for police operations. He also reminded the RCMP of “the media’s special role in a free and democratic society, and the necessity of avoiding undue and unnecessary interference with the journalistic function. ” Less than a month later, Victoria Buzz photojournalist Colin Smith was arrested at Fairy Creek and detained in the back of a prisoner transport in the hot sun. As he became claustrophobic—feeling faint, sweating and visibly shaking—Smith says an officer advised him to take deep breaths but didn’t open the doors. Eventually Smith was released without charges, but the experience left a mark. At least two other independent media photographers were also arrested and detained at Fairy Creek, and many more have been threatened or severely limited.

The constant threat of arrest has a dampening effect on reporting. Karyn Pugliese, now at the CBC, was at APTN when she led the network to intervene in Brake’s case back in 2016. In an interview with Canadaland, Pugliese spoke about her anxieties as an assigning editor, forced to contend with escalating police tactics as she sends journalists into the field: “What if [that person] ends up in jail? I’m responsible for that. What if I can’t protect [them]?”

Coastal GasLink dropped its civil charges against Toledano and me just before Christmas—but there is no doubt in my mind that my arrest was intended to frighten, humiliate and deter me from continuing to cover this story. ONE OF THE MORE surreal moments of this experience was at the Prince George courthouse, where I was brought after three nights in cells. When it was my turn to see the judge, sheriffs escorted me in socked feet down a series of hallways and through a narrow staircase. At the end, a door abruptly opened from the echoing gloom onto a bright room hushed by thick red carpet and courtroom protocol. After days without a shower or fresh clothes, the sweatshirt and long underwear I’d been arrested in were filthy. They had taken my glasses, my hair tie and my bra. I felt indecent; I wouldn’t have opened the door for a delivery driver dressed like that. The oak-panelled room held very few observers. But everyone else was fully clothed, as were the sheriffs and the court reporter. Justice Marguerite Church presided from the raised bench in her black judge’s robes as I sat barely dressed and cold in the prisoner’s box. I was supposed to feel small.

But my arrest makes me feel part of a national reckoning with press freedoms, and what reconciliation means for how Canada tells stories about Indigenous resistance. I am not alone in this work, or in dealing with the fallout.

Many more have said it: “truth before reconciliation. ” But that can’t happen if journalists are routinely criminalized in pursuit of this truth. Indigenous people are shouting to be heard, our courts affirm the rights of journalists to access and report on these issues, and yet we let police be the arbiters of this crucial conversation.

Police put me in handcuffs when I should have been doing my job. I wanted to be doing my job. And I am furious.

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