The Thin Green Line: Coast Salish and Indigenous Resistance to Energy Transmission Projects

ABSTRACT

Indigenous alliances have been central in stopping the export and transmission of fossil fuel products from Alberta through the west coast. This article compares two pipeline projects, the Enbridge Northern Gateway and Trans Mountain pipelines, to examine the ways that Indigenous activism works to counter the settler colonial state. The Trans Mountain case objected to by many Coast Salish nations on both sides of the international border is a unique case because the Coast Salish assert a unified nationality as a part of their environmental activism. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted with Coast Salish nations, this article argues that the Coast Salish reject the structures of a settler colonial state despite continuing to encounter obstacles. While the Enbridge pipeline was defeated, the Trans Mountain project is ongoing and uncertain. Both cases show the impacts of Indigenous and non-native alliance making. The Coast Salish case adds an important transnational component to theorizing alliance making that shows innovative strategies used by Indigenous nations to confront the settler colonial state.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous
• environmentalism
• British Columbia
• Canada-US Border
• anthropology

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Decolonization includes, for some, the return of land back to Indigenous nations, the recognition of Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination, and engagement with Indigenous nations as distinct political entities.

2. Some of the significant Acts of Parliament and Supreme Court of Canada cases include the 1973 Calder decision, the 1982 Constitution, the 1997 Delgamuukw decision, the 2004 Haida case, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act of 2012, and most recently the 2014 Tsilqhot’in Decision (see McCreary and Milligan 2014 for further details).

3. Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia, 2014 SCC 44 (CanLII), [2014] 2 SCR 257, https://canlii.ca/t/g7mt9

4. R. v. Desautel, 2021 SCC 17 (CanLII), https://canlii.ca/t/jfjqc

5. https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/oil-gas/tmx-costs-skyrocket-what-need-know-trans-mountain-pipeline

6. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/trans-mountain-pipeline-challenge-bc-first-nations-supreme-court-of-canada-1.5634232

Additional information

Notes on contributors

James M. Hundley

James Hundley is an assistant professor of anthropology at Rowan University in New Jersey. His current research examines policy formation processes at the Canada/US border in the Pacific Northwest and how these affect borderland communities.