The Wetʼsuwetʼen are a First Nation who live on the Bulkley River and around Burns Lake, Broman Lake, and François Lake in the northwestern Central Interior of British Columbia.
They speak Witsuwitʼen, a dialect of the Babine-Witsuwitʼen language which, like its sister language Carrier, is a member of the Athabaskan family.
Their oral history, called kungax, recounts that their ancestral village, Dizkle or Dzilke, once stood upstream from the Bulkley Canyon. This cluster of cedar houses on both sides of the river is said to have been abandoned because of an omen of impending disaster. The exact location of the village has been lost. The neighbouring Gitxsan people of the Hazelton area have a similar tale, though the village in their version is named Dimlahamid (Temlahan)
The endonym Wetʼsuwetʼen means “People of the Wa Dzun Kwuh River (Bulkley River)”
The Wet’suwet’en First Nation was formerly part of the Omineca Band. However, in 1984 the Omineca Band split into the Broman Lake and Nee-Tahi-Buhn bands. The Skin Tayi band later split off from Nee-Tahi-Buhn. Today, the Skin Tyee Band, Nee Tahi Buhn Band, Wet’suwet’en First Nation, Moricetown Band and Hagwilget Band make up the Wet’suwet’en Nation.
Like most First Nations here, Wet’suwet’en never signed treaties with the Canadian or provincial governments. Nevertheless, the latter took the land and leased forested acreage to logging companies. Today just 20% of British Columbia’s old-growth forests remain.
In 2020, after decades of activist pressure, the province identified about a quarter of the remaining old growth as at high risk for logging and recommended a pause while deciding their fate. Yet today, logging has been deferred in less than half of the high-risk area.
Another conflict with the settler state has been the Coastal GasLink pipeline, which seeks to transport liquefied natural gas from northeast BC to a terminal on the coast near the town of Kitimat.
The 670-kilometre (417-mile) pipeline will cut across traditional Wet’suwet’en lands that cover 22,000sq km across northern BC.
The hereditary chiefs, who under Wet’suwet’en law claim authority over those traditional territories, said they never gave their consent for the project to move forward. They have raised concerns about the pipeline’s potential effects on the land, water, and their community.
In late July, Amnesty International took the extraordinary step in naming Dsta’hyl Canada’s first ever designated prisoner of conscience, and now demanding his immediate and unconditional release.
“The Canadian state has unjustly criminalized and confined Chief Dsta’hyl for defending the land and rights of the Wet’suwet’en people,” Amnesty International’s Ana Piquer stated in a press release. “As a result, Canada joins the shameful list of countries where prisoners of conscience remain under house arrest or behind bars.”
In October 2021, Dsta’hyl was arrested and charged with criminal contempt after confiscating and decommissioning heavy equipment utilized by Coastal GasLink to construct its LNG pipeline on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory. Dsta’hyl said he was enforcing Wet’suwet’en laws as the company did not have the free, prior and informed consent of hereditary chiefs to build the pipeline.
Megathreads and spaces to hang out:
- 📀 Come listen to music and Watch movies with your fellow Hexbears nerd, in Cy.tube
- 🔥 Read and talk about a current topics in the News Megathread
- ⚔ Come talk in the New Weekly PoC thread
- ✨ Talk with fellow Trans comrades in the New Weekly Trans thread
- 👊 Share your gains and goals with your comrades in the New Weekly Improvement thread
reminders:
- 💚 You nerds can join specific comms to see posts about all sorts of topics
- 💙 Hexbear’s algorithm prioritizes comments over upbears
- 💜 Sorting by new you nerd
- 🌈 If you ever want to make your own megathread, you can reserve a spot here nerd
- 🐶 Join the unofficial Hexbear-adjacent Mastodon instance toots.matapacos.dog
Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):
Aid:
Theory:
Does therapy actually help with anhedonia? I’m generally pretty anti-therapy because I believe in material solutions for why I feel the way I do, but for years now, due to trauma, I find myself unable to feel things like excitement, passion, contentment or comfort in certain circumstances when I feel like I should feel them, or want to feel them. And, I guess I’m realizing I don’t actually want to live a whole life with part of the emotional spectrum dimmed out.
Therapy, depending on kind, has empirical backing for helping with some mental health issues. For cluster B, DBT is quite effective - but it’s a year(s) long slog and you need ONE therapist the whole time. CBT can be effective for cluster C and issues like depression, but its still not a one and done or a handful of sessions and done. CBT is also effective for depression/anhedonia, that kind of thing.
I know we give psychotherapeutics a lot of leeway, but as a field it’s like 60 years old. Some meds we don’t actually know why they work at all - like lithium, we don’t have an explanation for how it works, just empirical evidence that it helps with and sometimes stops suicidal ideation. It’s easier to think that something physical/material will solve a problem in your brain but it can also be just a part of a full holistic therapeutic programme. It’s not idealism to sit and work through your problems with someone who has experience helping others with similar problems.
Therapy can give you tools to work out your trauma in a healthy way, move past it, etc. Some things like EMDR (I’ve done it) can take trauma or ptsd things from exacting and painful to more emotionally distant and able to reason through, to start processing. Some people need therapy because they can’t work out their problems because of the disease process, for example a lot of people with depression have a hard time figuring out how to address problems in their lives (like poor hygeine) because they “give up” at step 1 where they imagine it’s just too large a task - therapy can help break those tasks into manageable chunks that they can actually get through.
Personally, I was able to stop taking Effexor because I had done about a years worth of therapy and also because I had left behind a lot of really bad stressors (I graduated school, I left my ex, etc). I do recommend therapy and not just a try it once but at least a handful of sessions with a therapist you vibe with even if it doesn’t feel like it’s working - and if you don’t vibe with a therapist, firing them and finding another and restarting the clock. Sometimes psychs won’t just give you meds, sometimes they enforce the dual approach and you have to do therapy sessions - in that case, even if you’re against it, do it, finish the minimum and get on the script.