TL’ESQOX FIRST NATION—It was just after 6:30 a.m. and Cecil Grinder hadn’t slept.

Standing next to a smouldering fire, he watched the trucks approaching from the east.

“I tried to get a few hours sleep, but I just couldn’t,” the Tl’etinqox First Nation councillor said, explaining that he was too nervous. Seventeen-year-old Syles Laceese joined him on the tarmac.

At the junction with Farwell Canyon Road, about 40 minutes outside of Williams Lake, B.C., a white pickup and a tractor-trailer towing a bulldozer slowed to a stop at Grinder’s command amid the rolling hills and cattle ranches of Tsilhqot’in traditional territory.

The trucks belonged to Taseko Mining Ltd., which announced plans in June to begin exploratory drilling at Teztan Biny, also known as Fish Lake. It’s preliminary work to pave the way for a $1.5-billion, open-pit gold and copper mine in the heart of Tsilhqot’in territory that the company has been pursuing for 25 years.

This meeting is the latest chapter in a long-running dispute between Taseko Mines, a Vancouver-based mining company, and the Tsilhqot’in National Government.

The Tsilhqot’in see Taseko’s New Prosperity mine project as a direct threat to their way of life, jeopardizing food security and sacred land, which is critical to their survival.

After a brief conversation with Grinder, who told the drivers they were not allowed to pass, the vehicles turned around, earning the Tsilhqot’in a brief reprieve.

Throughout the morning, more demonstrators arrived at the road block. Regular traffic was allowed by, including forestry trucks and workers for a lumber mill.

A few hours later, the site manager for Taseko’s mine project arrived at the roadblock, which had grown to include more than a dozen people and chiefs from three First Nations.

Taseko manager Finn Conradsen asked if there was anything the company could do to convince the Tsilhqot’in nation to let them enter. “Are there any other questions we can answer?” he asked.

“That question should have been asked 25 years ago,” replied Tl’etinqox First Nation Chief Joe Alphonse.

There are grave sites and ceremonial locations at Fish Lake, Alphonse said in an interview the night before he set up the roadblock. “If you look at that lake, it has some of the highest, oldest, archeological findings in the Tsilhqot’in area. It’s a very spiritual area.”

With a resigned handshake and a nod of respect, Conradsen and his colleague left, although Alphonse suspected it only meant a pause in the conflict.

It’s likely the company will apply for a court injunction to remove the road block, Alphonse said, meaning the company — and its exploration equipment — will probably be back.

“If they do that, we could have 500 people here as soon as we need them,” he said. “The Tsilhqo’tin are not going to back down. ... (We’re) not going to be intimidated by the RCMP or anybody else trying to forcibly remove us.”

It’s latest confrontation in a long legal battle between the Tsilhqot’in Nation and Taseko, which began exploration work in the area 20 years ago and first proposed the New Prosperity Mine in 2008.

The Tsilhqot’in government was established in 1989 to meet the needs of six Indigenous communities in the area.

“Our culture is drastically different from the European-descent people. We live our life as low impact and environmentally friendly as we can. Our ceremony and our places do not come in buildings,” Alphonse said.

The mine would be on the nation’s traditional territory, which includes 3,000 square kilometres of wilderness and wildlife habitat, and is located just outside its title lands, which cover 1,700 square kilometres of land recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2014.

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Taseko holds a provincial permit for exploration drilling for a gold and copper mine, and its initial proposal was to use Fish Lake as a tailings pit. But the federal government rejected that proposal in 2012, explained Brian Battison, vice-president of corporate affairs at Taseko. In response, Taseko came up with a new proposal that includes creating a tailings pond two kilometres upstream from Fish Lake instead, which means the company would not have to drain the lake.

He said the mine would create 700 jobs over two years of construction and directly employ 550 people over 22 years of operation.

Battison said the exploratory work the company planned to start Tuesday is necessary to determine how the tailings pit will affect water quality at Fish Lake. He confirmed the company had temporarily paused work.

Battison said delays from environmentalists and Indigenous groups have become more commonplace in the past “few years,” making things “frustrating” for investors.

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But the Vancouver-based company ultimately wants to keep mining in B.C. if possible, and noted that it benefits B.C. residents most.

“We want to see the value of our investment stay here in British Columbia and help British Columbians,” he said. “But when you’re not allowed to do that, you have to look at jurisdictions where you can do work and where they welcome those kinds of investments.”

Five of six mines Taseko either operates or has proposals for, are in B.C. The sixth is in Arizona, where the company successful obtained permits in 2017 to begin in situ copper mining.

“When investors look at those things and they look at the track record of B.C. and Canada, they may be discouraged,” he said. “Maybe that’s the end goal of those who oppose mining.”

The Supreme Court of Canada announced earlier this month it would not hear the Tsilhqot’in’s appeal of a B.C. court decision that allowed Taseko to drill in the area.

“For them to not hear our case is really mind blowing,” said Alphonse, calling the situation a “mockery.”

“If you’re talking Indigenous rights and access to resources, that’s what Canada is all about. Canada’s got to figure this out.”

With files from Melanie Green and Ainslie Cruickshank

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