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TransCanada has benefit agreements with all 20 elected First Nation bands along the route, however, members of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation, which is made up of five clans that have numerous houses, have long protested construction of pipelines through the nation’s claimed traditional territory.

“We’ve never signed a treaty, we’ve never ceded or surrendered our land in any way to Canada,” Wickham said. “Canada is choosing the pipeline over reconciliation with the Wet’suwet’en.”

Wickham said a pipeline would jeopardize the health of the Morice River and block members of the First Nation from their territory.

“It would affect every aspect of our lives,” said Wickham.

“This is a remote part of the country and people still sustain themselves traditionally here. People still have that relationship to the land, we still have our stories of our ancestors. If a pipeline goes through, it will devastate those territories and we won’t be able to access them.”

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To prevent pipeline construction, the Unist’ot’en — a house group of the Gilseyhu clan — set up a camp, including several buildings, in the path of the pipeline about a decade ago, and a checkpoint on the West Morice River Forest Service Road. In December, a B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled that the occupants of the camp had to allow TransCanada access to the Morice River Bridge and the construction site, which is about a kilometre away from the camp.