HOUSTON, British Columbia — Amid vast forests of spruce, pine and poplar trees, deep in the interior of British Columbia, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrived at a small bridge this month to clear a group of First Nations people who had set up a blockade across a narrow, gravel logging road.

Dozens of officers, some equipped in military-style tactical uniforms and carrying semiautomatic rifles, stared across a plywood and barbed wire roadblock as the Wet’suwet’en people and their supporters gathered behind it. A helicopter circled overhead, and police boats were deployed on the pristine Morice River running nearby the protest site.

“You’re trespassing on Wet’suwet’en land,” Molly Wickham yelled at the police. She is the spokeswoman for the Gitdumden checkpoint, as the blockade and surrounding encampment is known, after one of the clans of the Wet’suwet’en people who claim this part of the province.

But the officers ignored her and started to systemically dismantle the blockade, cutting the wire and pushing against the wooden structure, testing for weak spots. Three protesters had locked their arms to it, and the pressure hurt, causing them to cry out.