Delgamuukw v British Columbia, [1997] 3 SCR 1010, also known as Delgamuukw v The Queen, Delgamuukw-Gisday’wa, or simply Delgamuukw, is a ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada that contains its first comprehensive account of Aboriginal title in Canada. The Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en peoples claimed Aboriginal title and jurisdiction over 58,000 square kilometers in northwest British Columbia. The plaintiffs lost the case at trial, but the Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal in part and ordered a new trial because of deficiencies relating to the pleadings and treatment of evidence. In this decision, the Court went on to describe the "nature and scope" of the protection given to Aboriginal title under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, defined how a claimant can prove Aboriginal title, and clarified how the justification test from R v Sparrow applies when Aboriginal title is infringed. The decision is also important for its treatment of oral testimony as evidence of historic occupation.
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.
Babine River Corridor Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada, located to the north of Hazelton. The park was established by Order-in-Council in 1999 and is approximately 15,339 hectares in area.
Bulkley Junction Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada, located on the west side of the Skeena River opposite Hazelton. It was established in 1997 and expanded in 2004 from 133 ha. to its current size of 169 ha.
Boulder Creek Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada, located to the west of BC Highway 16 near Smithers, in the Bulkley Valley.
Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada. Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park covers 23 hectares of the Bulkley River Valley, on the east side of Driftwood Creek, a tributary of the Bulkley River, 10 km northeast of the town of Smithers. The park is accessible from Driftwood Road from Provincial Highway 16. It was created in 1967 by the donation of the land by the late Gordon Harvey (1913–1976) to protect fossil beds on the east side of Driftwood Creek. The beds were discovered around the beginning of the 20th century. The park lands are part of the asserted traditional territory of the Wet'suwet'en First Nation.
François Lake Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada, located at the east end of Francois Lake. The total park area is 7,214 hectares. It is about 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) off BC Highway 16, southwest of the town of Fraser Lake. There is no potable water at the site so campers should bring their own.
The Wetʼsuwetʼen First Nation is a Wetʼsuwetʼen First Nations band located outside of the village of Burns Lake, British Columbia, Canada. It was formerly known as the Broman Lake Indian Band and is still usually referred to as Broman Lake although this is no longer its official name. Its members speak the Wetʼsuwetʼen dialect of Babine-Witsuwitʼen, a Northern Athabaskan language. The main community is on Palling Indian Reserve No. 1.
Netalzul Meadows Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada. It is located in the Harold-Price watershed, about 50 km north of Smithers. The park consists of an unusual wet meadow complex, as well as a spectacular waterfall and rare plant species.
The Bulkley Valley is in the northwest Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada.
Witset is a Wet'suwet'en village in Central British Columbia, Canada on the west side of the Bulkley River on Coryatsaqua (Moricetown) Indian Reserve No. 2, and on Moricetown Indian Reserve No.1. The current village was built during the early 1900s. Evidence of inhabitants date back to around 5,500 years ago.
The Morice River is the outflow of Morice Lake southwest of Houston, British Columbia, Canada. Morice Lake and Morice River are named after Father Adrien-Gabriel Morice. The Morice has many small creeks joining it along its length, but retains the clear glacial hue for its length. The Morice River continues on to the town of Houston, at which point the river is joined by a small tributary river called the Little Bulkley River, and the two rivers joined become the Bulkley River. They become the Bulkley, not the Morice, despite the fact that the Morice is larger. This was done by Poudrier, a government cartographer who, it is rumoured, never saw the region.
Siska, also known historically as Cisco, is a locality in the Fraser Canyon, 9.4 kilometres south of the town of Lytton, British Columbia, Canada. It is at Siska that the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National Railways switch from one side of the river to the other, because it is impossible for both rail lines to occupy the same bank of the Fraser, due to the narrow and steep terrain. The resulting pair of bridges, with the CNR bridge just upstream of the CPR's, and the CPR's bridge's west foot entering the Cantilever Bar Tunnel into the side of Cisco Bluff, remains one of the most famous images of the CPR's route through British Columbia today and is easily viewable from the adjacent Trans-Canada Highway.
Hagwilget Canyon is a canyon on the Bulkley River of northwestern British Columbia, Canada, located several kilometres upstream from that river's confluence with the Skeena River at Hazelton, at the Wet'suwet'en village of Hagwilget.
ʼKsan is a historical village and living museum of the Gitxsan Indigenous people in the Skeena Country of Northwestern British Columbia, Canada. ʼKsan is located near Hazelton at the confluence of the Skeena and Bulkley Rivers on Gitxsan territory.
Hagwilget or Hagwilgyet is a First Nations reserve community of the Gitxsan people located on the lower Bulkley River just east of Hazelton in northwestern British Columbia, Canada. The community's name means "well-dressed" as in "ostentatious," though another meaning is "the quiet people". It has also been spelled Awillgate and Ackwilgate and it has also been named Rocher Déboulé - "falling rock" - a reference to a landslide in this area from Rocher Déboulé Mountain, which blocked salmon runs on the Bulkley River at this location.
Horneline Creek Provincial Park is a provincial park in far northern British Columbia, Canada. It is located west of the Kechika River about 130 km south of Lower Post and 30 km north of Denetiah Provincial Park and southwest of the community of Liard River.
The Coastal GasLink pipeline is a TC Energy natural gas pipeline under construction in British Columbia, Canada. Starting in Dawson Creek, the pipeline's route crosses through the Canadian Rockies and other mountain ranges to Kitimat, where the gas will be exported to Asian customers. Its route passes through several First Nations peoples' traditional lands, including some that are unceded. Controversy around the project has highlighted divisions within the leadership structure of impacted First Nations: elected band councils support the project, but traditional hereditary chiefs of the Wetʼsuwetʼen people oppose the project on ecological grounds and organized blockades to obstruct construction on their traditional land. Wetʼsuwetʼen people opposed to the pipeline argue that they have a relationship with the land that the Coastal GasLink pipeline construction threatens.
From January to March 2020, a series of civil disobedience protests were held in Canada over the construction of the Coastal GasLink Pipeline (CGL) through 190 kilometres (120 mi) of Wetʼsuwetʼen First Nation territory in British Columbia (BC), land that is unceded. Other concerns of the protesters were Indigenous land rights, the actions of police, land conservation, and the environmental impact of energy projects.
Hagwilget First Bridge
Hagwilget Second Bridge
