As blockades and other actions continue in support of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation’s opposition to the Costal Gaslink Pipeline, we are reminded of the long history of pipeline politics in Canada, and ongoing failures to address the opposition of Indigenous leaders to pipelines being built on their ancestral territory.

The arrest of Wet’suwet’en matriarchs is yet another of example of Indigenous women leading opposition to resource extraction, drawing attention to its gendered, racialized effects. At Unist’ot’en camp on Wet’suwet’en land, the RCMP moved in to an area where they were surrounded by an installation of red dresses – symbols of the missing and murdered—even as they removed people from the site.

Last July, the Rise Up! newsletter, Pipeline Politics, situated some of the contemporary concerns about pipelines within a longer history of Indigenous women’s organizing. It is now posted in our Newsletter archives, in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en.