In-Depth

Death by a thousand cuts: a comic

A story of hope and resilience from the Dane-zaa people living in what is now known as northeastern British Columbia

By Christopher Pollon

Aug. 17, 2019 0 min. read

This article is more than 5 years old

The last 50 years have seen the traditional territory of the Dane-zaa, now the homeland of the modern Blueberry River and Doig River First Nations, transformed beyond recognition.

By 2016 more than 110,000 kilometres of roads, pipelines and transmission and seismic lines had been cut across 40,000 square kilometres of land. The collective sum of this environmental devastation has been likened to a “death by a thousand cuts.”

The traditional territory of the Blueberry River First Nations overlaps with the Montney formation, one of the largest deposits of natural gas on the planet. Illustration: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

Out of desperation, Blueberry River continues to seek protection for the last few intact wilderness areas in court, claiming that their treaty with Canada, signed in 1900 in reaction to the depredations of the Klondike gold rush, has been breached.

The following nonfiction comic was more than a year in the making, and is published now as a court case brought by Blueberry River continues to wind through B.C. Supreme Court with a potentially precedent-setting decision coming in 2020.

Special thanks to the Uncharted Journalism Fund, Robin Ridington and Jeffrey Ellis. Written by Blueberry River First Nations and Christopher Pollon. Pencils by Daniel Lafrance. Inks by Kelly Chen. Production by Carol Linnitt and The Narwhal.

Blueberry River First Nation

Like a kid in a candy store

When those boxes of heavily redacted documents start to pile in, reporters at The Narwhal waste no time in looking for kernels of news that matter the most. Just ask our Prairies reporter Drew Anderson, who gleefully scanned through freedom of information files like a kid in a candy store, leading to pretty damning revelations in Alberta. Long story short: the government wasn’t being forthright when it claimed its pause on new renewable energy projects wasn’t political. Just like that, our small team was again leading the charge on a pretty big story.

In an oil-rich province like Alberta, that kind of reporting is crucial. But look at our investigative work on TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline to the west, or our Greenbelt reporting out in Ontario. They all highlight one thing: those with power over our shared natural world don’t want you to know how — or why — they call the shots. And we try to disrupt that.

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Published By

Christopher Pollon

Christopher Pollon is a Vancouver-based independent journalist who reports on the politics of natural resources, focusing on energ...

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