The Saskatoon demonstrators who built a camp on Canadian Pacific Railway property to show solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs have left.
“This demonstration was mostly youth-based, so the youth have to get back to school,” said David Kelly, who had been a leader in the camp and slept at the site since demonstrators built it on Saturday afternoon.
Kelly said the plan was always to stay for four days and three nights, despite previously telling Global News that the camp would remain until the blockade leaders in B.C. told them to stop.
“We decided to go for four days of camp, as in four days of action. That’s how it is in our sweat lodges, said Kiyari McNab, another camp leader who has slept beside the tracks.
McNab said the Saskatoon demonstrators had accomplished their goals.
“We slowed down the trains we made them hours late… which was really great,” she said.
The campsite had been deconstructed by shortly after 9 a.m. on Tuesday when Global News arrived. All of the tents, bedding and supplies removed and the area cleaned,
About 20 people were at what remained of the campsite and that number quickly dwindled as people left. The few that remained stood around a sacred fire, which burned for three days and kept the demonstrators warm.
Kelly told Global News that embers would be taken from the fire, from the north, south, east and west sides, and brought to the next fire at the next demonstration.
A statement posted at 10 p.m. Monday on the Facebook page of the Indigenous Joint Action Coalition (IJAC), a group which helped organize the demonstration, said deconstruction would begin at 8 a.m. on Tuesday.
Demonstrators built the camp Saturday afternoon after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called for blockades across Canada to be removed on Friday.
The blockades were built by demonstrators to show their support for the hereditary chiefs, who oppose the scheduled construction of the LNG Coastal GasLink pipeline through traditional Wet’suwet’en territory.
Erica Violet Lee, an IJAC member, said the last few hours of the camp were “really wonderful.”
The camp was taken down on the same day that new demonstrations started after Ontario Provincial Police cleared away a blockade in Tyendinaga, near Belleville, Ont., and arrested 10 people.
Lee said she wasn’t upset the Saskatoon camp wasn’t taking part in the new show of support.
“It’s not just one group that will end up changing this. It has to be a lot of folks from all around caring about what goes on, not only in our own home territories but in the territories of other Indigenous Nations,” she said in a phone interview.
Lee said the counter-demonstrations the camp received, especially on Saturday, were discouraging.
That day, around a dozen pipeline supporters drove to the camp, resulting in a tense stand-off
“It’s really hard to be Indigenous right now in Canada and see online the comments of hate and then to face it in person, from people who are emboldened enough to tell us that we’re stupid, we don’t know what we’re doing, and try to discourage us,” she said.
“We’re not going to convince everyone of our position but we’re doing the best we can and we believe in it and that’s all we can do.”
While Kelly was speaking to Global News, one of the most vocal and aggressive pipeline supporters arrived at the camp and started yelling “Global News lies” and “fake news.”
Kelly said he wished the man, who was wearing a yellow vest on Saturday, would have spoken to him rather than continue to shout.
“This is never going to come to an end,” said McNab when asked about further action and changing people’s minds.
“That’s why we do what we have to do, especially for these past four days.”
Canadian Pacific Railway has not responded to multiple requests for comment, though a CP police officer on duty did say that he, and then another officer, would remain at the site all day, even after the camp left.