Feminist to Know: Freda Huson

 
Freda Huson
 

Freda Huson is a Wet’suwet’en wing-chief and activist who has spent the last 13 years opposing the Coastal GasLink pipeline that would cut through unceded Wet’suwet’en land (in Northern BC on Canadian maps) in order to transport gas from fracking sites. She worked to establish the Unist’ot’en Healing Centre in 2009 (now considered part of the larger Unist’ot’en Camp) which has become a contentious frontline of pipeline resistance.


In 2020, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) began using military tactics and more extreme state violence against peaceful Indigenous protesters and allies in defense of the corporate pipeline. In these encounters, Wet’suwet’en land defenders have denied the police access to their unceded land and have been met with brutality, threats, and arrests.


Freda Huson herself was arrested in February 2020 when the RCMP––in full military gear––raided the Unist’ot’en Camp. This road was on unceded Wet’suwet’en land, where pipeline resisters and land defenders had been peacefully dwelling. Huson was among a majority-women group of land defenders who were arrested during this raid. 


A video of Huson and her allies being arrested brought Wet’suwet’en resistance to international attention. A prominent visual feature of the video is the red dresses hung around camp; these dresses are a symbol of the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women (MMIW) campaign which seeks to bring attention to and end the rampant violence against Indigenous women globally. Huson and her fellow matriarchs decorated camp with the dresses in order to draw a connection between the fight against the pipeline and the MMIW campaign. The interconnectedness of these movements is further exemplified by the fact that it is women land defenders who hold the frontline here and face the ensuing police violence. In another video, Huson said: “We are willing to face that violence in order to expose the RCMP for who they really are… That darkness is going to be forced into the light. All the lies that were told will be exposed.”


Huson has been honored with the 2021 Right Livelihood Award (an international leadership award considered the alternative Nobel). She continues to fight pipeline construction while working towards Wet’suwet’en healing, sovereignty, and decolonization.

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