Talks continue after B.C. Rail buys coal licenses on Tahltan “sacred” ground

Defenders of the sacred head waters photo courtesy: Red Sparks Union

by Keven Drews and Dirk Meissner, Vancouver Observer/The Canadian Press, May 5th, 2015
VICTORIA — Sixty−one disputed licences to mine coal will be bought by a Crown corporation in an area of northwestern British Columbia consider sacred by First Nations, says Mines Minister Bill Bennett.The $18.3−million deal announced Monday will see the British Columbia Railway Company buy the licences in the Klappan area from Fortune Minerals (TSX:FT) and POSCO Canada.

The Klappan has been the site of protests and a bitter fight over resource extraction.

Tahltan First Nation bans mining company in dispute over coal mine

DEASE LAKE, B.C. — The Globe and Mail/The Canadian Press, April 1, 2014

A northern B.C. First Nation has banned a mining company from its lands as a bitter fight over a proposed coal mine escalates, again.

Tahltan Central Council president Annita McPhee says Fortune Minerals must not enter Tahltan Nation communities without permission from the Iskut and Tahltan bands.

B.C.’s Sacred Headwaters to remain protected from drilling

Mark Hume, The Globe and Mail, Tuesday, Dec. 18 2012

Tahltan members protest Shell, 2007.

Oil and gas development is to be banned from a 400,000-hectare area in northwestern British Columbia known as the Sacred Headwaters, The Globe and Mail has learned.

In an announcement, expected Tuesday, the B.C. government will confirm that Shell Canada Ltd. is immediately abandoning plans for drilling in the area where the headwaters of the Skeena, Nass and Stikine rivers are located.