Caretakers of the Mountain: Understanding the Burnaby Mountain Pipeline Blockade

In the Fall of 2014, citizens of Vancouver, Burnaby and members of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation took part in a blockade in an attempt to prevent company Kinder Morgan from conducting survey work in Burnaby Mountain Park. The surveyors were met with intense local resistance by local long time protesters, as well as members of the community newly galvanized to environmental activism. A participant observation was conducted of the resistance to the pipeline development efforts. Field observations began during the initial monitoring of the site, and continued through the growing mobilization of the resistance, culminating with the mass arrests of protesters in November of that year. The ongoing analysis explores the philosophy of protest and ‘radicalism,’ as well as the role of consensus and conflict frameworks in the language of protesters and their use of various tactics of resistance.