User:Safortier99/sandbox

Sarah Fortier Safortier99 (talk) 00:10, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

= Helen Knott = Helen Knott is a Dane-Zaa and Nehiyaw woman from the Prophet River First Nations residing in Fort St. John, British Columbia, Canada. She is a writer, activist, poet, and advocate with works published in Red Rising Magazine, the Malahat Review, CBC Arts, and many others.

Education and Career
Helen is currently studying at the University of Northern British Columbia to obtain a Master's degree in First Nations Studies. She advocates against violence in Indigenous lands and it's correlation to violence against Indigenous women. Along with studying at UNBC, Helen has written many poems. A few of her most notable pieces of poetry include "Your Eyes They Curve Around Me" and "The Things We Taught Our Daughters". She has also appeared in many short videos advocating for ending gender-based violence. Helen's first book, "In My Own Moccasins: A Memoir of Struggle & Resilience", will be released in August of 2019. Helen has also taken part in the Treaty 8 Caravan, calling herself an "accidental activist". A lot of her work is based around her beliefs of the land and water in which she grew up on. Based off of those beliefs, she decided to advocate for those involved in the controversial construction of the Site C dam. Many of Helen's written works and advocacy projects are about the correlation between resource extraction and violence against indigenous women.

Treaty 8 Caravan
Much of Helen's advocacy began with her work against the Site C dam and taking part in the Treaty 8 Caravan. In 2014, the federal and provincial governments approved the construction of the B.C. Hydro Site C hydroelectric dam project, upsetting the people of the Prophet River and West Moberly First Nations, as it seems the dam will threaten three of the largest rivers in the Peace River territory: the Peace, Moberly, and Halfway Rivers.

In an attempt to halt the Site C dam project, Helen, elders, youth, and Treaty 8 members caravanned to Montreal, where the West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations appealed the government's decision to begin construction on the dam. The contruction of Site C violated the previously established Treaty 8, which states the First Nations could continue their traditional practices of hunting, trapping, fishing, and collecting medicinal plants “for as long as the sun shines, the rivers flow and the grass grows.”

Against the wishes of the Treaty 8 Caravan, logging and land clearing for the dam began in 2015. The dam is proposed to be 60-meters high and 1,050-meters-long on the Peace River between the communities of Hudson's Hope and Taylor on Treaty 8 territory. It is planned to be operational in 2024.