Get the Shell Out banner at Sacred Headwaters annual music festival

Every summer, members of the Tahltan First Nation gather in Iskut at the Sacred Headwaters Music Festival. It’s a time to celebrate this revered and wild place in the heart of Tahltan territory. It’s also a time to honour the Tahltan who have the courage to fight to protect the Sacred Headwaters from development.

We wanted to show the Tahltan that more than 57,000 of you are also taking a stand against Shell, so we brought the Get the Shell Out of the Sacred Headwaters banner to the music festival. After seeing your massive support, many Tahltan were impressed and moved. When I asked a few people there what they though of the banner, their responses were “Oh my GOODNESS!” and “This is awesome!”

After the music festival, my friends from Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, Rivers Without Borders, Sierra Club BC and I decided that we needed to go to the Sacred Headwaters for some inspiration. The wind whipped around me, and rain drops tickled my cheeks, and I breathed in the scene: snow dotted mountains surrounding streams winding their way between the delicate lakes across the vast landscape, and a well head, which Shell installed in 2005. I found it impossible to imagine what thousands of these wells littered across this stunning landscape would look like. With the banner in hand, I vowed that this was a scene I would never have to face.

Karen Tam Wu
Senior Conservation Campaigner
ForestEthics