Last night, July 27th, about 35 anti-shale gas activists block­ad­ed a 20 ton truck, sub­con­tract­ed to SWN Resources Cana­da, for over 8 hours. The truck, filled with heli­copter bags – each con­tain­ing dozens of geo­phones – was attempt­ing to exit south­ward along Irv­ing Road, a back road west of high­way 126 in New Brunswick. The truck, as well as eight oth­er equip­ment trucks sub­con­tract­ed to SWN, were con­duct­ing seis­mic test­ing in the hopes of find­ing shale gas deposits along a 35.9 kilo­me­ter north-south line known as ‘Line 5′. All the equip­ment and work­ers were halt­ed until about 3:30am Atlantic Time.

Activists had orig­i­nal­ly nego­ti­at­ed with RCMP for a 3 hour work stop­page, in homage to the Ghost Dance that the Sun­dancers in Elsi­pog­tog were under­tak­ing yes­ter­day evening. Elsi­pog­tog War Chief John Levi, him­self a Sun­dancer, was absent from the block­ade. In his stead, Jason Okay, Dis­trict War Chief, and ‘Sev­en’, the Mi’kmaq ter­ri­to­ry War Chief, had come to the assis­tance of the anti-shale gas move­ment.

The 3 hour work stop­page was meant to occur at the end of the work­day. It would appear that RCMP had agreed to this tem­po­rary block.

How­ev­er, when the 20 ton truck was first blocked at about 5pm – in front of an already heavy police pres­ence – the RCMP imme­di­ate­ly blocked in the activists who sur­round­ed the truck. At the time there were about 35 activists at the scene, and word began to trick­le in to those encamped that an RCMP road­block at the entrance to Irv­ing Road – about 16 kilo­me­ters to the south – was not allow­ing any­one to pass. This was appar­ent­ly counter to the orig­i­nal agree­ment, and began what was to be a stand­off that con­tin­ued until the ear­ly morn­ing hours.

RCMP and the ‘Elsi­pog­tog Peace­keep­ers’ – a group of three indi­vid­u­als on Elsi­pog­tog Band pay­roll who osten­si­bly serve as a neu­tral par­ty – did not seem able or desirous of undo­ing the police road­block that was refus­ing all entry. The activists requests were ini­tial­ly straight­for­ward, only ask­ing that any­one wish­ing to attend their cer­e­mo­ny be allowed to dri­ve the 16 kilo­me­ter dis­tance. The activists also specif­i­cal­ly request­ed a drum leader and a pipe car­ri­er to assist them. Social media sources con­tin­ued to note that a siz­able line of cars was still being refused entry.

Ten­sions fur­ther increased at about 7:30pm when Annie Clair, also known as ‘Pocha­hon­tas’ to the anti-shale gas activists, climbed atop the roof of the seized truck and chained and pad­locked her­self to a spare tire mount­ing weld­ed to the roof. She was quick­ly joined by two oth­er activists, one of whom also chained her­self to the roof while the oth­er locked her­self to a heli­copter bag filled with geo-phones.

Clair, who only days before had tied her­self to heli­copter bags and had halt­ed work at a heli­copter launch­ing site, was defi­ant in her mes­sage to the gath­ered police force, not­ing that if they were going to shoot her, to go ahead.

RCMP and the Peace­keep­ers again con­tin­ued to ‘nego­ti­ate’, but did not seem able to relay the mes­sage to the RCMP block­ade that the first step towards resolv­ing the stand­off was to allow traf­fic to flow freely. Activists, for their part, remained adamant that the 3 hours they were promised for cer­e­mo­ny would only begin once the RCMP block­ade was removed and their sup­port­ers could join them. As the hours of stand­off con­tin­ued, and food and water were denied to the activists, RCMP marched in for­ma­tion through the block­ade with numer­ous box­es of piz­za and cas­es of water.

Even­tu­al­ly, one of the Elsi­pog­tog Elders – also a clan moth­er – begged Clair to unchain her­self and descend from the truck roof. With social media now reach­ing some­thing of a fren­zied pitch – and sto­ries of dozens of police cruis­ers and pad­dy wag­ons wait­ing for the activists, Clair com­plied. Indeed, the activists were now vis­i­bly blocked in by numer­ous police trucks and cruis­ers. Infrared lights shone from some of the RCMP cars and a large spot­light was erect­ed shin­ing direct­ly onto the activists’ makeshift encamp­ment.

RCMP nego­tia­tors not­ed that they would not arrest any­one that night, but made no guar­an­tees that future days might not see activists picked off one by one in house arrests. As has been the case since ear­ly June when active protests began against shale gas explo­ration in Kent Coun­ty, yes­ter­day police made no secret of their heavy sur­veil­lance of the action. At 3:30am, as activists moved their trucks and cars off the road, it became clear that an entire SWN work crew had been stopped. With a heavy police escort, eight SWN trucks emerged from a side road and quick­ly sped past the gath­ered crowd. With no equip­ment or SWN work­ers left to guard, the RCMP quick­ly left the scene as well.