The project is part of an ongoing resistance effort against the PRGT pipeline in Northern BC
Photo by Mike Graeme.
Between May 16 and May 30, UVic’s Campus Community Gardens (CCG) hosted a community-led project to construct a tiny house.
Organized by the Friends of Gitxsan and Gitanyow, the tiny house project supports Indigenous resistance to fossil fuel expansion in Northern British Columbia. The house will provide a home for Maas Gwitkunuxws (Teresa Brown) of Wilp Gitludahl, who runs a dog rescue and resistance camp on Gitxsan territory in the planned path of the controversial Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) pipeline.
The PRGT pipeline, originally approved in 2014, is an approximately 800 kilometer-long project designed to move natural gas from Northeast BC to the West Coast for export. The original route ended at Lelu Island in the mouth of the Skeena River — a crucial stop for wild salmon. Local resistance and environmental concerns halted the project in 2017, and its original backer withdrew.
The project was quietly revived in recent years after outstanding shares were sold to the Nisg̱a’a Lisims Government and Western LNG. Construction began on Nisg̱a’a treaty lands along the Nass River, reigniting tension and opposition in the area.
In August 2024, Gitanyow hereditary chiefs burned their pipeline agreements and set up roadblocks, while concerns about the project’s cost, lack of full Indigenous consent, and environmental risks persist in both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.
Legal challenges against the BC Energy Regulator over its handling of the proposal are also underway.
While only a small portion of the pipeline has been built so far, discussions about consultation and environmental impact continue, and efforts like those of Maas Gwitkunuxws’ camp — and the tiny home project — show that some people are taking concrete action.
Savannah Barratt, a volunteer and member of the collective behind the project, told the Martlet that the tiny house is more than just a structure.
“Building a tiny house to block a piece of technology is a representation of that connection — that relationship to territory [and place] … that this is a home, and this is a place of resistance, where people are living their lives.”
According to Barratt, between 150 and 200 people contributed to the project through donations and volunteer work.
Barratt said it was “quite beautiful in some ways” to build the tiny house in an environment like the CCG.
“We grow [strong communities] with food and localization and resilience and community, but we also grow them with tiny houses and volunteers.… It wasn’t just a ‘Hi, can we plop this in the garden?’ It was really about centering community relationships and that those are what make us strong.”
Community engagement played a major role in completing the tiny house build on time. Barratt said that some gardeners would come over and inquire what they were doing, while others got involved through raising funds, spreading the word, and building the house itself.
“What we’re trying to do here is build that community connection, build the kind of stronger community that can stand up when injustice is happening,” she said.
Emphasizing indigenous sovereignty and leadership was another key aspect. “This project was always based around following Indigenous leadership,” Barratt said. “This isn’t just about, you know, ‘down with the pipeline.’ This is about nations being sovereign and leading on their territory, making decisions about their territory, and [asking] ‘how are we collectively supporting that?’”
The volunteers organized a number of workshops during the build process, which Barratt described as a means to ground their emotions. “That ongoing challenge of … [juxtaposing] the beautiful passion of people with the ugly reality of why you’re having to do this, and carrying people’s emotional energy through that process, was what the workshops really were for,” she said.
“But it was a struggle at times for people to go through this process,” Barratt said. “We don’t necessarily want to have to build houses to stand in the way of pipelines. We’d rather just build houses because people want homes.
Regarding future plans, Barratt said that they will be creating a guide on how to organize and build a Tiny House, along with talks about how to continue supporting land defenders.
Although the house itself is tiny, Barratt said that it’s part of a much larger issue, and that the work is ongoing. “If you want to learn about the tiny house, [there’s] also a responsibility to learn about why the tiny house is necessary, and who else has been doing all the work in order to receive [it] up north.”
While the tiny house is already built, and has left the CCG, Barratt still encourages people to pay attention and get involved with the Friends of Gitxsan and Gitanyow.
“If you love art, come do art. If you love spreadsheets, come do spreadsheets,” she said. “If you love making music, there’s room for that … It doesn’t end just because the tiny house has all its screws [and] all its nails put in.”
