The proposed Northern Gateway pipeline isn't an abstract concept for Kyla Pollard.
The Fort St. James resident lives within one kilometre of a planned pumping station along the current route and is worried about what the $6.5 billion project could mean to her way of life.
"Where I live it's out of town, it's dark and I like it that way," she said. "The pump station is going to be like a lit up space station and it's going to have this droning noise because it's pumping bitumen and oil through the pipeline on an ongoing basis."
When she first heard about the pipeline could pass through her neighbourhood years ago, Pollard, who operates an outdoor adventure tourism company, said she wanted to keep an open mind to see if it was economically, socially and environmentally worthwhile. After doing her research, she eventually decided it didn't meet that standard and joined the Fort. St. James Sustainability Group.
Pollard helped to organize a rally at Spirit Square in Fort St. James on Wednesday as part of a province-wide day of action. The Defend Our Coast movement along with local groups helped facilitate dozens of rallies across the province on Wednesday to protest the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta to Kitimat and other planned projects like the twinning of the Kinder-Morgan pipeline.
The Fort St. James rally drew about 40 people in chilly, windy conditions.
"We had hoped to have a few more people out, but I think the weather played a big factor," Pollard said.
Pollard and others took 25 metres worth of black ribbon and strung it in Spirit Square for three hours to signify one tenth of the length of pipeline that's proposed to cross Stuart River.
"We kept it up as a symbolism of one impact this pipeline could have on our community," she said.
The event attracted residents of the town and representatives from area First Nations. Pollard said one of the reasons she's against the pipeline is because the process used to consult First Nations groups wasn't sufficient.
Many of the rallies around the province were held outside of MLA offices. Pollard said the Fort St. James crew considered holding an event in Vanderhoof outside the office of Liberal representative John Rustad, but decided instead to keep the event community focused.
In Smithers about 80 people gathered outside the office of NDP MLA Doug Donaldson around noon hour to protest the pipelines. Nikki Skuce, senior energy campaigner with ForestEthics Advocacy, said to focus of the action was protection of wild salmon.
"Something that's a strong reason why people oppose this and a unifying factor is wild salmon, so there were lots of people holding up fish and wild salmon signs," she said.
Skuce attended a demonstration on the lawn of the legislature on Monday and said Wednesday's events gave more people the chance to voice their opposition to the projects in their home communities.
In Prince George anti-pipeline activists gathered in the early evening at the Civic Centre to show their support for the cause. There were a few speeches as well as some drumming and signing as the group showed its solidarity with like-minded people from across the province.
Add it all up and there were more than 65 demonstrations of varying size across the province involving thousands of residents opposed to the pipeline.
Some of the highlights from the Defend Our Coast website included a 350-person demonstration outside of Christy Clark's office in Vancouver and 120 showing up for a rally in Bella Bella.
Pollard said Wednesday's day of action is part of a broader push to stop the Northern Gateway project.
"I think there's a lot of us in the community that will do what it takes to stop this pipeline," she said.
.png;w=120;h=80;mode=crop)
