National Network for Equitable Library Service

In 2009, the New Brunswick provincial government provided a licence to search over a million hectares of land to Texas-based Southwestern Energy for the purposes of natural gas extraction. For years, tens of thousands of New Brunswickers signed petitions, wrote letters, demonstrated and sought legal recourse against the deal -- and the threat of hydraulic fracturing it brought with it -- but the province responded only with diminished regulations and increased police presence. In the spring of 2013, Elsipogtog First Nation, the largest Indigenous community in New Brunswick, became the focal point of this resistance. Emboldened to its potential to make political change, and accompanied by unexpected settler and Indigenous allies, Elsipogtog First Nation employed new tactics in the effort to expel Southwestern Energy. And after months of blockades, which resulted in the destruction of company property and numerous arrests, the protestors were finally successful in forcing the gas giant to leave the province.