Opponents of the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion are organizing a series of events on Burnaby Mountain this weekend.
The Burnaby Mountain Community Fest runs from Friday, Nov. 7 at 11 a.m. till Sunday at 3 p.m. The festival will be on Centennial Way and includes games, yoga, nature walks, music and a community quilt project.
On Friday at noon, the Wilderness Committee is leading a "solidarity walk," starting from the parking lot by Horizons Restaurant. Participants will walk through the conservation area to raise awareness about the pipeline project.
On Saturday, Nov. 8, there is a family-friendly event with musicians from 1 to 3 p.m. on Burnaby Mountain, just off Centennial Way, where protesters have maintained a presence in opposition to the Kinder Morgan pipeline.
We Love This Coast, a group concerned about the tar sands, pipelines and tankers, is organizing the Saturday performance, which includes folk-rock musician Holly Arntzen, Aaron Ross and Tom Van Deurson of The Boom Booms, DOA frontman Joe Keithley, the Solidarity Choir and Ta'Kaiya Blaney, a young singer from the Sliammon First Nation. Organizers noted the area is unceded Coast Salish territory, and the traditional First Nations name for Burnaby Mountain is Lheklhukxayten, which means the place to peel arbutus trees.
Next Thursday, Nov. 13, Simon Fraser Public Interest Research Group, is hosting an anti-pipeline event from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the university's convocation mall. SFPIRG is a student-run centre dedicated to social and environmental justice, and the event is billed as a peaceful rally against the Kinder Morgan expansion. (SFPIRG recently secured commenter status in the Kinder Morgan NEB's hearing.)
Shahaa Kakar, communications director for SFPIRG, said the event is a gathering of concerned students, professors, SFU community organizations, indigenous nations, environmental groups and concerned Burnaby residents.
"We are coming together for peaceful rally to share information, raise awareness and to help galvanize the SFU community to understand what's going on and what's at stake here," she said. "I think there's a growing alliance slowly happening in opposition to this pipeline."
