Secwepemc man embarks on four-day fast in response to Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project

Photo: Facebook

Jeffrey McNeil-Seymour.

It's been two days since Jeffrey McNeil-Seymour began his four-day fast along the riverbank of the Thompson River at Mission Flats.

The Secwepemc man and assistant professor at Ryerson University has purposely put himself on the route of the Trans Mountain expansion project. The infrastructure will go right under the river.

"The Thompson River now begins to receive or is receiving the first wave or returning salmon. This same site where non-consensual construction is attempting to be completed and... has dozens of centuries' old remnants of Secwpemc pit houses," reads a news release from organizers.

The location of the fast is also where McNeil-Seymour's great-grandmother Cecily stood to protest the pipeline decades prior.

"When we do something like humble ourselves for a fast, and make ourselves pitiful, make ourselves uncomfortable, make ourselves weak, it’s said that we’re in a holy state, that we are in between the worlds," Sara Cadeau, one of McNeil-Seymour's helpers, tells Castanet. McNeil-Seymour was not available for an interview at press time.

"The end goal, you could say, is to have people from all faiths understand the holiness of a fast in relationship to who we are, not just Indigenous people, but who we are in needing the land, needing the water to be healthy, that we are nothing without the water and the rivers that connect and intersect between our territories," she adds.

She says her friend is currently also battling cancer. To ensure hydration, he is drinking water during the fast.

"I hear he's doing really well."

Castanet has reached out to Trans Mountain and is waiting to hear back.

In a Facebook live video posted just moments before the fast started, McNeil-Seymour said he was "honoured to be doing this work."

"I’m just really thankful for this life, so I’m going to go and pray really hard for the next four days," he said.

"If you’re able to join me all across Canada, if you can take a day and fast with me from wherever you are or do a pipe ceremony or gather with some of the people that you love and just talk about what it is about life that you love and think about those places in nature that you love, and what would you do to stand up to protect them?" he continued.