Who is Chief Woos?
HEREDITARY CHIEF SUDDENLY THRUST INTO NATION POLITICAL, MEDIA SPOTLIGHTS
Whenever there has been a development in the dispute between the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and the federal government, Frank Alec has been the man in front of the television cameras, the voice of the chiefs at the negotiating table.
The dispute over the Coastal Gaslink pipeline, a project that crosses over land the Wet’suwet’en claim as their traditional territory, fuelled protests across the country in support of the Wet’suwet’en, including rail blockades and sit-ins in government offices — and captured national attention.
Alec, whose hereditary name is Chief Woos, emerged as a central figure in the dispute that has roiled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government and animated the Conservative Party’s leadership race.
Last Sunday, when the government and hereditary chiefs reached a deal after days of meetings in Smithers, B.C., it was Woos who spoke to the media, alongside senior government ministers. Trudeau had dispatched Carolyn Bennett, the federal minister of Crown-indigenous relations, to meet with the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs. She was joined there by her B.C. counterpart Scott Fraser.
The meetings, featuring the two senior ministers, and the hereditary chiefs, began last Thursday and lasted through the weekend.
Reports said the chiefs had invited Trudeau and B.C. Premier John Horgan to attend, but both declined. Elected chiefs were not in on the meetings.
“As Wet’suwet’en, we are the land and the land is ours,” Woos said. “We’re not going to look at any alternative ways.”
As with many of the other players in this saga who’ve been suddenly thrust onto the national stage, Woos’ history isn’t well-known. He did not return the National Post’s request for an interview.
According to his Linkedin page, Woos was a “survivor” of the Lejac Indian Residential School, which he attended until 1974. In a tweet from September, 2018, he wrote “RIP bros and sistas who didn’t make it out.”
The school, which was located on Dakelh territory, but also had children attend from Gitxsan, Wet’suwet’en and Sekani communities, was closed in 1976 after operating for 54 years, and the land turned over to Nadleh Whut’en First Nation.
“The buildings were razed,” says the First Nation’s website. “All that remains today are the cemetery and the Rose Prince memorial.”
Since the 1980s, Woos has held various roles, including housing officer with the Carrier Sikani Tribal Council, deputy chief with the Lake Babine Nation and director of membership services with Takla Lake First Nation, his Linkedin profile says.
He also operates a consulting firm to help First Nations “develop strategic plans, develop and implement empowerment sessions for their respected citizens, deliver job readiness workshops, and able to facilitate forums or gatherings.” The website for that business, Frank J Alec Consulting, appears to be offline.
“I believed and still do to this day that Nation Building is key for Indigenous organizations to get a proper fixation to achieve self determination,” he writes in a Linkedin posting. “I also believe that Indigenous people are capable to build up to their own greatest potentials and become part of the global economies.”
He writes extensive posts about the relationship between government, industry and First Nations, saying, in 2015, that Indigenous knowledge can help build this relationship. “There are many approaches that Canada can share with First Nations as well that will include adequate economic opportunities,” he writes.
Elsewhere, he argues that government and business will leave the environmental impacts of projects to future generations. “These little ones will end up with the environmental impacts, the displacements of the natural order of our climate, the poisoned water that can never be fixed,” he says.
Elsewhere online, he is portrayed as a hockey enthusiast — an Ottawa Senators fan and a player himself — and a trapping enthusiast.
Percolating in the background is another controversy: Critics have seized upon the narrative that Alec stole his hereditary title and is an illegitimate leader. Social media is filled with invective calling him a namethief and a flat-earther, seemingly in reference to a tweet about a visit to the North Pole.
Formerly, the title Chief Woos was held by Darlene Glaim, who was part of the Wet’suwet’en Matrilineal Coalition, which supported the Coastal Gaslink pipeline, and was working to build connections between the hereditary chiefs and the elected councils.
The three women involved — Glaim, Theresa Tait-day and Gloria George — say that five male hereditary chiefs stripped them of their hereditary titles. The name Woos went to Frank Alec in 2019, The Globe and Mail reported.