The Skeena
One of northwest BC’s biggest mining projects lost a long-standing ally this month. The Gitxsan Huwilp Government has unanimously withdrawn its support for Seabridge Gold’s KSM project, the Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell gold-and-copper mine in northwest BC.
The Gitxsan notified the province, Ottawa, and the company on Aug 13. They had backed the project in a 2013 letter during its environmental assessment, and had stood as a supporter through more than a decade of permitting. But the situation has changed.
KSM is not a small project to walk away from. It is one of the largest undeveloped gold-copper projects in the country, and Seabridge says it has already spent more than $1.4 billion advancing it — including over $650 million since 2021 — in a stretch of northwest BC where mining jobs, tax revenue, and First Nations stewardship of the land and water are all central to what the region becomes.
When a Nation that once endorsed a project of that size formally rescinds that support, it is a signal worth reading closely, on both sides of the ledger.
The withdrawal is an act of solidarity with the Tsetsaut Skii km Lax Ha Nation, whose territory the project affects and who took the province to court over the mine’s environmental and cultural impacts — particularly the proposed tailings and waste-storage facilities.
Seabridge repeatedly used the Gitxsan Huwilp Government’s support as a means of discounting the importance of the Tsetsaut Skii km Lax Ha Nation’s concerns. This is not acceptable to us.
Brian Williams (Gigeenix), Gitxsan nation
In June 2026, the BC Supreme Court quashed the province’s “substantial start” determination for KSM. That determination is the provincial finding that keeps a project’s environmental assessment certificate from expiring; the court found the Crown had not adequately consulted the Tsetsaut Skii km Lax Ha before making it, and ordered the decision reconsidered after proper consultation. That consultation is live right now — the Nation has until Sept 28 to file its written responses — which is the backdrop against which the Gitxsan chose to act.
The Gitxsan say their years-old endorsement was being turned against that very process.
Co-chair Brian Williams (Gigeenix) did not soften it. “Seabridge repeatedly used the Gitxsan Huwilp Government’s support as a means of discounting the importance of the Tsetsaut Skii km Lax Ha Nation’s concerns,” he said in comments reported by the Northern Sentinel. “That is not acceptable to us.”
The Gitxsan are calling for meaningful, collaborative consultation among the Crown, Seabridge, and all affected First Nations on projects that carry environmental risk — shared decision-making, they say, rather than a single letter of support treated as a permanent green light.
Chief Darlene Simpson of the Tsetsaut Skii km Lax Ha welcomed the move: “We thank the Gitxsan Huwilp Government for taking this significant step,” she said in the Nation’s response, as reported by the Northern Sentinel. Seabridge is not quoted in the reporting, and had not publicly responded to the withdrawal as of the report.
It’s worth being precise about what this is and isn’t. It is not a shutdown, and it is not a veto; it’s a Nation rescinding a consent it gave twelve years ago and telling the province and the company that the terms of its support have changed. KSM’s fate still turns on the court-ordered consultation and the province’s reconsideration, not on this letter. But the politics around the project have shifted, and the next moves — from Seabridge, from Victoria, from the Nations — are the story to watch.
For now, the Gitxsan have drawn a clear line: support given in 2013 is not a licence to sideline the neighbours in 2026.
