A dispute over exploration for oil and gas on the Thunderchild First Nation continued on in a Saskatoon courtroom Tuesday.
Marilyn Wapass was arrested last month for violating a court order which prevents interference with seismic testing on the reserve.
A group of protesters say the testing is taking place on sacred Sundance grounds and their lawyer Larry Kowalchuk says the constitutional right to practice religious ceremonies there trumps the court order.
“We protect religious practice and freedoms for the Jewish community, the Muslim community, the Christian community,” he says. “The religious practices and belief systems of Aboriginal people, they existed before.”
Wapass adds she realized she would be arrested but believes it is well within her religious rights to practice smudging on the land in question.
“We have as First Nations people, we have natural laws that we follow, protocols that we follow,” she says. “And I was following those protocols and those laws and I felt that I needed to defend that land that is there.”
Both sides are due back in court November 15th.