While the non-violent direct action of First Nations currently has broad support across Canada, the history of indigenous resistance in Canada shows that the only time Ottawa has taken First Nations seriously is when faced with economic disruption, civil disobedience or armed self-defense. As First Nations organize in opposition to the Canadian government’s current agenda to terminate their human rights and the environmental protection of Canada’s land and waters, they would do well to reexamine their own history, and how they got where they are today. Aiding them in that effort is associate professor Glen Coulthard, a Yellowknives Dene instructor in the First Nations Studies Program at the University of British Columbia.