For nearly a decade, CN has been working with First Nations, local governments, emergency responders, and regulators to deliver annual emergency preparedness and spill response exercises across B.C. These hands-on trainings strengthen relationships and create space for shared learning rooted in transparency and trust.
This year, CN partnered with Tsʼil Kaz Koh First Nation (Burns Lake Band), a Wet’suwet’en community and the nearby Lake Babine First Nation located in the heart of northern B.C., where the Bulkley and Nechako River basins meet. The region forms part of some of Canada’s largest and most important watersheds, including the Fraser and Skeena systems. These waterways sustain local ecosystems, support families and communities, and connect the traditional territories of many Indigenous nations.
The 2025 exercise brought together CN’s environmental and emergency response teams, Tsʼil Kaz Koh leadership and Lake Babine guardians, local firefighters and first responders, and provincial and federal regulatory partners. Together, they practiced coordinated response strategies, tested specialized equipment, and reviewed real-world scenarios designed to protect the community’s drinking-water wells, lakes, and surrounding river systems.
For the Tsʼil Kaz Koh and Lake Babine communities, the opportunity to participate directly in planning and response builds confidence and reinforces their role as stewards of their traditional territory. For CN, it deepens the relationship with a community whose knowledge of the land guides every decision.
The exercise also created valuable space for connection – meeting face-to-face, sharing expertise, understanding each other’s roles, and planning collaboratively for the unexpected. These conversations help ensure that, should an incident ever occur, everyone is ready: trained, equipped, and united by a shared goal to protect the land, the water, and the people who depend on them.
Environmental protection in the Lakes District is a shared responsibility. And through partnerships like this one, CN continues to strengthen its ability to avoid, minimize, and mitigate impacts to build safer rail corridors and healthier watersheds for generations to come.
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