Starting in Dawson Creek, the pipeline's route crosses through the Canadian Rockies and other mountain ranges to Kitimat, where the gas will be exported to Asian customers.

In 2019 and 2020, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) entered the blocked area and cleared road access for construction using the threat of lethal force,[4] arresting several of the protesters.

[5] The Wetʼsuwetʼen also had concerns about the threats of violence that Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people face resulting from man camps along the pipeline construction path.

When CGL attempted to drill under the Morice River, further conflict erupted as Wet'suwet'en defenders erected blockades and destroyed construction equipment.

Environmental scholar Avital Meira van Meijeren Karp said that “the Wet’suwet’en First Nation has the elected chief and council which is the colonial governance system that approved the CGL pipeline, a key distinction in this case”.

[3] The CGL pipeline’s potential for creating problems around water use, chemical leakages, greenhouse gas emissions, and other impacts on climate change and public health are concerns for the Unist’ot’en Camp.

"[25] In 2018, environmental activist Michael Sawyer challenged the approval of the pipeline, filing a formal application to require the federal National Energy Board to do a full review.

Sleydo', a Gidimt'en clan chief said in 2021, "You could swim in that lake and just open your mouth and drink the water, it's so pristine, and the river is so clear that you can see these very deep spawning beds that the salmon have been returning to for thousands of years.

[30] British Columbia’s Environmental Assessment Office (BCEAO) found that the CGL pipeline project was responsible for the release of pollution into Fraser Lake.

According to CBC journalist Betsy Trumpener, the Coastal GasLink pipelines repeated non-compliance offences are a violation of the project's environmental assessment certificate.

The railway blockade by the Tyendinaga Mohawks in February 2020 was not organized by the band leadership, while the Haudenosaunee Confederacy external relations committee issued a statement condemning the "RCMP invasion".

Grand Chief Serge Otsi Simon of the Kanesatake Mohawk First Nation called on protesters to end the railway blockades as a show of good faith.

[35] Columnist John Ivison suggested that the situation highlighted a need to move on a legislative framework for restructuring authority between the elected councils mandated by the Indian Act and traditional hereditary governments.

As a result of the 1997 Delgamuukw v British Columbia court case of the Gitxsan and Wetʼsuwetʼen peoples, comprehensive consultations with hereditary chiefs are also required for major projects in traditional lands.

[38] On January 27, Coastal GasLink president David Pfeiffer stated that the current route was the most technically viable and minimized impact to the environment.

[39] According to Coastal GasLink, the company held over 120 meetings with the hereditary chiefs between 2012 and 2019 and over 1,300 phone calls and emails,[23] but they have nonetheless been unable to agree on a route for the pipeline.

[46] On January 7, 2019, the RCMP conducted a raid and dismantled the blockades after CGL was granted an injunction by the BC Supreme Court, arresting several Wetʼsuwetʼen land defenders.

[64] On February 21, the British Columbia Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) served notice that Coastal GasLink must halt construction on a segment[which?]

[65][66] After the hereditary chiefs made it a condition for talks with government, the RCMP closed their local office and moved to their detachment in Houston on February 22.

[67] On February 11, protesters surrounded the BC Parliament Buildings in Victoria, preventing traditional ceremonies around the reading of the throne speech by the lieutenant governor.

[28] On November 13, members of the Gidimt'en clan evicted construction workers, and when they refused to leave, land defenders seized an excavator, destroyed a segment of access road, and blocked a bridge with a crumpled minivan.

[28] In the early hours of February 17, 2022, twenty masked attackers, some carrying axes, forced nine people to flee from a work site near Houston, British Columbia.

Sociologist Jasmine Tordimah said that the BCEAO permitted an extension of the pipeline, “without fully addressing or acknowledging the severe and direct impacts this development and its proposed 14 ‘man camps’ would have on Indigenous women, girls, and Two-Spirit people”.

[6] Tordimah also said that “when men arrive at the project site, they ‘fetishize’ over Indigenous women while remaining ‘faceless’ and ‘nameless’, making it easier to commit crimes without facing the repercussions”.

[91] As of August 2020[update], Coastal GasLink had been issued several non-compliance orders, causing interruptions to construction work in certain areas along the route.

In spring 2020, Unistʼotʼen house group and Gidimtʼen clan members notified BC's Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) that CGL had damaged wetland areas.

A separate order was delivered on the same day due to the company's lack of efforts to mitigate harm to endangered whitebark pine in the area.

A further non-compliance order was issued on June 22, 2020, for proceeding with work to clear the affected wetlands sites without conducting the appropriate environmental assessment surveys.

[93] Coastal GasLink did not substantially start construction within the five years of its environmental certificate, which is mandated in the permit, so they requested the BCEAO grant them an extension.

[91] DiPuma stated that the Environmental Assessment Office did not properly a[i]ssess the risk that indigenous women and girls faced from extending the permits of the CGL pipeline.