To Be a Water Protector: The Rise of the Wiindigoo Slayers

1: Omaa Akiing: Here on Earth
Part
Count
Winter
to Be Better Ancestors
How
Holy Land Is Here
The
2: Relatives
Part
of Hope: Mino Gitigaaning
Seeds
In Praise of Frogs
Omaakaakii:
Miss You
I
the Snake
Free
Do We Grieve the Death of a River?
How
Should Save the Amazon
Amazon
Mexico
Viva
A Rebirth
Borinquén:
Is Time for Reparations
Thanksgiving
3: Mni Wiconi
Part
Buffalo to Black Snake
From
Deep North
The
Seventh Generation
The
Rise of the Water Protector
The
Siege at River’s Edge
The
Art of Indigenous Resistance
The
The Dust Settles
How
4: The Last Tar Sands Pipeline
Part
Pipeline Runs Through It
A
Contents
Introduction
The Month You Remember Me
The Telescope and the Mauna
Spreading the Sacred Fire
Sandpiper Timeline

Minnesota Nice
Not
Let’s Be Good Neighbors
Palisade:
Necessity Defense
The
Dirty Secrets: Enbridge and That Indigenous Peoples Policy
Whispering
Violence, Fossil Fuels and Enbridge
Sexual
Can Only Be One
There
the Party’s Over: Starving the Wiindigoo
When
to the Kill Zone: The Shadow of Husky
Welcome
on a Dime
Turning
Finland, Must You?
Really
New Iron Horse
The
Sweet It Is
How
Renaissance of Cannabis
The
Hearts — Poetry and the UN Declaration
Lifting
Dish One Spoon
One
Reconciliation, Just Transition
Beyond
When the Bat Challenged the Wiindigoo
Part 5: Eighth Fire
Notes

Introduction
is Life. I live at the headwaters of the Ottertail River. I live at the place
Water
Round Lake meets the Ottertail River. is river is clean; swans, geese
where
eagles greet you. I live in the place where the wild things are. When the
and
leaves my beloved lake, it is clear and clean. is water travels down to
river
the Red River, joining there with many other tributaries until its
nal
Hudson Bay and the Arctic Ocean. By the time this river is
destination,
this same water to which I pray is not so clean or so full of good life.
there,
what I know.
at’s
is the time of the Water Protectors. It has always been. It’s also the time of
It
Wiindigoo. I am writing and editing this book at a time when the world
the
still, quarantined with -19, a virus. It is an amazing time. I’m
stands
to be here and to share these stories of Water Protectors. Or as Isaac
grateful
tells us,
Murdoch
In the future, our descendants will be sitting around a
re in their
telling this story of when the two legged tried to destroy the
lodges
We are no doubt in a sacred legend that will be told for thousands
earth.
years. For whatever reasons, we have been speci cally placed here on
of
to participate in this incredibly sacred time. We need to believe in
earth
what our heart tells us and to nd the strength to follow it.
is sacred
needs heroes and we are the chosen ones. Rise strong and never
story
believing in the great power of this earth. We are completely
stop
surrounded by our ancestors. 1
I am not the
rst Water Protector, nor the last. And as I write this
I want to acknowledge the Water Protectors I have known —
beginning,
role models and leaders. ere are many, they are young and old.
great
I remember riding a train with the great Creek leader Phillip Deere.
e
year was 1977. I had seen 18 winters, and we’d just
nished the UN
on Discrimination against Indigenous Peoples and the Land.
Conference
years later, that historic gathering would have launched three decades
irty

international work to recognize and protect the rights of Indigenous
of
at was the beginning of what, 30 years later, would result in the
Peoples.
of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
passage
Deere and I are on a grand adventure. We are sitting on a train, and
Phillip
said to me, “One day, water will be more expensive than oil.” And, I didn’t
he
understand what he meant. I thought that sounded strange, but now I
really
understand.
e world needs water, not oil; that’s the basics. And, as a liter
Fiji Water, having traveled 8000 miles so I can pick it up, costs $7, we see
of
water costs more than oil. What that’s really about is that Water is Life,
that
oil is not.
and
as Mohawk Chief Sakokwenonkwas (
Indeed,
omas Parker) told a
University audience in 1972, “Someday President Nixon and the
Harvard
world leaders are going to nd out that once they catch the last sh,
other
they cut down the last tree, they won’t be able to eat all the money they
once
in the banks.” 2 He would know, as the Akwesasne Reserve was heavily
have
by a set of industries, and their water quality severely
contaminated
impacted.
for decades Indigenous Peoples have been saying this and putting
Indeed,
bodies on the line for our water. People have opposed mega dam
our
ranging from those on the Klamath River to those on the Columbia.
projects
like the Dalles (Celilo Falls), Kinzua (Seneca Territory), to the battles
Dams
the dams in James Bay, in northern Ontario, and throughout the
against
People who live with water still understand that Water is Life. e
Amazon.
is old, and it’s profound.
teaching
narrative is subsumed by corporate advertising and mythology,
at
for instance, Enbridge Energy uses the moniker “Life Needs Energy.”
where,
relationship with water has changed dramatically — ocean
People’s
oceanic nuclear testing in the Paci c, over shing, more plastic in
dumping,
ocean than sh, the list goes on. A er consuming a lifetime of Pepsi
the
a good lot of people become consumed by Wiindigoo Economics,
products,
perhaps become Wiindigoos themselves. In a way, this book is a calling
or
to that. And a reminder to be sensible people, to do things which make
out
sense. good
begin this book, I want to acknowledge those who I remember rst
To
“Water is Life,” and reminded us all of that. John Trudell, in the early
saying
1980s, began this Water is Life set of concerts, music and awareness.

emember
We
water is our beginning
the
hear the ocean
I
her song
Singing
with musicians like Jackson Browne, Jesse Ed Davis, Bonnie Raitt,
Working
Kristo erson and others, Trudell traveled up and down the west coast
Kris
with that message. He understood fully.
life before pro t
choosing
water is our relative
the
water loves us
e
us her power is real
Telling
Water for Life 3
long ago spoke of the rights of Mother Earth. More than just civil
Trudell
or human rights, it is Natural Rights. I am grateful to him for his
rights
I knew Trudell through ve decades of my life. He was a friend
teachings.
mentor, and his commitment to life, art and protecting Mother Earth
and
an inspiration to so many of us. A Santee man, born in Nebraska, he
was
politicized a er he returned from the military in 1968. e
became
of Alcatraz was the moment for John, like many young Native
Liberation
on the west coast, and nationally, as Native people demanded the
people
of the former military prison, something which is provided for
rematriation
federal law.
under
used his skill set to establish Radio Free Alcatraz and served as
Trudell
of the American Indian Movement for most of the 1970s. at’s when I
chair
Trudell. A profound thinker and orator, Trudell’s in uence was
met
cant. As the power of the movement grew, so did the repression, as
signi
other federal intelligence, police and military programs
and
into the reservations and Indian Country. A er his pregnant wife,
moved
Manning, and his three children and mother-in-law died in 1979 in a
Tina
house re, John’s life turned to more music and he ranged further
suspicious
further. His poetry, music and acting lit up a generation of youth, with
and
word and political insight. In 2012, he formed Project Hempstead,
spoken
Willie Nelson, to co-create the hemp economy. His words live on in
with
lm and music, with Bad Dog. John crossed boundaries. He crossed
books,

nal boundary to the spirit world in December of 2015. Or as John
that
say, “I caught my ride.” I had visited him two days before.
would
Trudell.
John
raise my hands to you.
I
~~~
sing praises for the Water Protectors. I sing praises in these words.
I
Mandamin, a Water Warrior, is also one of those whom I look to
Josephine
guidance, as a living being and as a spirit woman.
for
have known for a long time that water is alive. Water can hear you.
We
can sense what you are saying and what you are feeling. ere’s a
Water
I put tobacco in the water where the water is so still. It was dead. I
place
for it, I put my tobacco in the water and it started oating
prayed
So the water was alive, it heard my prayers. It heard the song.
around.
I know it listened. I know that if you pay attention to it, it can come
So,
alive. Give it respect and it can come alive.… Give it love. 4
Indeed, the Japanese scientist Masaru Emoto in his NYT bestseller
e
Messages in Water, documented the same knowledge in a scienti c
Hidden
Emoto would freeze water into crystals from di erent locations, some
form.
polluted and some pristine.
e water crystals were all di erent, but the
water was highly deformed. He found that water crystals from clear
polluted
and crystals that were exposed to loving words were complex,
springs
and colorful. His scienti c research created a new awareness of the
brilliant
of good intent and practices to heal water and ourselves.
possibility
I came to know Josephine Mandamin in the
ree Fires Midewin Society,
she too prayed with the Anishinaabeg for the good life and healing.
where
Anishinaabe from Fort Williams Reserve, Josephine had grown up in the
An
shadow of the
under Bay Smelters, where acid rain and mining projects,
gold to uranium, plagued the waters of her territory, as well as mercury
from
at Grassy Narrows. Josephine became a Water Walker, a leader of
poisoning
movement and an inspiration to thousands of people for her
this
to the Great Lakes. She walked around the Great Lakes, in
commitment
and with companions.
prayer
the ree Fires Midewiwin Society, spiritual leaders told of a time when
At
will cost as much as gold.” at time was the year 2030. e
“water
to care for the water is with Ojibwe women. We are entrusted
responsibility

with water ceremonies and songs.
at movement and traditional way was
revitalized and brought back in a strong way by Josephine. In 2003,
really
began her rst walk, walking the perimeter of Lake Superior, carrying a
she
copper bucket and praying for the water.
at was the beginning of many
walks, and more walks inspired by other
ree Fires Lodge members like
Sharon Day, another Water Walker.
e movement has grown and continues
prayers for the water. It is estimated that Josephine walked more than
the
kilometers during her lifetime for the water. Josephine completed her
25,000
sacred walk in 2017, passing over the next year. 5
nal
Mandamin
Josephine
I raise my hands to you.
~~~
was a long time back that I came to meet Milton Born With A Tooth. He
It
a Water Protector. A Peigan leader of the Lone Fighters Society, Milton’s
was
was with the Oldman Dam on the ree River, a dam project not
battle
the Kinzua Dam. “I was born by that river,” Milton would tell me.
unlike
in a small house to a large family that made their life in that world of
Born
Old Man River.
the
the Alberta government proposed a new dam on the river, this one
When
both electricity and to provide ood control for agricultural interests in
for
region, Born With A Tooth restored the Pikani Lone Fighters Society, an
the
medicine society, to protect the river. In the 1990s, when I came to
ancient
him, Milton spoke of a dream about a beaver, noting, as others have,
know
“beavers are the only ones allowed to make dams in our territory.”
that
by the beaver, Born With A Tooth, who argued that the Pikani
Inspired
the rights to the water in the river and that the dam would result in
owned
ooding of sacred places, resorted to a beaver-like action. at’s to say,
the
With A Tooth borrowed an excavator on the construction site and
Born
the river into a canal bed. is action ended in a shootout with
redirected
the
and jail time for Born With A Tooth. Legal challenges continued
the dam was built, but the commitment of a man to a river remained.
and
2003, a 32 megawatt hydroelectric plant has operated, providing 114
Since
gigawatt hours per year.
at hydro plant is 25% owned by the Pikani
Milton Born With A Tooth passed away in 2019.
Nation.
will never be peaceful. It’s like a nice beautiful day that changes
“Change
into a thunderstorm, or a snowstorm — that’s how change is going to be.”

Born With A Tooth.
Milton
raise my hands to you.
I
~~~
Caceras is another Water Protector. She too has passed on, though in
Berta
case it was a bullet, not cancer, that ended her life. Hers is the story of
her
water and land protectors everywhere, as hundreds of us are
Indigenous
by corrupt governments and corporate goons. A Lenca Indigenous
killed
from Honduras, Caceras also faced a dam project, Agua Zarca,
leader
dam that supported rich interests in a corrupt country. In 1993, she
another
an Indigenous Honduran organization, Consejo Cívico de
co-founded
Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (
, Council of
and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras), which is committed to
Popular
protection of Indigenous Peoples and the environment, particularly the
the
Lenca people in Intibuca.
e organization’s 2004 history recalls that the
“began to discover their indigenous face, a face of resistance and
Lenca
identity.” 6 at is a story everywhere, from the Zapatista Movement
national
the movement of Water Protectors.
to
organization was known for mobilizing masses. In 1994,
e
on the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, with multiple demands.
marched
other things, they demanded self-government, a moratorium on
Among
and investigation into violence against Indigenous Peoples. In
logging
to the protest, the Honduran government signed a 48-point
response
7 In another action, on October 12, 1997, the anniversary of the
agreement.
arrival in the Americas, about 150 protestors knocked down a statue
Spanish
Christopher Columbus in Tegucigalpa. Arguing that they were protesting
of
history of exploitation of Indigenous Peoples, one of the leaders arrested
a
this action, Salvador Zuniga, declared, “It would seem that in this
for
clay leaders matter more than the real problems faced by indigenous
country
If there is justice, we will be released, but we are not sorry for the act
people.
dignity carried out on October 12.” 8
of
Cáceres was a leader in the movement opposing the Aqua Zarca
Berta
project. She was assassinated in her home on March 3, 2016. A
hydroelectric
weeks later, another Indigenous leader, Nelson Garcia, was also
few
While Cáceres’ assassins were later convicted, Honduras
assassinated.
a place where Water Protectors are always in danger. A 2016 survey
remains
by Global Witness found that 185 water and land protectors in 16
conducted

were killed in 2015 alone. Eight of those were in Honduras. 9
countries
sometimes those deaths stop projects. e Aqua Zarca project had
Yet
$17 million, or just under 40% of the necessary funding from its
received
major European funders, when an employee of the company building
three
dam was charged with Cáreces’ murder. Amidst international outrage at
the
murder and other human rights violations, the banks divested. “ e
the
is no longer funding the project. Nor is there any intention to further
bank
in the project. Each bank is going to have their own exit strategy. Our
invest
stopped all disbursements,” said a spokesperson for the largest investor,
bank
Cabei. 10 e
I raise my hands to you and to other Water Protectors and Friends of
Berta,
Butter ies who are killed by the Wiindigoos.
the
are many more Water Protectors, and as the younger generation
ere
like Clayton omas Muller, Gitz Crazy Boy Eriel Deranger, Dawn
emerges,
Kimberly Smith, Tara Houska and Melina Lubicon, they continue
Goodwin,
work to protect the waters of the north. I raise my hands and put them to
the
heart. You are loved.
my
book is written in the spirit of acknowledging that Water is Life.
is
is
book is a testimony to the resistance and defeat of the Wiindigoo.
e term
Protector” became mainstream under a hail of rubber bullets at
“Water
Rock. is book is about that spirit, and that spirit is forever.
Standing

Part 1
Akiing:
Omaa
on Earth
Here

Winter Count
ancestors and those to the west used to keep track of historic events on
My
wiigwaas, our bark, or Winter Counts — records inked on bu alo and
our
robes. Our ancestors would remember in these Winter Counts the winter
elk
the snow was higher than the tipis, when the smallpox came and when
when
the people were victorious in a battle.
ey would remember important
events.
this era, I am not sure how I keep track of these moments; maybe
In
or perhaps in my writing. I have yet to draw a Winter Count,
Facebook
on robe or perhaps hemp canvas. at may, however, be in the
recording
What I know now is that I write, usually each day.
future.
will remember this as the year that the Bat Changed the World.
We
at’s
for sure.
e fact is that a virus brought to us by a bat is changing the world,
world of the Wiindigoo. We have some stories of the epic bat in Ojibwe
the
and this will be a new one.
history,
has caused unprecedented social disruption and wreaked havoc
-19
the markets, but it has also resulted in lower energy demand and a
in
signi cant reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions.
is is where we
understand that crisis is opportunity.
is will be remembered, I am sure, as
time when we changed our direction, and that is because of a bat.
the
are long ago stories. Sometimes the changes come fast, and then it
ere
we slumber for years of solitude. We come to take a moment for
seems
a person for permanent. We are a transient bunch, myself
permanent,
We travel faster than perhaps our spirits can travel, and our
included.
of time change. When we return home, Giiwedinong, we look
perceptions
something familiar, or maybe, in some cases, an improvement, a healing
for
a horse, a person or a place; scar tissue remains. Travel changes your
of
perception of time.
ere is much that can be missed.
we are home, or perhaps when we return home, we remember the
When
of the land. at’s not digital, hourly or mechanical. e time when the
time
maple syruping season is when the crows gather; it’s called Aandeg Biboon,

Crow Month, the time when winter is breaking, the Wiindigoo is leaving,
or
and the sap will run. en there’s a snow storm, and it’s the
GaaBiboonoke,
for the maple. at’s the time on the land. en the swans come.
time
Hearty and majestic, they stand on small ice patches at the
Waabiziiwag.
beginning of the Ottertail River.
at river, traveling to the Red and one day
Hudson Bay, begins on my lake, Round Lake, Gaawaawiye Gaamag. Here
to
water is clean, long before industrial agriculture and long before it turns
the
the Red River and carries the bodies of my sisters, the Missing and
to
Indigenous Women. Long before the polar bears of Churchill
Murdered
Manitoba. Here it is peaceful.
e pheasants are enjoying some early thaws;
and turkeys, they stay the winter.
eagles
friend Georgianne Baker used to talk to me about calling your spirit.
My
we travel so fast that our spirit may not catch up with us,
Sometimes
behind, stunned or pleased by the moment. She used to make a call,
remains
tell the spirits she was home, remind her spirit to be present. In the time
to
air travel, digital time and the jackhammer of the industrial world, I nd
of
caught. I call my spirit back, back to the lake, the birds and the
myself
horses.
return each winter, as my ancestors did, to see who has survived this
I
survived the time of the Wiindigoo, the harshest of winters. ey
winter,
used to talk about the times of the plagues.
ose came to our people with
missionaries and traders. Many would pass, according to the Winter
the
of the west. Omaa Akiing, here on this land and memories, you
Counts
know the family had perished when the smoke no longer came from
would
wigwam. at is what we remember.
the
year, I watched the deaths of the young from heroin overdoses and
is
and the old from illness. e smoke no longer comes from their
violence,
wigwams.
winter, to my modern day Winter Count, I remember the storms and
is
cold. I remember the big storm which froze the Dakotas, Iowa,
the
Minnesota, Wisconsin into a stillness. I remember feeling
Manitoba,
and knowing I knew better. I remember this year past, of the
unprepared
to the west, the winds and water to the south, and I prayed for more
res
to prepare for a future that is transforming patterns forever by climate
time
And then came a searing spring and a summer of water, water to
change.
wash everything.
en I remember the time of the Bat.

you travel far, you may sometimes see what is coming towards you,
When
climate change or who has learned good lessons. You take these
whether
and teachings home for the people and the future generations. You
lessons
just as in days of old, the sadness, joy and beauty of the large world. But,
see,
the fast-paced time, you forget your own Winter Count. We forget to be
in
now. To call our spirits home.
here
bi daagoshin. It is a new spring which comes. Recognized as the
Ziigwan
venture out, the aandegoog, crows, move in large numbers. ey
waabiziwag
to the skies and signal that it is time to tap our trees and venture from
take
wigwams, our warm houses, into the woods, hoping that smoke comes
our
many res. It is time to go into the woods; nopeming to be grateful for
from
homecoming. It is time to call our spirits home. I pause from my travels
this
and look to see my world; she is beautiful.

How to Be Better Ancestors
long are you going to let others determine the future for your
How
Are we not warriors? When our ancestors went to battle they
children?
know what the consequences would be, all they knew is that if they
didn’t
nothing, things would not go well for their children. Do not operate
did
of a place of fear, operate out of hope. Because with hope anything is
out
possible.
— under Valley Community Development Corporation 1
to many who read this, to be a warrior may be something that rankles
Now,
sensibilities, but let us say that in the face of daunting forces we must
your
our courage, our hearts, our minds, and work together. Zapatista
summon
Marcos would say: “Our word is our weapon.” Or
Sub-Commandante
your organic goat cheese, your small energy company, your
maybe
way of teaching is your tool, your weapon. To be courageous
enlightened
thoughtful, perhaps, is the key to being good ancestors.
and
Anishinaabeg, sort of like old guard Anishinaabeg, the cool ancestors.
Gete
are larger than life and memory and continue to be present in one of
ey
eight worlds that surround the Anishinaabeg. ey are courageous and
the
practiced, intelligent, and kept a covenant with the Creator to
thoughtful,
for all we are given and be grateful. ey are my role models.
care
believe in place. Anishinaabe Akiing, the Land to which the people
I
that’s where I live.
belong,
live in the same area my great-great-great-great grandparents lived.
I
I harvest wild rice on the same lakes, canoe to the same
Nimanoominike,
patches and am eternally grateful for their consistency, their
berry
to land and ceremony, and to those who had not yet arrived,
commitment
myself. My lake itself, Round Lake, is where the so-called last Indian
like
in Minnesota occurred. And I am eternally grateful to the Skip In
uprising
Day family for demanding justice on our Lake, and stopping the timber
e
from stealing all of our great and majestic pines. In walking, riding a
barons
horse or canoeing these lakes and this place, I remember those ancestors.

And I o er them food and prayers.
ose are cool ancestors, great role
models.
my mother, the artist Betty LaDuke’s side, my family originates in the
On
Jewish farmers who became union workers in New York City. My
Ukraine.
grandfather had a windmill to grind wheat and was displaced by
great-great
burning of coal and the progress of new mills. My grandmother worked
the
the garment district and my grandfather worked as a house painter.
in
Decent people. Courageous, humble, sensible people.
ere’s something
about that
imprint which maybe reminds me of where their journeys
them. Some days, I feel I continue their journey or see, perhaps, my
took
continue those journeys.
children
I re ect on the question of how to be good ancestors, I re ect on
As
accountability. How do I account for my behaviors and
intergenerational
to my ancestors and to my descendants?
decisions
is easier for some of us than others. America does not stay in
is
Akiing. Privileged by the fossil fuel economy, which has put all
Anishinaabe
on steroids, we are transient, we move. Few people live in the same
things
as their ancestors, and many more of us have historical amnesia.
place
always trying to run away from what we’ve done, so amnesia
We’re
becomes the coping mechanism.
en we continue in our anthropocentric
thinking we are kings and continuing as slave holders. Ecological
world,
holders that is. Not knowing history has huge perils. Ecological
slave
is when we forget what was there, complicated by all of this
amnesia
transience.
means that we do not come to know and love a place; we move
Transience
and as such are not accountable to that place. Always looking for greener
on,
a new frontier, I fear we lose depth, and a place loses its humans
pastures,
would sing to it, gather the precious berries, make clean the paths and
who
the waters.
protect
on a worldwide scale, Indigenous Peoples represent about 4%
Remember,
of the world’s people, but we live with 80% of the world’s biodiversity.
at’s
worth
ghting for. My counsel is stay, make this place your home and
this land like a patriot.
defend
look to minobimaatisiiwin, the excellent life o ered to the Anishinaabeg
I
the Creator. In this life, the basic teachings are elegant and resonant: care
by
yourself, the land and your relatives. Remember that this world is full of
for

spirit and life and must be reckoned with.
e land of berries, wild rice,
syrup and medicines comes with a covenant, an agreement between
maple
Anishinaabeg, or myself, and the Creator. Keep that covenant, that
the
that we will take care of what is given to us, and your descendants
agreement
be grateful.
will
your responsibility for this moment. I understand mine. As I
Understand
my brothers and sisters to the west at Standing Rock facing rubber
watched
tear gas and the spraying of poisons to protect the water, I was awed,
bullets,
and reminded that I am one of them. In this moment, not unlike
inspired
Selma Moment, be present.
the
the Dark Lord rises in the East, nd your courage, my Hobbit brothers
As
sisters… (Wait, I can’t actually say that?), but remember the shire is
and
and your descendants would appreciate your voice, words and
everywhere,
action.
Rock is not only a place; it is a state of mind, it is a thought and it
Standing
action. In a time when the rights of corporations override the rights of
is
stay human, and remember that the law must be changed. For civil
humans,
is made, as democracy is made, by the hands of people, courageous
society
and is not a spectator sport. While at one time slavery was legal; it is
people,
longer, and soon we must free our Mother Earth from her slavery to an
no
economy and ensure her rights.
exploitive
each day there is a heartbreak of story, a constant heartache for our
In
whether they have wings, ns, roots, paws or hands, but there is
relatives,
much beauty and joy. Remember always that in these times of -
also
the virus brought by a bat, we retreated into our human worlds, and
19,
took a breath, strolled our streets with ease and enjoyed a fresh
animals
day. Hold your sorrow and grief to remember, but be grateful for this
spring
life.
e Creator has given us a good one. And your descendants will be
for this good life, this minobimaatisiiwin.
grateful
this time, do not underestimate yourself, nor the power of the larger. As
In
saw at Standing Rock, unity, hope, a worldwide outpouring of love and
we
emboldens Water Protectors worldwide — and that is something we
support
all need, along with our Mother. How that power is actualized is up to
will
of us, but acknowledging our responsibility for power is how we are
each
intergenerationally.
accountable,
lessons I take from one of my great teachers, Wes Jackson of the Land
Two

Institute. As you contemplate your choices, mill about.
is is to say, if you
live in your one acre, do so, mill about on that one acre, and do not
can
Perhaps that lesson is to live simply and care for the place you know
move.
so that those who follow can live there too. He calls it the Mill About
eory.
believe. Wes said one time that if you’re working on something that you
And
on nishing in your lifetime, you are not thinking big enough. Let us
plan
the gi of our thoughts, and in the words of the Great Hunkpapa leader
use
Bull, “Let us put our minds together to see what kind of future we
Sitting
can make for our children.”
en we will be great ancestors.

The Holy Land Is Here
Native People, the Holy Land is here. Whether Bear Butte, Manitoulin
For
Mni Sose or Gichi Gummi, people who have lived on this land for
Island,
years know this as the Holy Land, not elsewhere.
10,000
recognition is growing into a body of law, not just in North America,
is
worldwide. It’s about time, or as Indigenous Peoples will say, it’s time to
but
to the Creator’s law. ese laws are considered the Rights of Nature,
return
the Rights of Mother Earth, a body of new jurisprudence which is
or
internationally.
growing
2017, Mount Taranaki in New Zealand was granted the same legal rights
In
a person, in turn becoming the third major geographical feature in New
as
Zealand to be granted a “legal personality.”
e mountain is sacred to the
Maori People.
e mountain, named — poorly — Mount Egmont by
Cook a er the Second Earl of Egmont, was formally stolen with pen
Captain
paper by the New Zealand government in 1865. In 1978, the mountain
and
returned to the people of Taranaki by federal jurisdiction. 2
was
legal designation follows a set of similar acknowledgements, most
is
from India, which granted the Himalayan glaciers, rivers, streams,
recently
air, meadows and forests the same legal rights as persons, joining
lakes,
sacred Ganges and Yamuna Rivers as having standing under the law. 3
India’s
legal recognitions are intended to protect those living beings. is
ese
set of international rulings represents the most signi cant creation of
new
legal rights for Nature since 2010, when Bolivia passed the Law of
new
Earth as a part of their constitution, 4 with a similar law being passed
Mother
the Ponca Nation of Oklahoma (2017) and the Ho Chunk Nation of
by
Wisconsin. 5
e 2017 jurisdictional decision by the Ponca Nation
the rights of Nature Nature came in response to their
recognizing
to the water. “We all know that water is life. e years of sh
responsibility
related to the fracking and injection wells amount to environmental
kills
said Casey Camp-Horinek. “It is going to take all of us humans
genocide,”
because we’re speaking for those without voices, for the deer, the cattle,

the Laws of Men Are Wrong
When
a moment when the law begins to change.
It’s
that y. In our tribe we have a funeral a week now. We’re being fracked
those
death and it’s time to take a stand for our people and defend the earth.” 6
to
we look around us, we can see that the legal systems of nation states
As
failed Mother Earth and Indigenous Peoples. While laws like the
have
Species Act really speak to the essence of the right of a “species”
Endangered
exist in the United States, the broad application and practice of regulatory
to
and law do not protect a river, a watershed, a species, a mountain
authority
an ocean.
or
at’s the moment, when the
— created primarily by papal law, English common law and then
laws
law — have created an untenable situation for most of the world’s
corporate
beings, from animals to rivers to people.
living
in the United States and Canada the situation is untenable, and
Indeed,
gives corporations more rights than humans, and certainly more rights
now
Nature. What the Canadian Supreme Court decided in the Percy
than
case was that corporations owned life. And what has happened in
Schmeiser
case law is that the rights of corporations have exceeded the rights
American
most of us. Corporate personhood is the legal notion that a corporation
of
at least some of the legal rights and responsibilities enjoyed by humans.
has
Supreme Court decisions, like Citizens United and Burwell v Hobby Lobby
In
the Court has ruled in favor of corporations, even extending religious
Stores,
to corporations.
freedom
the case of Hobby Lobby, this ruling of the right to religious freedom
In
the corporation does not have to provide contraception as a part of a
means
care package to employees. Not only do corporations have rights,
health
religious freedom, but their rights are stronger than yours or
including
And their rights extend inside your body.
mine.
the time of Standing Rock, I was assured that Energy Transfer Partners
In
more rights than the Lakota People and the Water Protectors. In the
had
of Quebec Hydro and Manitoba Hydro (Muskrat Falls), what’s clear is
case
these corporations exercise authority over the rights of people and
that
rivers.
at’s an aberration of justice.
be in reality. Corporations are ctitious creations, and the natural world
Let’s
… well real. I also o en muse that if a corporation was a person, it would
is

e a person with a multiple personality disorder. A er all, those mergers,
likely
and bankruptcies can certainly change your identity.
acquisitions
we enter the New Year in that Gregorian calendar, I remember the Holy
As
is also here.
Land
us take the case of Mahto Paha, or Bear Butte, in the heart of the Paha
Let
or the Black Hills. According to a Lakota story, long ago a giant bear
Sapa,
a water monster similar to a dinosaur battled for many days and nights.
and
of the erce battle, valleys lled with blood. e giant bear,
Because
wounded by the sea monster’s jagged teeth, crawled away to die.
e bear’s
disappears, leaving in its place a hill in the shape of the bear’s sleeping
body
which continued to rumble and smolder. Today, hambleceya, vision
body
is o en done at Bear Butte, a sacred place, as sacred as Mount Sinai.
quest,
so di erent is the story of Mni Sose, the Missouri River. e longest
Not
in North America, when combined with the Mississippi, forms the
river
fourth longest river system. e river, once drinkable, has been life
world’s
all of us for thousands of years. It gave rise to the ancient agricultural
for
of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Peoples and was a super
empires
highway for trade travel.
e fertile Nile river valley of the Northern Plains.
that river is an industrial sewer to corporations that rarely pay nes,
Today,
alone remedy their crimes against Nature. Just as an example, since
let
of 2016 over 100,000 gallons of crude oil, waste oil, bio solids,
January
gas and brine have been spilled into the waters of the region, along
natural
about 50,000 gallons of slaked lime solids which slid directly into the
with
River. e river is choked with industrial and agricultural runo
Missouri
solids. Indeed, in some cases, a river, like the Animas River ( owing
and
Ute and Dine Territory of the Colorado Plateau), may be legally
through
dead, devoid of life from acid mine drainage or toxins. Who has the
termed
to commit ecocide? And conversely: Should a river have a right to live
right
free? poison
reality is that American, Canadian and other legal institutions are not
e
of regulating the intergenerational violence of technology. What is
capable
in war and in industry exceeds the experience of any generation before
done
in scope and damage, and our regulatory institutions have no framework
us
understanding the impact of these decisions.
for
rather than being cautious, the legal institutions, to which Native
Sadly,
are asked to subjugate themselves, are inadequate to address
Peoples

prudence and indeed justice. Historically, North American legal
regulatory
have protected the rights of private property holders, not Nature
systems
Indeed, private corporations continue to pillage the commons,
herself.
toxic poisons from their world into the world of rivers,
transferring
and sacred places.
mountains
leadership on the transition to a more enlightened set of legal canons
e
is being provided by Indigenous Peoples.
at’s because our legal systems
and will postdate those of the church and the nation states.
predate
away, the question of the life of a river has taken on a new legal
Oceans
In 2012, the Whanganui River became a legal entity 7 and in 2017,
meaning.
given the same status as a person under New Zealand law. 8 In an
was
between the Maori and the Crown, the river has been given legal
agreement
under the name Te Awa Tupua, and two guardians, one from the
status
and one from the Maori, have assumed the responsibility to protect
Crown
river. is responsibility is a rea rmation of Indigenous practice and is
the
to the laws of nation states. One can easily argue that many
transformative
in an American or Canadian regulatory process are only
“stakeholders”
in their rights and rarely interested in their “responsibilities.” In
interested
recently signed treaties like the Bu alo Treaty 9 and the Treaty of
contrast,
Salish Sea, 10 between Indigenous Nations, pledge to care for the
the
of humans in relationship to these great spiritual beings, the
responsibility
alo Nation and the Salish Sea.
Bu
on Turtle Island, another river is recognized. In May of 2019, the
Here
Tribal Council voted unanimously in favor of a resolution
Yurok
the rights of the Klamath River, spanning through Modoc,
establishing
Hoopa, Karuk Territory to the Paci c Ocean.
to the Yurok Tribe, the resolution “establishes the Rights of
According
Klamath River to exist, ourish, and naturally evolve; to have a
the
and healthy environment free from pollutants; to have a stable
clean
free from human-caused climate change impacts; and to be free
climate
contamination by genetically engineered organisms.”
from
is resolution provides another powerful tool to protect our river,
“
has sustained the Yurok people since time began,” said Joseph L.
which
the Chairman of the Yurok Tribe. “We have always and will
James,
always do everything in our power to preserve and enhance the

Klamath for all future generations.” 11
is the time to make legal institutions that re ect the world we live in,
Now
the anthropocentric world we fantasize is a reality. It really is not
not
to regulate watersheds until there is no water in a river. Now is the
prudent
to make laws which rea rm the spirit of place, of beings, and rea rm
time
the relationship between humans and the Holy Land. Omaa Akiing.

The Month You Remember Me
is this magical made-up time in the United States between so-called
ere
Day (or Indigenous Peoples’ Day for the enlightened) and
Columbus
anksgiving, where white Americans think about Native People.
at’s sort
our window. Honestly. Now, let me tell you the truth; I think about white
of
every day … every day. How o en do white Americans think of
people
people? Rarely.
Native
2019, November was known as Native American Heritage Month,
Until
in the middle is that Halloween thing, and until about three years ago,
plus
of the most popular Halloween costumes was Pocahontas. So, people
one
nothing about us, but like to dress up like us, or have us as a mascot.
know
President Trump renamed Native American Heritage Month as
Sadly,
Founding Fathers Month, so we might have lost out on a few
National
of collective acknowledgement. In other words, will you still think
seconds
Native People if we don’t have a month?
about
are invisible. Take it from me, I travel a lot, and o en ask this question:
We
you name 10 Indigenous Nations? Sometimes I ask for 25. You can ask
Can
in a room full of PhDs, or a lecture hall full of college students, and
this
en no one can name us. If we are to be named, it is Lakota, Cherokee,
o
Cheyenne, Blackfeet, mostly Native People from westerns, or maybe
Navajo,
that Cherokee great-grandmother someone believes they have.
is is the
of history: writing out the victim, making the victim disappear;
problem
is no victim so there was no crime. We just disappeared.
there
always, when I am traveling, there will be this feeling that someone
And
seen a unicorn in the airport. at would be me, in my Pendleton jacket
has
an apparition from times long ago. ere will be that awkward question
—
whether I am Navajo or Cherokee, and then we will sort it out …
about
on how much patience I have. Most people are very well
depending
intentioned.
do I want to tell you while you are thinking of me? Let me squeeze
What
in: ere are over 700 Indigenous Nations in North America, and, in
this

and Bolivia in South America we are the majority population.
Guatemala
Indigenous presidents have been elected — Evo Morales in Bolivia and
Two
Chavez in Venezuela. We are doctors, lawyers, writers, educators, and
Hugo
are here. we
are land-based and intend to stay that way. Our land and water is our
We
I hear White People (using the term White as a social construct) talk
life.
how the Americans gave us land. Treaties reserved land, and
about
were reserved. America was stolen, or purchased for a pittance.
reservations
Andrew Jackson forced the removal of thousands of our people,
President
then sold our land. Some historians point out that Jackson’s Louisiana
and
knocked US debt from $58 million in 1828 to $38,000 in 1834.
purchase
deal, except for us. Of the 4% of our land base that remains, we intend
Good
keep it. Of our treaties which were signed between our ancestors and your
to
we intend to stand by them.
ancestors,
are not you. Worldwide, there are about 7,000 languages in the world
We
and they are primarily Indigenous. Some languages are very close to
today,
At least 52 North American Indigenous languages have
disappearing.
46 languages are known to have just one native speaker, while
disappeared,
languages have fewer than 50 speakers. 12 Of those languages, this means
357
roughly 2680 languages are facing a risk of extinction. 13 It’s called
that
the forced loss of a language, and the US government and
linguicide,
carried it out well. e UN has declared 2019 the year of
churches
languages, to raise awareness about their loss. Lakota and
Indigenous
are two of the strongest living languages in North America. We
Ojibwe
to keep our words.
intend
intend to keep our spiritual and religious practices — I am not a
We
and it was not until 1978, with the passage of the American
Christian,
Freedom of Religion Act, that Native people could freely practice our
Indian
religions.
at is, unless someone wanted to mine your sacred site or put a golf
on it. course
women are here, and we birthed this Nation. We created the agro
Native
of 8000 varieties of corn, and a multitude of beans, squash and
biodiversity
varieties which are now touted by big agriculture and are the
melon
for most crops. We are the ones whose hearts cannot fall on the
foundation
Despite that my heart breaks every day I see an opioid epidemic
ground.
brought to me by the pharmaceutical industry or see another Native person

cannot get health care.
who
are also at risk; been that my whole life. I, like many other Native
We
have been beaten, and have a female relative who was missing,
women,
and ended up in the Mississippi River. Over a thousand Native
murdered
are missing or murdered in the past decade. I am tired of being
women
to you all. I am tired of the lack of compassion of the settler state, or
invisible
president who slashes health care and access to food, or the state that seeks
a
contaminate the remaining wild rice with sul de to keep a dying mining
to
a oat. And I am tired of North Dakota pretending that Standing
industry
does not exist. I am tired of being invisible and demand that you see me.
Rock
right here, I’m the stu this country is made of. Honest.
I’m
I want to say is that we are beautiful, amazing, tough-as-can-be
What
It would be nice if we thought of each other kindly and with
people.
Civil society would bene t; the legal, political, economic,
compassion.
systems would bene t if Indigenous Peoples were not written out of
judicial
public policy and thinking. A er all, if you want to gure out how to
history,
out on the continent for 8000 years or so, you might want to see us.
hang
I want Native American Heritage Month back. But more, I want to be
And
seen, heard and respected.

Part 2
Relatives

Seeds of Hope: Mino Gitigaaning
father used to say that there will be a time when there will not be food in
My
stores. at would be a good time to know how to grow food. I am
the
what American historians would call a Victory Garden. Well a
planting
of them. I am calling it Mino Gitigaaning. A Good Garden. It is full
couple
heritage varieties of corn, beans, squash, potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes,
of
and hemp. en, there’s a he y tomato, basil, cucumbers, eggplants
tobacco
other produce section of the gardens, and more to come. I am planting
and
and a commitment to the covenant I have with this world. I am
hope
in a time of ongoing wars. I’m planting for life, because I love her.
planting
Garden: a vegetable garden, especially a home garden, planted to
Victory
food production during a war. Answering the federal government’s
increase
by May 1943, there were 18 million victory gardens in the United
challenge,
— 12 million in cities and 6 million on farms. Together, they
States
almost 10 million short tons of food. In 1944, that was an amount
produced
to all commercial production of fresh vegetables. 1 It’s time for a
equivalent
Garden as our transition to the next economy. Or maybe a Garden
Victory
Gratitude and Joy.
of
fact is that food systems of the globalized capitalist economy are
e
failing.
ey are Wiindigoo Economics at their best. We see shrimp raised in
deveined in China and served on a platter at Walmart in North
Scotland,
at’s not a web that can last. In 2020, we saw this unravel quickly
America.
as the coronavirus moved through globalized economies.
e New York
reported that, as restaurants, hotels and schools close in the face of the
Times
pandemic,
Wisconsin and Ohio, farmers are dumping thousands of gallons of
in
milk into lagoons and manure pits. An Idaho farmer has dug huge
fresh
to bury 1 million pounds of onions. And in South Florida, a
ditches
that supplies much of the Eastern half of the United States with
region
produce, tractors are crisscrossing bean and cabbage
elds, plowing
perfectly ripe vegetables back into the soil….

e amount of waste is staggering.
e nation’s largest dairy
Dairy Farmers of America, estimates that farmers are
cooperative,
as many as 3.7 million gallons of milk each day. A single
dumping
chicken processor is smashing 750,000 unhatched eggs every week. 2
at’s tragic.
e response by people has been life. Seed companies are
a surge in sales, back orders and more as people become home
experiencing
People want to grow food, and that’s a great thing. Crisis is
gardeners.
opportunity…
I had to put my thumb on it, I would say people are worried about their
“If
security right now,” said Emily Rose Haga, the executive director of the
food
Savers Exchange, an Iowa-based nonpro t devoted to heirloom seeds.
Seed
lot of folks even in our region are putting orders into their grocery stores
“A
having to wait a week to get their groceries. Our society has never
and
a disruption like this in our lifetime.” 3
experienced
seems that my father was right about the grocery stores. His name was
It
LaDuke, his name was also Sun Bear. Now looks to be that time,
Vincent
time to garden and return to the seeds.
that
e New York Times reminds us, “
is isn’t the rst time in recent years
there has been a run on seeds. ‘When the market crashed in 2008, there
that
a big increase in people starting to grow their own food,’ Ms. Kruysman,
was
Johnny’s Selected Seeds, said. But that uptick was more gradual.” And of
of
our Elders who lived through the Great Depression remember times
course
these, and they remind us that “this is the time to be saving these seeds
like
making sure that we can feed ourselves.” Native Seed Search is one
and
that sells seeds to the public, “But our priority is seeds for
organization
communities,’ Mr. Schlager said, pointing out that the Navajo
Indigenous
Nation is already su ering because of the new coronavirus. ‘
ey’re
o entimes the last place where real aid, or
support, or anything really
handed out to people,’ he said.” 4
gets
and water will be pretty essential, perhaps with more long-term
Seeds
bene ts than federal
support.
the corporate food system fails, President Trump further destabilized
As
foods with his unrelenting attack on people of color. Of the l.5 to
American
million people working in agriculture today, 50–70% of them are
2
farm workers, according to a report by the American Farm
undocumented

5 Donald Trump has suggested the deportation of many of those
Bureau.
ere are about 11 million of them. It was particularly striking
immigrants.
many of these workers were deemed “essential” during the -19
that
but they are still “illegal.” Business Insider reports that if the
pandemic,
sector were to eliminate all undocumented workers, the US
agriculture
be le with a $30–$60 billion food production loss. 6 ( ink of the
would
A Day Without a Mexican). I am not sure who is going to pick my
lm
for me, frankly, let alone most of the food that comes from
avocados
Central Valley.
California’s
to the deportations, retail food prices could increase by 5–6% on
Due
with some categories seeing higher jumps than others. For example,
average,
National Milk Producers Federation expects a 90% increase in milk
the
if the country removes the immigrant labor supply. 7 Add to that a
prices
million loss from the 2016 California drought 8 and the unstable
$603
brought to us by climate change. Sprinkle that with some bad water
weather
California is using groundwater in fracking operations, and Nestle
policies:
sucking up groundwater in California and elsewhere to bottle.
is
is about a promise and hope. Gardening and rebuilding our
Gardening
relationships with the relatives which have roots. Rea
rming relationships
with plants is a rea
rmation of our agreements and responsibilities with
Mother Earth.
at’s if, indeed, we are able to survive.
grow a really old squash. We call it Gete Okosomin, or “really cool old
We
at variety has been around 800 or more years and is well adapted
squash.”
northern Minnesota. It keeps over the winter, and when opened up,
for
well over a thousand seeds within beautiful orange esh. Each year,
contains
plant more heritage varieties, watch them grow with wonder, have a large
we
family who weeds together, a pony we use to cultivate, and some
extended
that we are intent upon improving a er forty years of scorching with
soils
agriculture’s pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers. All together we
industrial
looking to grow not only food for our community, but with our
are
family by family. And we are intent upon growing hemp, or
community,
as the anecdote to the fossil fuel era. A er all, in the early days of
cannabis,
American farming community, people would grow a half acre of hemp
the
a half acre of ax — which would supply the needs of each extended
and
before cotton from Pakistan, before polyester from China. Native
family
people also grew hemp; it was a useful and magical plant.
e White Earth

hemp crop, focused on ne textile varieties, is ourishing, well over
tribal
high by the fourth of July. We are ready for peace and victory.
knee
is a wondrous time now. Mandaamin, the Anishinaabe word for corn,
It
wonderous seed, and in many ways re ects understandings from
means
land-based cultures. Vandana Shiva, Indian physicist and political
other
reminds us that seed is sacred. In Hindi, seed is bija or “containment
leader,
of life.”
is created to renew, to multiply, to be shared, and to spread. Seed is
Seed
itself.… Globalized industrialized food is not cheap,” Shiva writes,
life
“it is too costly for the Earth, for the farmers, for our health.
e Earth
no longer carry the burden of groundwater mining, pesticide
can
disappearance of species and destabilization of the climate.
pollution,
can no longer carry the burden of debt, which is inevitable in
Farmers
farming with its high costs of production. It is incapable of
industrial
safe, culturally appropriate, tasty, quality food. And it is
producing
of producing enough food for all because it is wasteful of
incapable
water and energy. Industrial agriculture uses ten times more
land,
than it produces. It is thus ten times less e cient. 9
energy
understanding guides me in the Victory Garden — Mino Gitigaaning,
at
Good Garden.
my
have been planting my eld of dreams. I started early this year, as it was
I
degrees in May–August weather. I plant for peace and so that people will
90
have food this year and in the years ahead. I plant for victory and hope.

Omaakaakii: In Praise of Frogs
I would like to sing the praises of frogs. Omaakaakii.
at’s the Anishinaabe
for them. Ancient beings here of this place, maligned in European
word
of frogs and princes; I love them. As a young child, in a small town in
fables
Oregon, we lived on the hill, next to the irrigation ditches that ran
southern
the reservoir to the elds. I remember frogs. ey were loud, in
from
abundance, captured, looked at in wonder and then released.
at was the
of my mother.
request
know how this story ends.
You
ere are no frogs in those irrigation
these days; victims of pesticides and chemical poisoning, they
ditches
perish.
days remain here in the north, but in less abundance; that’s on a
Frog
scale. e frog populations are plummeting. ey are, in many
worldwide
a mirror of our relationship to that land and water. I have unearthed
ways,
sleeping peacefully in the garden, dormant, almost corpselike for the
them
I am always happy, relieved, when they return to the marshes and
winter.
of our north country. Spring, Ziigwan, is welcomed by their songs.
lakes
nights, during a certain rain, the frogs move by the thousands — I am
Some
sure why. I only worry and fret as I drive the northern roads, hating to
never
them in my fast life and deadly combustion engine.
kill
all know what happens to the frogs. Amphibians, they absorb
We
everything we put in the environment.
ey live between land and water. As
we, 60% water. As Anishinaabe People, we always recognize that we are
do
related, even the little guys.
all
fact is that industrial agriculture doesn’t really recognize this. Atrazine
e
one example. According to the National Academy of Science, “atrazine can
is
turn male frogs into females that are successfully able to reproduce.
e
suggest that atrazine … a weed killer used primarily on corn crops,
results
have potentially harmful e ects on populations of amphibians,
could
animals that are already experiencing a global decline.”
at’s what Tyrone
B. Hayes of the University of California, Berkeley said in the study. 10

Atrazine is banned in Europe.
Lost Boys of Aamjiwnaang
ere’s a reason it’s banned in Europe. Maybe this is it:
ere’s an
reserve in southern Ontario surrounded by a bunch of
Anishinaabe
plants and tar sands re neries. Some of the chemical companies
chemical
include Dow and Syngenta, and
is the big tar sands re nery.
62 separate industrial facilities cluster there, comprising 40% of
Actually
chemical facilities. 11 e village there, Aamjiwnaang, has been the
Canadian
of numerous international studies, mostly because of the birth ratio.
subject
how it goes: over the past twenty years, there’s been two times as
Here’s
girls born as boys. Writing for Men’s Health, Melody Peterson and
many
LaMarca pen: “ ese tribal lands have become a kind of petri
Christopher
for industrial pollutants. And in this vast, real-time experiment, the
dish
of Aamjiwnaang (AHM-ju-nun) are the lab rats.” 12
children
go on to explain: “Scientists turned their attention to the reserve a
ey
years ago, a er a study of the tribe’s birth records con rmed what tribe
few
had already sensed: a steady plunge in the number of boys born
members
1993 and 2003. In fact, by the end of the study period, two girls had
between
born for every boy — one of the steepest declines ever reported in the
been
of boys to girls. With fewer boys, the community of 850 has had to
ratio
adjust, although in subtle ways so far. One year, the tribe had enough girls

for three baseball teams, but the boys could ll just one team.
e boy’s
team has been disbanded.” 13 And so forth.
hockey
here I am; it’s spring. ere are no frogs in the valley of my youth. And
So,
I remember them. I do not have ecological amnesia. I remember not only
yet,
frogs but the stories.
the
Coastal Tlingit stories speak of Frog Woman, who called the
Northwest
forth when the frogs were abused. Volcanoes erupt worldwide in
Volcanoes
Ring of Fire. I am going to say that at some deep level, we are all related.
the
that Frog Woman asks us to be mindful. It is a metaphor; take it for that.
And
on the so-called Ponsford Prairie, the atrazine from the corn and
Back
has wiped out the frogs, or changed their sexes, most likely. I even
potatoes
a one-eyed frog once. By and large, they are no more. Spring is here,
saw
and each year we can make new decisions. My companion has a
however,
which had no frogs a er six years of agricultural chemicals, and now,
farm
er three years of organics, the frogs have returned. Omaakaakii giiwewag.
a
frogs come home.
e
do my part, and kiss more frogs happily in my life, taking one for the team
I’ll
it were… Noopeming, back in my woods I hear them still, clinging to
as
and water; a place between land and water, where the Omaakakii
marshes
live. Here Omaa akiing. On this land.

have missed you. I missed the butter ies for sure. My yard has milkweed in
I
— and there were no pods. I am not sure why, but I saw very few
it
ies. Monarchs are particularly impacted by Monsanto’s BT corn,
butter
is genetically modi ed to produce an insecticide. But it’s more than
which
it’s all of you … little bugs, big bugs, mosquitoes … the windshield full
that;
bugs, no longer. A fog of bugs, no longer by the lake. Where have you
of
I canoed and rode horse throughout the north country, and missed
gone?
e Ace Hardware, Menards, Fleet and every store is full of ways to kill
you.
pretty well documented, as colonies collapse; the story of why is told
been
retold, attributed at one time to the cell phone towers, and then nally
and
neonicotinoids, the powerful pesticides now banned through most of
to
In short, in 2017, 33% of the bee colonies died o , down however
Europe.
previous years. From 2012 to 2013, nearly half of the nation’s colonies
from 14 died.
in every three bites of food is directly or indirectly pollinated by
One
and other pollinators. 15 Honeybees alone pollinate about $15
honeybees
300 species of plants, another 300 species of birds, tens of species of
to
and uncounted hundreds upon hundreds of insect species. Fast
mammals,
to late summer 2012, when the air should have been buzzing with
forward
and few will be found. One survey of an Iowan corn eld turned up
bugs,
six creatures we might call bugs. 17 (Not simply six species — six
exactly
bugs.) Two grasshoppers, an ant, a red mite, and a cobweb spider
individual
a crane y. Otherwise, silence. I attest to this, as I farm in the middle
eating
the industrial agricultural zone known as the Ponsford Prairie. e prairie
of
I Miss You
they have been pretty successful.
bugs;
all of you.
Congratulations
however, am pretty concerned … and I nd I miss them all.
I,
being called an Insect Armageddon. Now, of course, the bee die-o has
It’s
worth of US crops each year. 16 Not to mention life.
billion
the die-o is widespread. In the early 1900s, Iowa’s prairies were home
But

dominated by R.D. O utt and other farmers who overspray the elds.
is
days I have worked in the elds to the sound of crop dusters on both
Some
of me, and some days we have been over sprayed.
sides
eld, the non-sprayed eld, has insects in it. e rest do not. at’s the
My
nationally and internationally. A well-documented German study
norm
in the last 27 years, the ying insect biomass measured in protected
found
nature reserves declined an average of 76%, with an 82% drop
German
the midsummer season, when insect populations should be
during
18 Another study found that Germany experienced a 15% drop in its
thriving.
population over the last decade. 19 Clearly, an insect collapse also a ects
bird
birds who feed on them.
the
here we are, the land of 10,000 lakes and hopefully a gazillion sh. What
So,
was raised by an entomologist, a bug man. His name was Peter Westigard,
I
Norwegian by genetics, who worked on the insects of fruit trees. My father
a
to tell me that there were 800 million species of insects in the world
used
nothing could diminish the biomass of the insects. Now I wonder…
and
as we go dormant for the winter, I pose the question that Rachel
So,
brought forth some y years ago in her book Silent Spring. e epic
Carson
manifesto documented the detrimental e ects on the
environmental
of the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Silent Spring was met
environment
erce opposition by chemical companies, but it spurred a reversal in
with
pesticide policy, led to a nationwide ban on for agricultural
national
and inspired an environmental movement that led to the creation of the
uses
Environmental Protection Agency. To be sure, Donald Trump’s
US
are unlikely to read this book.
appointees
am going to do my part to bring back those “pests,” a short-sighted term
I
has been misapplied. I will grow organically, plant for bees, and in the
which
I plan to launch my beekeeper career. A er all, the Bear Clan should
future,
began on January 1, 2018, in Maryland. Connecticut followed suit
pesticides
a er Maryland. 20 Maryland lost 60% of its bees in 2015. 21 It is time to
shortly
into the billion pounds of pesticides applied in the US annually and
look
out if all the killing is worth it. I remember Joni Mitchell lyrics, “You
gure
the sh going to eat if all the insects are gone, smart guys? What about all
are
our pollinators?
of
secure with honey.
be
rst US ban on sales of products containing the neonicotinoid class of
e

know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”
don’t
think my six-legged relatives are part of what we need. In the meantime,
I
is coming. Please rest, my six-legged relatives. I hope to see you in the
winter
I miss you.
spring.

Free the Snake
For the
rst time in 131 years, a Nimiipu (Nez Perce) dug-out canoe
the Snake and Columbia Rivers as a part of a restoration of
traversed
and salmon to a place. Each fall, Nimiipu and their allies from
relationship
Palouse, Colville and other nations, as well as hundreds of supporters,
the
on Timothy Island, just down from Lewiston, Idaho, on the
gathered
Greeting some strong-backed individuals who had canoed 17
Columbia.
to honor ancestors and a river, the Save the Snake otilla, the largest
miles
gathering to date, pushed ahead in dam removal.
e focus: the Ice,
Monumental and all the dams that are aging.
e tribes want the dams
and so do millions of those downstream.
removed,
Talequah, the mother orca who carried her dead calf for 17 days in
Perhaps
a grieving, tells this story best.
ere are no salmon because of the dams,
and the orcas are starving. “
e southern resident orcas of the Salish Sea are
ing toward extinction. eir population has dwindled to just 75
dri
Every calf that has been born in the last three years has died
individuals.
it could reach maturity,” D.R. Mitchell writes in the Seattle Times. 22
before
are the keystone species of the ecosystem, feeding not only the
Salmon
and the shers but the bears, eagles and every species with excellent
orca
e Columbia used to have one of the largest salmon runs on the
taste.
o en 10 million salmon a year. Today, only a fraction return to
continent,
in an enormous unused habitat. A series of dams, beginning on the
spawn
cut the river from the sea; the Grand Coulee Dam, the largest of all,
Snake,
built without a sh ladder, so salmon are trucked up the river to spawn.
was
makes sh and it makes soil. Fish are life. Today very few sh
Spawning
And if you want to save the orcas, you have to feed them.
return.
aquatic world is worsened by climate change. Salmon need moving
eir
and cold rivers. Dams cut the movement, climate change heats things
rivers,
In 2015, 250,000 salmon died at the mouth of the Columbia — the
up.
warm water, a result of climate change, and slack water. 23
culprits:
Dams are o en touted as green energy, but the fact is that mega dams are

from that. While Canada still pretends that big dams are a solution and
far
so en the country’s climate criminal status, the US is removing dams.
will
United States removed roughly 900 dams between 1990 and 2015, with
e
50 to 60 more removed every year. 24 In southern Oregon and
another
California, the Klamath River dams are slated for
northern
the Elwha Dam is decommissioned.
decommissioning;
federal dams were built on the Snake River in the 1960s and 70s to
Four
atwater negotiations between Lewiston and the lower Columbia. 25
provide
Nez Perce tribe, in close collaboration with the State of Oregon and
e
has successfully challenged ve ine ective federal plans to
conservationists,
the damage done by the dams, 26 and a er signi cant expenditures,
mitigate
integrated plan to decommission the dams is under review at the federal
an
Removing four lower Snake River dams would yield bene ts that
agencies.
outweigh the costs, according to a recent study. e study calculated the
far
costs of dam removal at $2.21 billion for loss of grid services the dams
net
$1.08 billion for actual dam removal and $170 million related to
provide,
On the other hand, the study also found that $90 million would
irrigation.
saved on transportation, mainly due to reduced operations and
be
costs, and $1.04 billion gained in the recreation category. With
maintenance
billion in non-use bene ts, that brought the total value of dam
$10.97
to $8.65 billion. 27,28
removal
lobbies of agricultural interests push against the tribes and the
Large
complicating the situation with a set of agricultural choices based
salmon,
access to water, in an area with little. Once, thousands of horses, antelope,
on
and deer ranged the territory, now largely bere of those creatures. I
moose
reminded of Charles Darwin’s theory of the “survival of the ttest” and
am
reminded that the decisions of men (and I say men deliberately) cause
then
Some would say, our minds are not t.
extinction.
the Nimiipu, and so many others of salmon cultures, it is impossible to
For
a salmon people without salmon. Today, as diabetes rages in Indigenous
be
it’s clear that quality of diet and emotional and physical health
communities,
without salmon. Fishing is not only a source of food; it is what
decline
do. Loss of salmon is loss of culture and well-being; study a er study
people
a rm that. For me, I have been gi ed some salmon from the river by a
will
Perce leader, Brooklyn Baptiste, and I hold close to the gi ; the salmon
Nez
return.
must

the upcoming years, a window of federal review opens, as state, tribal,
In
and other interests look to federal decisions. A federal court has
shers
ordered a review, and the Nimiipu and the state push for an exit plan.
e
River Treaty is the 1964 agreement between the United States and
Columbia
that provides joint management of the river system. In May 2018,
Canada
US and Canadian o
cials began renegotiating the treaty. 29 Freeing the river
provide salmon to 5500 square miles of forests, lakes and ecosystems. As
will
come down to the south, policy makers come to recognize that old
dams
is not good technology in this case. And, for those who lack an
technology
geography, almost every dam has ooded a Native community
Indigenous
from Celilo (Columbia) to Oahe (Missouri/Standing Rock) — with
—
impacts.
devastating
story of Snake River and the dams is hardly unique to the region. Most
e
dam projects, from the Garrison to the Colorado River Project, have had
US
results for Native People. Canada is the same. With over 900
devastating
dam projects, the largest, whether Quebec Hydro, Manitoba Hydro,
mega
Hydro or BC Hydro, drown Native People.
Ontario
of resistance to James Bay 2 saved part of the ecosystem, but new
Years
came online just the same. Villages like South Indian Lake and Cross
dams
have been devastated by these dam projects as the world they know is
Lake
beneath turbulent waters. Time and time again, the Canadian
drowned
has promised Indigenous Peoples that dam projects will bring
government
but the truth is always far from that. As James B. Waldram from
prosperity,
Department of Native Studies, University of Saskatchewan, would write,
the
And in 1965, when the
rst winter’s snows melted around the new
community of Easterville making painfully visible the
Chemawawin
of soil and vegetation, and as the waters rising behind the Grand
lack
dam changed forever the face of the lake they knew so well,
Rapids
not only the shoreline but also the habitat for moose,
obliterating
and sh, the importance of this clause became evident. How
muskrat
the economy and the lifestyle of the Chemawawin people be
would
maintained in the face of such devastation? 30
with big dam projects continues to be a Canadian strategy,
Greenwashing
the British Columbia government announces it will move ahead with the
as
highly controversial Site C Dam project near Fort St. John.
e C$10.7

(US$8.32 billion) Site C hydroelectric dam project approved by the
billion
Canadian province’s previous government has not surprisingly
western
anger and threats of court cases.
provoked
Columbia Premier John Horgan said he was continuing with the
British
Site C project with “a heavy heart,” but feared that electrical costs would rise.
is not a project that we favor, or a project that we would have
is
Horgan told reporters. e project, which would provide
started,”
electricity for about 450,000 homes a year, would ood more
enough
5,000 hectares (12,355 acres or about 19 square miles) of land in
than
British Columbia, spurring opposition from local farmers and
northeast
groups.
Indigenous
forward with Site C is a “major setback to reconciliation,”
Moving
of First Nations national chief Perry Bellegarde said in a
Assembly
statement, adding that the “next step will be legal challenges.” 31
on a river about to see freedom, it’s a di erent feeling. I canoed slowly
Back
to a dug-out canoe, ate salmon and berries from the river and thought
next
the future. To the people of river and lakes, salmon and sh are our
about
e waters are a part of people as are the lands. And, the taste of justice
lives.
for a river, in this case the Snake River, is a good taste.

Do We Grieve the Death of
How
River? a
Grandfather Disaster
The
Krenak told me about the river his people call Waatuh, Grandfather,
Ailton
Our people blocked the road. When the troops arrive, we will face them.
— Ailton Krenak, Krenaki People, Brazil
2014–2015 we saw three of the largest mine tailings pond disasters in
In
ese stories, like so many others, do not make many headlines,
history.
raising so many questions about public policy, mining safety and
despite
liability concerns. ey certainly don’t raise concerns about the
economic
important question: what are the moral implications of the death of a
most
is became increasingly apparent as I interviewed Ailton Krenak,
river?
of the Onassis International Prize and a leader of the Indigenous and
winner
movement in Brazil.
forest
sing to the river, we baptize the children in this river, we eat from this
“We
the river is our life.” Really, how do you express condolences for a river,
river,
a life, to a man for whom the river is the center of the life of his people?
for
is a question we must ask ourselves.
at
November 2015, the collapse of two dams at a Brazilian mine on the
In
River released a deluge of toxic sludge over nearby villages and
Doce
changed the geography of a world. “
e dam collapse cut o drinking water
a quarter of a million people and saturated waterways downstream with
for
orange sediment. Nine people were killed, 19 are still listed as missing,
dense
500 people were displaced from their homes when the dams burst at an
and
ore mine in southeastern Brazil on Nov. 5. e sheer volume of water
iron
mining sludge disgorged by the dams across nearly three hundred miles
and
staggering: the equivalent of 25,000 Olympic swimming pools or the
is
carried by about 187 oil tankers.” 32
volume
Brazilians compare the damage to the BP oil disaster, calling it one of
e

EPA Disaster
The
2015 saw a similarly disastrous failure in a tailings pond feeding into
August
the worst environmental disasters in Brazilian history.
e water has moved
the ocean — not only into a delicate ecosystem, but also right into the
into
area for endangered sea turtles. “Renowned Brazilian documentary
nesting
Sebastiao Salgado, whose foundation has been active in e orts
photographer
protect the Doce River, toured the area and submitted a $27 billion clean-
to
proposal to the government. ‘Everything died. Now the river is a sterile
up
lled with mud,’ he told reporters.” 33
canal
When the mining companies — including Australian-based
Billiton,
largest mining company in the world and the one that sold a 60-year-old
the
strip mine to the Navajo Nation in 2013 — wanted to come back, “we
coal
blocked the road,” Ailton Krenak told me.
the Animas River in Southern Colorado.
e amazing thing about this dam
was that it was caused by the Environmental Protection Agency. In
failure
case, the was looking into a mine water tailing pond at the Gold
this
King Mine near Silverton Colorado.
e mine had been abandoned, one of
astonishing 22,000 abandoned mines in the state, 34 meaning,
an
there could be more to come. It seems that on August 5, 2015,
unfortunately,
along with workers for Environmental Restoration
personnel
the release of toxic wastewater when attempting to add a tap to the
caused
tailing pond for the mine.
e workers accidentally destroyed the dam
held the pond back, causing 3 million gallons of cadmium-, arsenicand
which
lead-laced mine waste water and tailings to gush into the oddly named
Creek, a tributary of the Animas River. e was criticized for
Cement
warning Colorado and New Mexico until the day a er the waste water
not
spilled.
e Navajo Nation, directly downstream, also did not receive the
memo.
e
did take responsibility for the incident and had the area declared a
disaster zone.
e Navajo Nation has sought disaster relief, since this was a
source of water for Navajo livestock and agriculture, many of which
major
not survive the spill as the Dine irrigation system had to be cut o . e
did
Nation had a bit of time to prepare for the onslaught, in that
Navajo
way that you know your life is about to change dramatically. By
terrifying
August 7, the waste reached Aztec, New Mexico, then the next day, it

Salmon Disaster
The
exactly a year before, in August 2014, in northern British Columbia,
Almost
Farmington, a major Navajo city, before the orange ood moved
reached
the San Juan River. As of August 11, acidic water continued to spill at a
into
of 500–700 US gal/min (1.9–2.6 m 3 /min) while remediation e orts were
rate 35 Reporters noted, “ e heavy metals appeared to be settling to
underway.
bottom of the river because largely, they are insoluble unless the entire
the
becomes very acidic.” 36
river
e Navajo Nation attempted to sue the
to the tune of $130 million,
but in 2017 the
declared that it was legally protected from damages
caused by the spill and asked that the claims be dismissed. 37
is, despite the
that a Freedom of Information Act request found that government
fact
cials “knew of ‘blowout’ risk for tainted water at mine” for at least a
o
38 Perhaps one of the most tragic sidebars of this story is that the Gold
year.
Mine itself was abandoned in 1923. And, prior to the spill, the Upper
King
water basin was already devoid of sh due to previous acid mine
Animas 39 drainage.
Mount Polley Mine disaster spilled an estimated 1.2 billion gallons of
the
waste from the Imperial Metals mine into the pristine forests and
mine
waterways of the remote region. 40 “
e dam’s failure was catastrophic,
nearly the entire contents of the mine’s tailings pond — an area the
allowing
of New York’s Central Park holding years worth of mining waste — to
size
out into Hazeltine Creek, Polley Lake and Quesnel lake.” 41
ow
Lake is one of the deepest ord lakes in the world, and home to
Quesnel
of BC’s salmon population. 42 e Secwepemc First Nation, on whose
25%
lands the spill happened, were on the nearby Fraser River
traditional
the largest sockeye salmon return in recent history. Instead they
awaiting
a river overrun with toxins from the largest mine waste spill in
found
history. In the days following the disaster, Secwepemc Elder Jean
Canadian
said, “ e loss of the salmon for us as Secwepemc people is a
Williams
of life or death for our culture. Can our salmon survive this
matter 43 Indeed, a study commissioned by the First Nations Health
devastation?”
found that there were signi cant economic and social impacts on
Authority
surrounding communities:
the
Emotional stress and trauma as a result of the spill was shared across

22 communities which participated in the study.
the
impacts to traditional territory, such as loss of access to sacred
Direct
traditional foods and medicines, in three First Nations — Xat’sull
land,
Nation, Williams Lake and Lhatko Dene First Nation. Impacts
First
immediate and ongoing.
were
decrease in individual
A
shing practice reported by almost all
resulting in changes to diet composition, physical activity
communities,
cultural practices.
and
Impacts to commercial
sheries in six communities, leading to
economic income and employment opportunities for
reduced
members. 44
community
over the potential devastation from spills of this kind spread
Concerns
even before the cause of the breach was known, Native communities in
and,
parts of the province began to speak out against mining operations on
other
lands. their
e spill’s rami cations rippled to Imperial’s Red Chris mine in
“
BC, where elders from the Tahltan Central Council (with
northern
the company previously had a positive working relationship)
whom
a blockade to voice their concerns about the potential of a
established
incident in their territories.”… In order to continue operations,
similar
company was forced to sign an agreement that would allow third-
the
party inspection of the operation under the band’s auspices. 45
that they would be powerless in the face of another spill, “the
Concerned
took what some might feel was a bold step: It invoked its rights
Secwepemc
a sovereign First Nation of Canada and evicted Imperial Metals from its
as
It also announced that it now had mining policies of its own, and
land.
enforce from herea er.” Invoking the UN’s Declaration of Indigenous
would
the Secwepemc Nation argued that it’s their right to “determine and
Rights,
priorities and strategies for the development or use of their lands or
develop
and other resources,” including the right to close the mine and
territories
mining companies as it sees t. As Jacinda Mack, council coordinator
evict
the Secwepemc Nation, said, “One thing I want to make perfectly clear is
for
policy isn’t a wish-list. is is Indigenous law.” 46
this
two years a er the disaster the mine was repaired and reinforced
However,

of the River?
Rights
2012, New Zealand’s Whanganui River became a legal entity and was
In
was once again fully operational. Shortly a er that, the provincial
and
announced that there would be no provincial charges related to
government
tailing ponds collapse. A year later it was announced that there would be
the
private charges. e h anniversary — and the deadline for federal
no
— came and went with no charges being laid. 47 And some residents
charges
still reluctant to drink the water.
are
mining economy of northern British Columbia continues, along with
e
fracking pipelines and a host of extreme energy proposals, which seem
the
to be undertaken out of sight and out of mind, except if you live there.
the same status as a person under the law. In an agreement between
given
Maori, represented by the Whanguanui iwi, and the Crown in
the
the river has legal status under the name Te Awa Tupua. Two
Parliament,
one from the Crown and one from a Whanganui River iwi, are
guardians,
given the responsibility of protecting the river.
agreement which recognizes the status of the river as Te Awa
“Today’s
(an integrated, living whole) and the inextricable relationship of
Tupua
with the river is a major step towards the resolution of the historical
iwi
of Whanganui iwi and is important nationally,” said New
grievances
Zealand’s Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations. 48
the Animas River, the Fraser River and the Rio Doce have similar
Should
or standing? Should the St. Louis River, or Gichigami Ziibi (River
rights
Runs to the Sea) as it is known in Anishinaabemowin, have similar
which
And, importantly, who gets to determine what is alive?
status?

Should Save the
Amazon
Amazon
Ever worry that one day you will wake up and
nd you are owned by
Amazon?
ey keep growing. With all their in uence, gobbling and growth,
would be great if they would do something good with it. Like save the
it
Amazon.
though, they are buying everything, and some days, I have to pinch
Really
to see if I am really me or owned by Amazon.
myself
from deep in the woods, I watch a circus of corporate
Nopeming,
You’ve got Bayer buying Monsanto; General Electric — the guys
takeovers.
make appliances and nuclear power plants — well they own 80% of
who
; Enbridge bought Spectra; Exxon bought Mobil; Delta
and
Northwest; and Amazon bought Whole Foods. Kind of like watching
bought
Pacman game.
a
just can’t keep track of the drama in the corporate world. Seems like their
I
come and go so quickly, it must be hard to keep the right make up,
identities
logo, on. I don’t really know who they are … I don’t think they really
or
who they are.
know
And then, they go bankrupt and aren’t around anymore. Poof.
ey are
gone.
at, however, usually occurs a er they have a catastrophic accident
Union Carbide, a er the Bhopal disaster).
(i.e.,
California’s Paci c Gas and Electric.
Take
is one of California’s largest
corporations, providing power transmission to 16 million customers.
ey
not take care of their powerlines, so, those lines caused a re, aka the
did
Fire. Camp
was the one that took out the town of Paradise, where 86 people died.
at
is ling for bankruptcy, because they have $30 billion in liability. 49
Now
means that they have to pay o their creditors rst — the guys who
at
them money. It’s unknown how much will trickle down to Paradise.
gave
And poof, they are gone.
at corporation is no more. Somehow I am
trying to rectify in my little head why the president of
gets to sit in his

Brazil
only that big Amazon would help save the actual Amazon.
If
in Bermuda, or wherever, having sucked millions annually out of
armchair
and not having to pay for any of the disaster he’s caused. 50
California,
corporate gobbling and getting rich thing is really bothersome to me.
is
also boggles me why a corporation is considered a person under the law,
It
the same rights as you and I. Now, a corporation is not actually a
with
because a person has a soul. And, besides that, if a corporation was a
person,
I think they would be su ering from a multiple personality disorder
person,
er all those mergers and limited liability things are sorted out.
a
Now back to Amazon.
at corporation is one of my favorite corporations;
love that Amazon Prime. Now, Amazon is getting bigger. Je Bezos, the
I
has done well. Bezos is the rst person in modern history to
,
a fortune of over $200 billion, according to the latest Forbes
accumulate
of his net worth. e company is now worth $1.49 trillion. 51
estimates
e rainforests
getting clear cut, dams are breaking and killing people, mining
are
are running amuck, and Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, has
companies
an assault on environmental and Amazon protections by
launched
the regulation of Indigenous reserves to the agriculture
transferring
— a ministry known to be controlled by the powerful agribusiness
ministry
lobby.
at the 2019 Bioneers Conference, executive director of Amazon
Speaking
Leila Salazar-López, notes that Brazil had over 100,000 res in 2019
Watch,
burning 3 million hectares of Amazon forest, and puts the blame for
alone,
squarely on the shoulders of the Bolsonaro administration:
this
lot of people ask us, well, who’s responsible?… It is the Bolsonaro
A
Let’s not make light of it. e Brazilian government has …
government.
only the rhetoric, but the policies to destroy the Amazon to make
not
for economic development, to make way for agribusiness, to make
way
for soy and cattle, to make way for mining. It is their policy to
way
the Amazon for economic development. So it’s not a mistake.
destroy
It’s not a wild re. It’s intentional, and malicious, and destructive.…
e
moment Bolsonaro got in o
ce, he rolled back the rights of Indigenous
merged environmental and agribusiness ministries to
peoples,
destroy the lands and the rights of Indigenous peoples. 52
intentionally

Peru
to the west, Peru is moving quickly into the Amazon. One of the
Meanwhile,
ere will be an increase in deforestation and violence against indigenous
“
Dinaman Tuxá, executive coordinator of the Articulation of
people,”
Indigenous People of Brazil (
), said. “Indigenous people are defenders
protectors of the environment.” 53
and
of Indigenous reserves was previously controlled by the
Demarcation
agency Funai, which fell under the justice ministry until
Indigenous
attempted to move it to a new ministry of human rights, family
Bolsonaro
women, under the control of an evangelical pastor. Fortunately,
and
cant public pressure forced him to return Funai to the justice ministry.
signi
original executive order also gave Bolsonaro’s government secretary
e
far-reaching powers over non-governmental organizations
potentially
in Brazil, clearly targeting the successful work to support
working
Peoples. Bolsonaro, a political combination of Andrew Jackson
Indigenous
Donald Trump, issued an ominous statement, “More than 15% of
and
territory is demarcated as indigenous land and quilombos. Less than
national
million people live in these places, isolated from true Brazil, exploited and
a
by s. Together we will integrate these citizens.” 54
manipulated
health minister, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, is doing his part too
Bolsonaro’s
spending cuts to health care for Indigenous People. “We have gures
with
the general public that are much below what is spent on health care for
for
indigenous,” he said. 55
the
ending the demarcation of new Indigenous lands, reducing the
Well,
of environmental agencies and freeing up mining and commercial
power
on Indigenous reserves were key elements of Bolsonaro’s election
farming
so it’s not like this is a surprise. It’s like the 2019 version of the
campaign,
Allotment Act, which allotted reserve land to individual Indigenous
General
to create a more European model of land holding.
People
projects, the $2 billion Inter-oceanic Highway, connects Peru and
biggest
by way of the Amazon. e 2600 kilometers of highway travels over
Brazil
Andes and through a large chunk of the Amazon. 56 Elsewhere, the Belo
the
hydroelectric dam, licensed under Lula’s government, was brought to
Monte
November 27, 2019, in the presence of Bolsonaro.
life
response to the “Blue Gold Rush” a sort of a green energy
In
asco

Amazonian Tribes and COVID-19
Isolated
gold means a gold rush, and during a pandemic like
e
as huge hydroelectric dams threaten other parts of the
internationally,
the Movimento Xingu Vivo para Sempre (Xingu Alive Forever
Amazon,
Movement), issued a statement damning the dams:
a time when the people of the Xingu agonize over their lack of water,
At
hails the nal turbine of Belo Monte. At a time when the sh
Bolsonaro
the Xingu River are reduced to skin and spine because there are no
of
nutrients in the river, Bolsonaro celebrates Belo Monte. When the
more
tumbles like it never has before in the areas of Belo Monte …
forest
honor him by setting res to the forest.…
supporters
Monte, as expected, is killing the Volta Grande of Xingu, and
Belo
new turbine requires more and more water for it, further
every
the river and its people.
endangering
you all! May those who commemorate Belo Monte be cursed.
Damn
the one who comes to inaugurate the last turbine of the dam be
May
May the pain of Volta Grande keep you up at night, take away
cursed.
peace and quiet, and may it strip the laughter from your mouth.
your
all of the violence against the Xingu people come to haunt you one
May
day. Damn you all! 57
then there’s gold. Peru is the world’s sixth-largest gold producer, and
And
much of it comes from Andean mines, a growing portion — by some
while
16 to 20 of the 182 tons that Peru exports annually — comes from
estimates,
or quasi-legal mining along the rivers. e mercury will choke and
illegal
poison the rivers, all for some baubles on a nger.
e Peruvian government
that 30 to 40 tons are dumped into the country’s Amazonian rivers
estimates
year. 58 each
, that’s a bad
for anyone. e rst -19 death in the Amazon was reported on
thing
9, 2020. at, according to National Geographic, is a Yanomami youth
April
moved back and forth through an area full of wildcat gold miners.
who
isolated Indigenous communities have been protected under federal
Brazil’s
since 1987, barring outsiders from entering the territories of these
policies
principally because Indigenous Peoples have no immunological
nations,
defense.

that matters.
Now
Federal Public Ministry “warned on April 8 of the ‘risk of genocide’
Brazil’s
amid allegations that
, Brazil’s indigenous a airs agency, had done
little to protect native communities from the coronavirus contagion.
e
Public Ministry also repeated its call for the immediate removal of
Federal
Lopes Dias, an evangelical missionary appointed in February to
Ricardo
head
’s Department of Isolated and Recently Contacted Indians.”
is concern that Dias’s history as a missionary might lead him to
ere
the department away from its strategic role of shielding isolated tribes
“steer
the forces of the outside world.” e con rmed 28 — and suspected 80
from
— communities living in “extreme isolation” have been protected from
more
since 1987, principally to protect the tribes from communicable
outsiders
diseases.
National Geographic explains, “Many of their villages have little or no
As
with the outside, but their sprawling reserve has been illegally
contact
ltrated by thousands of gold prospectors, posing a grave threat to the
in
Yanomami leaders have been pleading with o cials for weeks to expel
tribe.
miners. “You should do your work to avoid the penetration of the
the
into our homes along the pathways opened by the non-indigenous
epidemic
warned the Hutukara Yanomami Association in an open letter on
invaders,”
19, 2020, to federal health and Indigenous a airs o cials.”
March
e
-19 death wasn’t the only tragic death in these communities in
2020. As National Geographic reports, “On March 31, (2020) Zezico
early
a leader of the Guajajara people, was found shot dead outside his
Rodrigues,
in the Arariboia Indigenous Territory in Maranhão. Investigators
village
yet to produce a suspect, but the Guajajara have been locked in a war
have
with illegal loggers that has le
ve of its members dead since last
While the political power of the Kayapo has resulted in an
November.”
with miners to withdraw from their territory, and other nations,
agreement
the Muduruku, have posted signs prohibiting trespass into their areas, in
like
regions, illegal miners, loggers and land speculators continued their
other
moves into Indigenous territory during the crisis. 59
aggressive
is considered the second-largest contributor to climate
Deforestation
a er fossil fuel use, accounting for about 10 percent of greenhouse
change,
emissions. Forests act as sponges for carbon dioxide, soaking it up and
gas
converting it into plant material. And oxygen.
e Amazon is the lungs of

Earth and the people who live there, the ones who have forever, they
Mother
want to be le alone. ere’s even about 5000 of them who are
just
— that means they want nothing to do with the rest of us. I,
“uncontacted”
one, want to support that. Leave them alone. A er all, oil mining
for
are causing enough messes in the Amazon, and I’d like to see
corporations
“Garden of Eden,” or maybe just a safe place for nature.
one
let me be clear about this. In 2018, Amazon, the company, was worth
So,
billion, and earned $11 billion in pro ts. 60 ey will pay zero in federal
$600
It used to be that when I thought of the Amazon it was the lungs of
taxes.
Earth, but a Google search will rst point me to shopping. ey
Mother
the name of a place, and apparently don’t give a damn about
appropriated
place. I nd that sad.
that
stated, before you gobble up anything else Mr. Bezos, aka. Mr.
Simply
can you pay some royalties to the protection of the Amazon? Or
Amazon,
some of what you could have paid in taxes if you didn’t have all those
maybe
the little people don’t have. ose Forest Guardians, the guys with
breaks
on scooters protecting the Amazon, could use some gear and some
machetes
Maybe get it delivered Amazon Prime to a nearby town. at
support.
would be swell.

Viva Mexico
ey tried to bury us.
ey did not know we were seeds.
—Mexican proverb
Ihave always loved that quote, rooted, ancient and resilient.
at is my
not the Mexico of Donald Trump tales. Forty thousand years of
Mexico,
the origin of corn, potatoes, tomatoes, avocados and, let me say it,
history:
chocolate.
e Mayans have a Goddess of Chocolate, Ixcacao. Now I can
that. A land which remembers, people who remember and are
understand
as seeds. And a river, reborn.
reborn,
early September 2018, I was invited to a conference on de-growth in the
In
city in the world, with 21 million people, Mexico City. ere,
largest
and leaders of social movements talked of how we might live in
academics
for another 100 years, maybe 1000. A er all, if the ecosystems
societies
and there is no food, air or water and a few people head to another
collapse,
well that’s not really a long-term plan. e conference, held at the
planet;
Nacional Autónoma de Mexico’s Museum of Medicine,
-Universidad
me pause, as I listened not only to academics but to the voices of a
made
social movement in Mexico. A movement for change and resilience.
strong
does this story begin? With land and water, far before the people.
Where
e Colorado River is one beginning.
e river was once alive, the delta
that invisible line called a border encompasses 3,000 square miles.
spanning
size of Rhode Island, the Colorado Delta is one of the largest desert
e
estuaries in the world.
e nutrients brought by the river nourished
the rare vaquita porpoise and an enormous relative to the white
dolphins,
bass which grew to 300 pounds, spawning in the brackish water and
sea
the Sea of Cortez. When the Spaniards arrived, they spoke of ocks
ranging
birds so abundant they darkened the sky, deer, bobcats, beavers and
of
coyotes.
e people there, the Cocopah, have an origin story which reminds
they are children of the gods. When the Spaniards saw them, there
them
thousands of them, tall and strong, the women adorned with feathers
were
that fell from the waist, feasting on a cornucopia of gardens, with soils rich

Indigenous Candidate
The
de Jesus Patricio Martinez — or Marichuy, as she’s known — an
Maria
a river delta and harvests plentiful.
from
was before the dams. e United States has squeezed the lifeblood out
at
of the Colorado River, literally.
e Hoover Dam, built in 1935, reduced the
ow of the river to ll Lake Mead, the water supply for Los Angeles.
en
the Glen Canyon Dam, cutting the river ow for 17 years, then the
came
and Morelas dams, until the Delta is without water. Choked. e
Imperial
fewer in numbers, many refugees in their own country, and sad for
people
world they knew. As Joni Mitchell would say, “You don’t know what
the
you’ve got till it’s gone.”
at is a story of a river, one of so many stories.
o cial period of the Mexican Inquisition was from 1571 to 1820. 61
e
a pretty long run as inquisitions go. at’s where a good deal of
at’s
burning of witches occurred and a good deal of torture.
e conference I
attended was in the former Holy O
ce of the Inquisition, the “palace” now
called the Museum of Medicine.
ick stone walls still smell like blood of
the tortured, I swear.
at’s another beginning of this story, little vignettes of
history.
Mexican
am reminded of the Inquisition in Diego Rivera’s mural “Dream of a
I
Sunday a ernoon in the Alameda.” Mexican history is told in art.
e city
boasts more museums and public art than any in the world.
at’s along
free education, from grade school to graduate school. It is beautiful,
with
Mexico.
woman backed by the Zapatista National Liberation Army
Indigenous
), ran for the presidency of Mexico. Her campaign changed the
(
in Mexican national politics and focused on the rights of women,
dialogue
Peoples and nature. Running as an independent — which was
Indigenous
allowed for the
rst time in the country, on condition of collecting a
of 850,000 signatures — she collected signatures and told the
minimum
of Indigenous Peoples and the Zapatistas. Although Marichuy’s
story
was not successful, she was able to gain broad community
registration
and marked a change in Indigenous politics. 62 In a country with one
support
the highest death rates for Indigenous and environmental leaders,
of
courageously traveled the country and provided courage and a
Marichuy
voice. A spokeswoman for the National Indigenous Congress, the political

River The
then there is the river, resilient and hopeful. On March 23, 2014, the
And
arm of the
, she brought to the electoral politics a strong movement. As
record numbers of Indigenous women run for o
ce in the US, we are also
inspired.
shunned party politics generally, the Zapatistas and the National
Having
Indigenous Congress (
) formed independent autonomous communities
known as “Caracoles” across the country.
ese are founded on the principle
self-determination and are seen as resilient models of self-government for
of
across the globe. is campaign marks a move into national political
people
arenas.
however, have come. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is the new
Changes,
of Mexico, a progressive leader, former Mexico City mayor,
president
and le ist. at’s who Trump is trying to get to pay for that wall.
nationalist
Dam groaned open, unleashing a surge or “pulse ow” of water into
Morelas
thirsty Colorado River. As the gray-green torrent roared south, children
the
had only known a dry riverbed played as the Colorado River came back
who
life. e Environmental Defense Fund’s Colorado River Project helped
to
through an international multi-agency initiative allowing the release of
work
acre-feet of water (52,000 Olympic-size swimming pools). e goal:
106,000
restoration of the Colorado River Delta. 63 In September 2017, the
jump-start
administration’s Interior Ministry allocated 210,000 acre-feet of
Trump
water annually for delta restoration over the next nine years. 64
at’s a
Life returns. Egrets, geese, cormorants, sandhill cranes, who
beginning.
in the north country, to the Colorado Delta they y. To them, and
summer
the Cocopah, this is life.
at is my Mexico.

Borinquén: A Rebirth
does Puerto Rico’s catastrophic 2017 hurricane teach us about
What
how we treat each other and the future? e Taino name for the
ourselves,
island is Borinquen; it is still that land. A er the disasters of
beautiful
Irma and Maria, very little has changed. e country was
Hurricanes
by the worst natural disaster to hit the island region, about 3,000
devastated
died, and President Trump bumbled a lot, including throwing paper
people
at Borinquenos and criticizing the Mayor of San Juan. And, as Naomi
towels
reminds us, there is nothing natural about this disaster:
Klein
major causes of death were people being unable to plug in medical
e
because the electricity grid was down for months; health
equipment
so diminished they were unable to provide medicine for
networks
diseases. People died because they were le to drink
treatable
water because of a legacy of environmental racism.
contaminated
died because they were abandoned and le without hope for so
People
that suicide seemed the only option.
long
deaths were not the result of an unprecedented “natural
ose
or even “an act of God,” as we so o en hear.
disaster”
the dead begins with telling the truth. And the truth is that
Honoring
there is nothing natural about this disaster. 65
According to a study published in 2019,
federal government responded on a larger scale and much more
e
across measures of federal money and sta ng to Hurricanes
quickly
and Irma in Texas and Florida, compared with Hurricane Maria
Harvey
Puerto Rico. e variation in the responses was not commensurate
in
storm severity and need a er landfall in the case of Puerto Rico
with
with Texas and Florida.
compared
even today, the administration is sitting on $18 billion in
Indeed,
aid to Puerto Rico that has been approved by Congress. 66
recovery
ere’s a lot of reasons: racism, ignorance, a hundred years of colonialism,

archaic colonial law called the Jones Act, which is basically stopping aid
an
getting in, an economy constantly structurally adjusted to
from
corporate interests and a crushing debt. But Puerto Ricans
accommodate
with allies on the mainland and internationally, have a new and
themselves,
better plan for their country; that vision is being born.
a
little history lesson: 2017 marked the 100th anniversary of the US
A
absorption of Borinquén, or Puerto Rico, under the Jones Act,
political
citizenship, but not the full bene ts of citizenship. As an
conferring
territorial possession, Puerto Rico is the world’s oldest
unincorporated
Residents are US citizens, but have no say in presidential elections.
colony.
can die for this country in the military, but they cannot vote. And the
ey
Act — the shipping law that requires that all goods entering Puerto
Jones
from the mainland arrive via US ships, dramatically driving up costs
Rico
limiting options 67 — restricts what can come into Puerto Rico and is a
and
signi cant factor in Puerto Rico’s economic di
culties, and it’s killing
today. Something is profoundly wrong about that second-class
people
which should rankle not just Puerto Ricans, but us all.
citizenship,
is not surprising that colonialism has not worked well for Puerto Rico.
It
the economic dominance of the sugar industry, to the military
From
of Vieques, a small Puerto Rican island, Puerto Rico has seen the
occupation
kind of relations as much of Indian Country. Take the example of
same
Between 1941 and 2003, two-thirds of this small island was
Vieques.
by the US Navy. Bombed an average of 180 days per year; in 1998,
occupied
last year before protests interrupted maneuvers, the Navy dropped
the
bombs on the island, the majority of which contained explosives.
23,000
the course of US Navy occupancy, nearly 22 million pounds of
“Over
and industrial waste, such as oils, solvents, lubricants, lead paint,
military
and 55 US gallon (200 L) drums were deposited on the western portion
acid
the island.” 68 e US Military is the largest polluter in the world.
of
sounds quite a bit like many cases in Indian Country, whether the Ho
is
Badger Munitions Site, Fort Wingate, Western Shoshone Territory or
Chunk
Pine Ridge’s Gunnery range, all territories occupied by the US military.
e
did some work to clean up Vieques, but by 2003 they had handed most
Navy
the island to the Department of Interior, who had the lands reclassi ed as
of
wildlife refuge. Since humans are not allowed to enter wildlife refuges, that
a
up can be avoided. is sounds a great deal like Badger Munitions in Ho
clean

New Birth for Puerto Rico
A
brings opportunity. I think it’s time to support Puerto Rico to become
Crisis
Territory.
Chunk
scholar Nelson Davis writes,
As
er one hundred years of citizenship, Puerto Ricans are prohibited
A
managing their own economy, negotiating their own trade
from
or setting their own consumer prices. Puerto Rico has been
relations,
more than a pro t center for the United States: rst as a naval
little
station, then as a sugar empire, a cheap labor supply, a tax
coaling
a captive market, and now as a municipal bond debtor and target
haven,
privatization. It is an island of beggars and billionaires: fought over
for
lawyers, bossed by absentee landlords, and clerked by politicians. 69
by
results: economic refugees, who leave their beloved homeland and are
e
onto the mainland, where they continue to be treated as second-class
forced
citizens. From 2006 to 2015, more than 700,000 people
ed debt-ridden
Rico, to cities like Orlando, New York, Philadelphia and Miami. 70
Puerto
knew they were US citizens? One poll found that only 54% of
Who
knew that Puerto Ricans were American citizens, 71 therefore
Americans
to the same disaster relief a orded Houston or any other city facing
entitled
climate change disasters. Donald Trump appeared quite unaware of this.
self-reliant, multi-racial and beautiful country, as it was intended. Early on,
a
Elon Musk came out and said that Puerto Rico should just go solar,
Tesla’s
that was a moment to re ect. It turns out that a movement of Puerto
and
like Resilient Power Puerto Rico, supported by many allies, is
Ricans,
a future. As Naomi Klein writes in the Intercept, “Under the banner
creating
a ‘just recovery’ for Puerto Rico, thousands have come together to design
of
bold and holistic plan for the island to be rebuilt as a beacon for a safe,
a
and thriving society in the era of accelerating climate chaos,
resilient,
economic inequality, and rising white nationalism.” 72
spiraling
is, frankly, an opportunity to do the right thing. A er all, a resilient
is
and energy system is sure better than a non-working system, and
economic
climate change disasters on the increase, we will need to be prepared.
with
Puerto Rico’s energy system was ine
cient and outdated before the
hurricanes. So how bad was it? Imagine that they are operating on

petroleum.
at’s right, until 2012, 65% of their electricity came from
petroleum, with only 1% coming from renewables.
is has changed slightly
recent years. In 2019, 40% of Puerto Rico’s electricity came from
in
39% from natural gas, 18% from coal and 2.3% from renewable
petroleum,
energy. 73
at’s expensive and is forced through a surcharge in the US, via
Jones Act, which requires Puerto Rican imports to touch US soil. So, the
the
Rican Electrical Company uses fuel oil no. 6 (the heavy, dirty version
Puerto
New York City has banned), or fuel oil no. 2, which costs about $3 per
that
It’s so expensive that the Puerto Rican Electrical Company decided to
gallon.
cash from its capital works fund — up to $100 million — to buy oil. It’s
take
surprising that Puerto Rico’s electricity costs — at about 27 cents per
not
— are about twice what they are on the mainland. Puerto
kilowatt-hour
however, use much less power. 74
Ricans,
let’s say we set up a power grid and a local food system which would feed
So,
people, reduce the debt and make sure that they still had power in the
island
next hurricane.
en maybe get rid of that Jones Act.
this plan. Sunrun and Tesla, two solar companies, brought over
at’s
solar panels with powerwall batteries to power water desalination
smaller
Funding for the project was provided by Empowered by Light (a
tanks.
backed by Leonardo DiCaprio), roo op company Sunrun Inc. (which
group
donated the solar panels) and GivePower, a nonpro t that specializes in
also
installation in con ict regions. 75 at’s some solutions. It’s a
solar
e ort for these companies, but it’s also a chance to showcase
humanitarian
energy source capable of enduring natural disasters. e Solar Energy
an
Association has received pledges for more than $1.2 million in
Industries
and monetary contributions from its network. 76
product
than perpetuate the island’s dependence on vulnerable distribution
“Rather
and carbon-heavy fuel,” Resilient Power explains on its website,
hardware
prioritize clean production of energy that allows each household to be
“we 77
self-reliant.”
well, many of the island’s farmers are creating a similar revolution in
As
Most of the season’s crops were destroyed by Maria, but the
agriculture.
for a restorative agriculture system is clear. Because so much of the
potential
farm land is not being cultivated, Puerto Rico has been importing
potential
of its food. Even before the hurricanes there was a movement to restore
80%
or Indigenous knowledge and modern appropriate
“agroecology,”

into farming, adding in the bene t of carbon sequestration. It
technologies
out that organic agriculture sequesters carbon, which is what we need.
turns
like Boricuá Organization for Ecological Agriculture have
Organizations
brigades,” now traveling from community to community to
“agroecology
seeds and soil so that residents can begin planting crops immediately.
deliver
Naomi Klein writes, “Katia Avilés-Vázquez, one of Boricuá’s farmers, said
As
a recent brigade: ‘Today I saw the Puerto Rico that I dream being born.
of
week I worked with those who are giving it birth.’” 78
is
and nationally, internationally acclaimed musician Maria Isa,
Locally
Borinquena, worked with leaders like Minnesota State
Minneapolis-raised
Melissa Lopez Francis (Edina) to leverage relief, and as of May 2018,
Senator
$270,000 and delivered it directly to Puerto Rico. 79 e Puerto Ricans
raised
Minnesota Coalition along with Borinquen will continue to support the
of
of a new Puerto Rico. And in its own example of being, so much like a
birth
reservation, let us support this rebirth, as it is our own.

Theft Continues
Land
not going to give a long speech about the Wampanoags and the Pilgrims.
I’m
Is Time for
Thanksgiving
Reparations
anksgiving morning. Everywhere in America. anksgiving seems
It’s
important to white folks, but it needs to mean something to Native
pretty
people too. Perhaps it could mean something like justice and reparations.
a brutal history that begins with the beheading of their leaders (which
It’s
then displayed on spikes for decades in Puritan towns) and continues
were
the most recent attack on the People of the First Light by the Trump
to
administration.
March 2020, the Secretary of the Interior made the unprecedented
In
to take the land of the Wampanoag Cape Cod Reservation out of
decision
trust and disestablish the reservation.
e status of the trust had been in
for some time, but the announcement of the decision, coming
question
late Friday a ernoon in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic is
down
said William Keating, Massachusetts senator. Tribal Council chair
“cruel,”
Cromwell said, “It feels like we’ve been dropped o into a new world
Cedric
never seen before, i.e., in this pandemic and the way my tribe is being
we’ve
With this happening now, this is a direct, hardcore blow to
treated.
and disestablishing my tribe.” 80
dissolving
Pierite, of the North American Indian Center, argues that this is
Jean-Luc
power grab and a land grab by the Trump administration.” He suggests
“a
this, along with a decision to withdraw trust status from lands owned by
that
Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians in California, demonstrates that
the
Trump administration is willing to use its discretionary powers to
the
to take lands away from tribes. 81
attempt
real estate, like Cape Cod, is always a bitter ground for Native
Prime
people; just ask the Hawaiians or the Wiyots of California.

Parks as Land Theft
National
well-being is land based. And, nationally, most of that land is not
Indigenous
by Native people. Prime real estate is not the only land that has been
held
from Indigenous Peoples — national parks are literally a treasure
stolen
stolen from Native people. Historian Phil Burnham describes the
chest
of tribal lands for national parks in his book Indian Country, God’s
taking
A few of the takings include Glacier, Badlands, Mesa Verde,
Country.
Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Death Valley and of course the
Yosemite,
Hills. Black
the west, the Pikuni, or Blackfeet Nation, have begun to push for more
To
to Glacier Park. Indeed, the Lame Bull Treaty of 1855 recognized the
access
lands, as well as those lands to the north and south in Glacier
Blackfeet
by Kootenai and Salish people, respectively. But in 1896, because
occupied
potential mineral resources on the land, the Blackfeet were starved into
of
transferring more land to the federal government for $1.5 million.
ey sold
or perhaps leased — the land, but on the grounds that it remains public.
—
the land was declared a national park in 1910, Blackfeet hunting and
When
rights were revoked, though gathering rights remained. Since then,
shing
people have been arrested and forced to ght in court for their use
Blackfeet
the land. of
2019, the Blackfeet announced their own national park project, led by
In
DesRosier, a thirty-year veteran of park tourism and owner of Sun Tours,
Ed
Loren BirdRattler, project manager for the Blackfeet Nation’s
and
Resource Management Plan. Approximately 55 percent of
Agricultural
biodiversity is present on Blackfeet Nation’s 1.5 million acres,
Montana’s
tourism an important industry in the area. But the revenues do not
making
t the Blackfeet Nation, so some members have decided to change that
bene
opening a national park as “a way to assert the tribe’s place in the region’s
by
protect its natural resources and provide new economic
history,
to its members.” A er all, the history of Glacier is the Pikuni,
opportunities
they call themselves. 82
as
the Salish and Kootenai continue a collaborative management
Nearby,
with the National Bison Range, carved entirely out of their
initiative
Meanwhile, here in Minnesota, the Tamarac National Wildlife
reservation.
was carved out of the White Earth Reservation, and really should be
Refuge

Stolen Land
Returning
there are many ways to make good on this
Fortunately
to the tribe. Almost one-third of the White Earth Reservation is
returned
by federal, state or county governments, all of it taken illegally.
held
fact is that the national parks and wildlife refuges hold more land than
e
people nationally. As Keller and Turek point out in American Indians
Native
National Parks, “tribes today contain 50 million acres; the Park Service
&
approximately 80 million.” 83 at’s ironic and tragic.
controls
anksgiving and
On October 21, 2019, Tuluwat, known as Indian Island, was
beyond.
to the Wiyot Tribe of northern California. e Wiyots are
returned
speakers, a linguistic miracle, thousands of miles from the rest of
Algonquin
linguistic family. e Wiyot tribe, who still live on this small stretch of
our
had begun purchasing plots of land years ago, but in 2015 Eureka city
land,
began to explore returning the land to the tribe. In 2019, it was
council
nally approved. 84 “
is is the rst known transfer of land from a city to a
of this kind,” Eureka Councilwoman Natalie Arroyo said. “We are all
tribe
to do what we can to actively participate in healing. I will be so
responsible
as to say under current conditions Eureka owns the land, but it was
bold
truly ours.” Eureka Mayor Susan Seaman con rmed that “the vote to
never
the Tuluwat island to the Wiyot Tribe was unanimous and the motion
return 85 passed.”
at’s a good way to begin reparations. Return of stolen land.
ere’s a lot of
on that island. In 1860, Tuluwat was the site of a massacre, one of over
blood
dozen that occurred in a ve-day period in the area. Most of the adult men
a
away, bringing back essentials for their Earth Renewal Ceremonies,
were
the massacre, which took the lives of about 250 men, women and
when
children, occurred.
local newspaper, the Northern Californian, described the scene
Arcata’s
follows: “Blood stood in pools on all sides; the walls of the huts were
as
and the grass colored red. Lying around were dead bodies of
stained
sexes and all ages from the old man to the infant at the breast.
both
had their heads split in twain by axes, others beaten into jelly with
Some
others pierced or cut to pieces with bowie knives. Some struck
clubs,
as they mired; others had almost reached the water when
down
and butchered.” 86
overtaken

Back the Land
Taking
2018, the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe secured the return of part of the
In
Brutal indeed.
e work of vigilantes, but also the responsibility of those
stood back and said nothing.
who
Tuluwat/Indian Island massacre was part of a coordinated
e
attack on other Wiyot villages, including those on the Eel
simultaneous
and South Beach. ough the attack was widely condemned in
River
outside Humboldt County, no one was ever prosecuted for the
newspapers 87 murders.
e only compensation for land is land.
at’s what Oren Lyons, the
Faith Keeper, has always reminded us. “Land acknowledgements”
Onondaga
a start. Indigenous People’s Day declarations begin a process. But the
are
only compensation for land is land.
Chippewa National Forest.
at was about 11,700 acres stolen from the
band by the National Park Service in the 1940s.
at’s the story of Indian
However, although the Leech Lake Reservation is the second
Country.
reservation in Minnesota and is wealthy with water and land, less
largest
5% of the Leech Lake Reservation actually remained in Ojibwe hands.
than
of the reservation’s prime lakeshore and islands were held by non-
Most
lakeshore owners.
Indian
why, in 2017, Leech Lake made the decision to phase out leases to
at’s
Over 350 lots of prime land along the lakeshore were occupied
non-Natives.
non-tribal members. At the same time, noted former Natural Resources
by
Levi Brown, there were 500 homeless tribe members looking for
Director
to live on the reservation, and 100 more applying for tribal land
places
where they can build a home.
allotments
Brown told Minnesota Public Radio, “You can put a dollar sign on what
As
have to spend on somebody. Or you can say, ‘You’re Anishinaabe. You’re
you
from the water. We’re going to allow you to live and be who you
people
are.’” 88
same year, the Bad River Band of Ojibwe in Wisconsin also ended
at
with non-band members. In 2014, the band made the decision not to
leases
the 50-year lease, up in 2017, of 17 plots of land that were held by
renew
members in the remote and pristine Amnicon Bay on Madeline
non-band
Island. 89

the long arc of history, we nd that enlightenment is possible. And on
In
anksgiving, I am reminded that the brutality of history only nds
this
redress in reparations and justice.

The Telescope and the Mauna
e Mountain brought us together,” Luana Busby tells me. It’s 200 days into
“
prayer vigil and blockade which has brought the proposed irty Meter
the
( ) to a stop in Hawai’i. at’s to say, the project, the fourteenth
Telescope
telescope in Hawai’i, has met with resistance, big time. Luana is one of
giant
Kapuna, or Elders, who was arrested in July of 2019.
the
is the rst major Indigenous occupation since Standing Rock, and,
is
Standing Rock, it’s a Selma Moment. It’s a moment which unites people
like
understanding with water and land. ousands have come.
and
Understanding this as a battle over the
, one also sees a story that is not
about a telescope, but about who gets to decide the future and
just
and interpret the world. It’s about deciding if we will look to the
understand
or the Earth. And it is about deciding if we want bombs or water. It’s a
stars
of the Kia’i, or the Protectors.
time
is is the place where the Earth is born.
e farthest and most remote set
of islands in the world is a magical land. Pele rules.
at happened in a big
way in 2018, when a four-month lava
ow out of the Kilauea volcano
the landscape of the island, vaporizing a lake, covering a bay
transformed
toasting 700 homes. Pele is a force to be reckoned with and not one that
and
can be controlled by humans.
at’s this place too. Mauna Kea is not only
to some 13 giant telescopes, but it’s also home to a huge military
home
range and a volcano which erupts and transforms the Earth. ere
bombing
some strange bedfellows in the military industrial complex.
are
July 17, 2019, Native Hawaiian Mauna Protectors faced o with 200
On
police on the Hawaiian Homesteads Road to the proposed site of the
riot
billion . Native Hawaiian Kia’i or Protectors watched as the oldest
$1.9
among them were carted o , one by one, by law enforcement o
cers. Some
in wheelchairs or using canes or walkers. Some 35 Elders were arrested
were
day, as they told their children and supporters to stay calm. “ ey
that
arrested our 80-year-old Kapuna
rst. Kapunas are the bedrock of the
communities, they created our front line.
ese are our beloved sacred

Kapu System
The
the center of the occupation is culture and a worldview of the Mauna as a
At
Luana Busby, one of the defendents tells me in an interview. “We
Kapuna,”
charged with the obstruction of the road. We really shouldn’t be
are
charged.”
being. To Indigenous Peoples, the Earth is alive, and there is no place
sacred
this is more obvious than here on the Big Island, the land of the
where
Each island has a spirit and a place in the universe. “Kapiko o
volcano.
that’s the summit of Mauna Kea. at’s the umbilical cord to the
Wakea,
Luana explains to me patiently. “Piko of Kanaloa or Kaho olawe,
heavens,”
was the umbilical cord of the sea. e shining vagina of the ocean. Kaho
that
like Mauna Kea, is a portal of the spirits.” Hawaiians are clearly much
olawe,
sexually liberated than their colonizers.
more
camp, set up there to resist construction of the telescope, “works under
e
strict discipline. Everything is based on ritual and based on the
the
of our ancestors,” Pua Case, one of the leaders in the Mauna Kea
framework
tells me. “Our traditional practice includes Cities of Refuge, a
movement,
Kapu system and village system.
at’s the model we use here, our
traditional governance and organization.”
is means there’s a list of rules,
those who are here agree to the rules and the boundaries, including no
and
and no smoking of any kind. “ at keeps us clean,” Pua tells me.
alcohol
this is a well-run camp. I have developed a theory that women are
Indeed,
campers and good camp leaders. A er all, feeding big families and
practiced
all those needs is good practice. Women are pretty practical.
juggling
from Standing Rock, the medical tent at the Mauna Camp is
Learning
ed by doctors and health practitioners, and includes an examination
sta
a lot of basic medical supplies, a room for acupuncture and
room,
healing massage. “We are keeping the camp small for now,”
traditional
tells me in the middle of January 2020. New arrivals are encouraged
Noelani
to sign in at an orientation station.
ere is a tented cafeteria providing free
meals and a community-run medic station, daycare and school.
e camp
Hawaiian Kapunas, traditional, and a good group of Water
includes
and allies. “We set up a university,” Chancellor tells our group.
Protectors
ere are over 200 classes being taught here. We are also challenging who
“
to set up a university.”
gets

to God
Closer
irty Meter Telescope project was birthed in California universities.
e
the Hawaiian tradition, it’s the season of Lono, and not the time for war,
In
is why there is basically a truce between the Hawaiian police and the
which
Protectors, or Kia’i, the Protectors. Each day, people gather three
Mauna
for ceremony, morning, noon and night. “ at way, we remember why
times
are here,” Case tells me. It’s a highly organized camp, again, with some
we
taken from Standing Rock.
notes
It doesn’t look like anyone is going anywhere soon.
e camp is
Kealoha Pisciotta, one of the Kia’i leaders and a spokesperson
ourishing.
Mauna Kea Anaina Hou, a Native Hawaiian group, said even the arrests
for
ect how the ongoing protest has played out so far: emotional, respectful
re
tense. “It’s a temple. You can’t make war in a temple. You can stand for
and
righteousness. It demands aloha.”
at’s a good start. And, in this Selma
this set of Kai’i water and land protectors have stopped, thus far, a
Moment,
billion telescope project.
$1.6
at the University of California and Caltech began development of
Scientists
design that would eventually become the , consisting of a 492-segment
a
mirror with nine times the power of the Keck Observatory, latest
primary
thing. e Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation put up a good $200
big
for the project. While the idea was born, the telescope has not been.
million
was due originally to start in 2014, but was temporarily
Construction
due to a blockade of the roadway. While construction of the telescope
halted
set to resume on April 2 and later on June 24, 2015, it was blocked by
was
protests each time. In 2015, Governor David Ige announced several
further
to the management of Mauna Kea, including a requirement that the
changes
site will be the last new site on Mauna Kea to be developed for a
’s
at made it look a lot better, in his mind. But that did not satisfy
telescope.
Native Hawaiians, nor in fact many Hawaiians, who are increasingly
the
to the fragile ecology of the islands.
loyal
e guys put rocks in the road. at’s how they nally stopped the police.
“
June 24, 2015, there were around 40 people there at the Mauna. e line
On
had people in lines about twenty feet apart. By the time all the
captains
came, we had 700 people on the Mountain,” Mililani Trask, another
police
Native Hawaiian defendant in the Mauna case and long-time political leader,

is is, indeed, how ballads and legends are made: “ e women
remembers.
the babies held them o for about ve hours.” en they had to go
and
the fog which had emerged, “you could not see 10 feet in front.
through
the fog li ed the cops found the rocks in the road. e police nally
When
began arrests.”
Kanuha, a Hawaiian language instructor, had been charged in
Kaho’okahi
2015 blockade of the road for Mauna Kea. He only spoke in Hawaiian.
the
told a story of a Chief long ago who had to stop an invading force from
“He
up the Mountain. at is what the Chief of long ago did. en
coming
explained that the Chief was his ancestor. ‘I was not able to stand
Kaho’okahi
before, but I am standing here now. I have the same right as my Chief.’
here
was magic. He was a Native person speaking in a Native language in the
It
ey had to bring an interpreter for him,” Mililani Trask remembers.
court.
at was in 2015, and the story continues.
is is a story of a genealogy, a
set of beings — mountains, islands, sky and water — and it’s a story
living
a land and its people.
about
the Board of Land and Natural Resources approved the
Nevertheless,
but the Supreme Court of Hawaii invalidated the building permits
project,
December 2015, ruling that the board had not followed due process. On
in
30, 2018, the Court approved the resumption of construction, and
October

Long Occupation
The
been ghting telescopes and the military for
“We’ve
Gov. David Ige announced that construction would resume the week
Hawaii
July 15, 2019. at’s when the Hawaiians threw down on the road. In
of
words, the current protest is just the latest time over the past ve years
other
Protectors have intervened at the construction site, and the second time
that
they’ve halted construction altogether.
y years,”Luana Busby
me. Indeed Hawaiians have been protecting their waters and lands
reminds
long before the time of live Facebook feeds. at is, pretty much since
since
the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
e military occupation
continues.
we are all looking at this giant telescope project, the ultimate phallic
While
right next to the telescope project there’s this military base called
symbol,
at’s a bombing range for the US military where they just bomb
Pohakuloa.
side of the island without a live volcano. Because the military seems to
the
that’s a smart thing to do. And they want more land. A er all, the
think
is the largest land owner in Hawaii, or thief of land, since
military
most of the Hawaiian lands belong to the Hawaiians, since they
technically
never relinquished title.
e road to the Mauna Kea observatories is a good
of this, as the road actually belongs to the Hawaiian Homelands.
example
the end of World War II, Hawaii has been the center of the US
Since
military’s Indo-Paci c Command (
), from which all US forces
the region are directed. It serves as an outpost for Paci c expansionism,
in
with Guam and the Marshall Islands, Samoa and the Philippines.
along
the center of US military activities over more than half the
is
from the west coast of the US to Africa’s east coast, from the Arctic to
earth,
Antarctica, covering 70% of the world’s oceans. 90
at’s not getting any
smaller with the US military budget.
at’s to say, if the US spends 57% of
the federal budget on the military, half of that is spent in Hawai’i.
is is big
. stu
military owns or controls more than 200,000 acres, about 5% of the
e
state’s total land area.
e army has the largest landholdings: approximately
acres. Although Hawai’i Island has the largest acreage devoted to the
150,000
(102,000 acres) much more signi cant are the roughly 80,000 acres
military
the military controls on O’ahu — a staggering 21% of the island’s limited

ase. 91 land
is big business. “Direct and indirect impacts of military expenditures
War
reported to generate $14.7 billion into Hawai’i’s economy, creating more
are
102,000 jobs for residents that collectively report household incomes
than
$8.7 billion. Military expenditures totaling $8.8 billion annually have
around
the defense industry. Military procurement contracts amount to
elevated
$2.3 billion annually, making it a prime source of contracting
about
for hundreds of Hawai’i’s small businesses. 92 Hawai’i has also
opportunities
the presence of the nation’s top prime defense contractors: Boeing,
secured
Martin, Northrop Grumman, Systems, General Dynamics,
Lockheed
and several others.
Raytheon
are new military and there are old military sites on the islands. In
ere
report, the military determined that there were over 236 former military
one
in Hawai’i, at 46 separate installations, all of which were contaminated.
sites
just to be clear, the military is bombing an island with a live volcano.
So
guys for sure. e Pohakuloa training area ( ) is a 108,793 acre
Smart
range between the sacred mountains of Mauna Kea and Mauna
bombing
in the center of the big island, Hawai’i. Right next to the telescopes. And
Loa
in this, an old traditional name for Mauna Kea comes to mind,
somewhere
at means the water holder or water vessel. e Mauna is actually a
Ka’ohe.
aquifer, a mountain lled with fresh water. Bombing an aquifer is a
huge
proposition, particularly because even the military needs water.
dangerous
least seven million rounds of ammunition are red annually at that base
At
Pohakuloa has the “highest concentration of endangered species of
alone.
army installation in the world” according to former commander Lt. Col
any
Owen, and it has over 250 ancient Hawaiian archaeological sites. 93
Dennis
species and archaeological sites are pretty much “toast” with the
ose
in charge. e military proposes to expand the base by 23,000 acres,
military
the Military Transformation Proposal, and has brought the Stryker
under
to the area. e latest military expansion was 79,000 more acres. 94
brigades
ongoing battles of the Hawaiians against the military occupation of
e
lands continue. Each year, from the Makua bombing ranges in Oahu to
their
successful battle against the Super Ferry in Kauai, the stories grow in
the
“It was like Fern Gully,” a Native Hawaiian teacher told me. “A
number.
of us old farts went to non-violent civil disobedience training” and
bunch
of us were out on paddle boards. “It’s a bard’s heaven, the stu legends
more

allads are made of, for sure.”
and
occupation of Hawai’i began with the illegal overthrow of Queen
e
Liliokalani in 1893 by Samuel Dole.
e military has continuously taken
from the Hawaiians, and in 1941, Hawai’i was placed under martial law
land
er the attack on Pearl Harbor. at’s when the US military took over
a
operations on the island of Kaho’olawe.
e Navy began ship-to-shore
bombardment of the island.
en the military began the destruction on
island, detonating three 500 ton Trinitrotoluene (
) charges which
the island. Ultimately, the military “cracked the bedrock of the
buckled
the military bombed it so hard, they broke the bedrock of the island.
island:
means that the aquifer broke, seeped through the crack in the bedrock
at
now there’s just saltwater on the island. ey broke the bed rock,” Busby
and
me. I really can’t imagine a more violent act.
tells
is the Hawaiian island you will never visit, that and Ni’ihau.
Kaho’olawe
is the place where Hawaiians can live as Hawaiians, in other words
Ni’ihau
no tourists there. But Kaho’olawe was the only national historic site
there’s
used as a bombing range.
also
1976, Dr. Emmett Aluli, a Native Hawaiian medical doctor, led Aluli v.
In
challenging the military occupation of the island in federal district
Brown, 95 A 1977 judgement in favor of what would become the Protect
court.
Ohana began the process of Hawaiian recovery of the island, and
Kaho’olawe
a 1980 Consent Decree between the military and the Protect
ultimately
Ohana began the full military decommissioning and clean up.
Kaho’olawe
$400 million later, the island is less full of ordnance, but still full of
Some
And there is no aquifer or bedrock.
craters.
however, is far from the only Paci c Island used by a military.
Kaho’olawe,
1946 and 1996, the United States, Britain and France conducted
Between
testing in the deserts of Australia and the atolls of the central and
nuclear
south Paci c. Over
ve decades, more than 315 nuclear tests were held
the region. “Later underground testing fractured the base of fragile
across
contaminating the marine environment.” 96 at radiation doesn’t stay
atolls,
the test site; that’s an unfortunate reality.
at
arrogance met a citizens movement, of which Protect Kaho’olawe
Military
a big part. From the 1950s, churches, trade unions, women’s
was
and traditional leaders on the islands opposed these nuclear
organizations
tests. Networks like Nuclear Free and Independent Paci c (
), the Paci c

TMT The
are realms we do not belong in.
ese
of Churches ( ) and the Paci c Trade Union Forum ( )
Conference
self-determination for Paci c colonies and the abolition of
supported
weapons. Protests were diverse, with demonstrations at embassies,
nuclear
writing, trade union bans and boycotts of French products.
letter
was widespread, from Polynesians, and from Europe, leading to
Opposition
French Intelligence agents sinking the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior
the
the Auckand, NZ, Harbor in 1985. “Operation Satanique” was carried out
in
the French military and intended to stop the opposition to French
by
testing. Fernando Pereira, a photographer, died in the sinking, and
nuclear
act of state terrorism solidi ed a movement to end nuclear testing. 97
the
a clear result of the alliance between Paci c Islanders and the people
As
the countries which bombed their islands, more countries withdrew
from
nuclear and conventional weapons testing. In the 1980s, at the height
from
the US–Soviet arms race, Vanuatu, Palau and New Zealand declared their
of
nuclear-free. On Hiroshima Day in 1985, members of the Paci c
territories
Forum also signed the Rarotonga Treaty for a South Paci c Nuclear
Islands
Free Zone (
), an important regional contribution to global nuclear
Australian disarmament campaigners worked to strengthen
disarmament.
Rarotonga Treaty, in the face of government attempts to limit its scope to
the
US nuclear deployments in the Paci c. 98
protect
Aluli (Aluli v. Brown) remembers, “In the 1980s, we sent
Emmett
out to talk to di erent countries about withdrawing from
delegations
that’s the tests that they do of the weapons every other year. We
;
successful in getting New Zealand, France and Japan to withdraw from
were
1983–4.” at’s how change is made, by people like Emmett Aluli
in
a strong Nuclear Free and Independent Paci c movement, challenging
and
militaries from around the world, continuously.
the
ose are the realms that proliferate
forms on the planet and they need to do what they do without us in
life
realm. their
— Luana Busby
ey are saying that the telescope project may go to the Canary Islands.
“
we’ve always opposed the telescope project, we’ve been opposing
Because

Is It about Telescopes?
What
people always have to look to space. It’s an ironic moment of
White
telescopes for
y years. In the Canary Islands they are not so opposed to it
we are,” Luana tells me. Indeed, with the advent of live Facebook feeds
as
of course the added presence of superstars like Jason Momoa and
and
Johnson, aka the Rock, it’s clear that this movement has big support.
Duane
one ever heard our story before, but with all the technology we are
“No
able to get our story out more.
e Mauna is about that there are a lot of
who have found themselves getting clean up there,” Luana tells me.
people
in my limited experience with front-line occupations, it’s a
Indeed,
community up there, so you have to be clean. “We need to keep
functional
papa clean. No drugs, no alcohol, no cannabis. A’ha morning, noon and
our
All of this is built on the well-being of the Mauna.” I stand in a
evening.
of new visitors to the camp. We are all being told clearly that this is
group
the Mauna; it’s not about us. “Pick up your garbage, including your
about
garbage,” the Kapuna tells us. “Even sacred people pick up
metaphysical
trash and wash dishes,” our guide tells us.
is is indeed a spiritually
grounded and well-disciplined movement.
systems. Polynesians, like the Hawaiians, navigated the Paci c
knowledge
thousands of years, guided by the stars. A very di erent worldview is that
for
the realm of science, where universities and surprising entities like the
of
continue a quest to look far into space. As such, Native Hawaiians
Vatican,
not the rst to be embroiled in a battle over a telescope project.
are
Graham — called in Nnee biyati’ (Western Apache) Dził Nchaa
Mount
“Big Seated Mountain” — was at the center of a bizarre battle between
Sí’an
Apache and the Vatican, which erected a large meter telescope,
the
a ectionally known as the Pope Scope, or
: Vatican Advanced
Telescope.
Technology
are usually not long-term employment opportunities. But
Megaprojects
they sure look big.
may employ up to 300 people, but that number will
replaced with a much smaller number of astronomers. If Hawaii was
be
interested in creating jobs, rebuilding the homes and buried
actually
a er the 2018 lava ow might employ more. Or maybe just
infrastructure
the masses of people, some farming and all. One thing’s for sure, it’s
feeding
busy on the island without the .

always about payo s and corruption in Hawaii. Make no mistake, this is
It’s
pretty corrupt state. In September of 2019, investigative journalists found
a
of con icting interests with Governor David Ige’s agencies and
evidence
interests friends receiving $3 million in payments to promote the
private
project. 99
part of the Mount Graham International
is
on Mount Graham in southeast Arizona and
Observatory
operated by the Vatican Observatory, one of the oldest
is
research institutions in the world, in
astronomical
partnership with the University of Arizona.
at project,
the Mauna Kea, pitted a Native people against a set of
like
and political forces. e land is Apache land, but
academic
1873, Mount Graham was removed from the
“in
of the San Carlos Reservation and placed in
boundaries
the public domain.
e spiritual value of Mount Graham
to the Apache was not considered.
is action set the stage
for con ict a century later.”
land had been transferred to the Forest Service, but
e
1988, the United States Congress authorized
in
of the observatories on the mountain by a
construction
peace-time Congressional waiver of US
rare
laws. In 1984, the University of Arizona
environmental
the Vatican selected Mount Graham as a site for a
and
of 18 telescopes. To get around the legal barriers
complex
the American Indian Religious Freedoms Act, the
of
hired a lobbying rm to put pressure on
university
to remove this and other regulatory roadblocks.
Congress
the declarations of the sacredness of Mount
Following
by the Apache Survival Coalition and the San
Graham
Apache Tribe, the Vatican in 1991 declared that
Carlos
Graham was not sacred because it lacked religious
Mount
Jesuit Father George Coyne, director of the
shrines.
Observatory, indicated that he could not nd an
Vatican
authentic Apache who thought the mountain was sacred.
F th r C n t t d th t t n in him th t th

“Why Is the Vatican the Largest and Longest Owners of Telescope
Source:
Including the Newest Named L.U.C.I.F.E.R.? Aplanetruth
Observatories,
Coyne stated that to convince him that the
Father
was sacred he would need to see evidence of
mountain
and that he would not accept Apache oral history
shrines
statements by Apache-speaking Euro-American
or
Father Coyne further declared that
anthropologists.
beliefs were “a kind of religiosity to which I cannot
Apache
and which must be suppressed with all the force
subscribe
can muster.” Tough sledding with the Vatican for sure.
we
.
known corruption and the hiring of more private security forces
Despite
rumored that $10 million was appropriated to quell the Kia’i), rumor has
(it’s
that the political and social consequences of the telescope project are
it
it more di cult than ever. “ can’t a ord to go up in the
making
future. ey don’t have the funds to go up. ey don’t feel safe to
foreseeable
up,” Busby explained. Arresting 80-year-olds for a telescope project seems
go
to be a public relations problem for the proponents.
at “gave us a two-
break, kind of like a détente. And they moved ahead with their
month
for the Canary Islands.”
permit
within a week of the arrests, old friends from the Canary Islands
Literally,
to make statements. e agency that manages telescopes in the
began
Canary Islands says it’s “ready” to support the irty Meter Telescope. 100
Duque, Spain’s minister of science, innovation and universities,
Pedro
local and national government entities would support if the
said
cancels its plans for Mauna Kea and opts for its back-up site in
project
Canary Islands, according to Spanish media reports. But so far,
the
telescope o
cials have said they still prefer to build in Hawaii.
e site in La Palma is an excellent place for astronomy. We have not
“
all the regulatory processes complete there and there’s no time
had
for when so it is not viable in that sense at this time,” said Gordon
frame
vice president of external a airs for .
Squires,
e Canary Islands is an “autonomous community” of Spain.
e
archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean is home to the Observatorios de

Up Some Old Messes
Cleaning
proponents have cried out about the potential loss of this
Telescope
of the Times
Lessons
are … joining the world’s indigenous movements,’ Pisciotta says. ‘We
“‘We
Canarias, with telescopes on the islands of Tenerife and La Palma. 101
project. “Hawaii will lose its status as a world leader in astronomy
telescope
the telescope isn’t built, Bob McLaren, the director of the University of
if
Institute for Astronomy, worried. Existing telescopes may not want
Hawaii’s
upgrade facilities and make further investments, and it could lead to a
to
spiral for the eld, he said.” 102 It appears the sky is falling for
downward
In the meantime, the Kia’i have forced movement in a state which
some.
to rarely hold either the military, the tourist industry or any industry
seems
that matter, accountable. e rst of ve old, rundown telescopes is
for
decommissioned.
being
ve old telescopes; now that’s going to create jobs, and
Decommissioning
It turns out astronomical garbage exists in space as well as on Earth,
friends.
countries look to the skies to gure out how to clean up some old
as
and “space junk.”
satellites
on Earth, the Hawaii Tribune Herald reported that on January 13,
Here
the Mauna Kea Management Board approved environmental
2020,
for the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory. e observatory is
assessments
of ve telescopes scheduled to be dismantled. A number of them had
one
been out of use but had remained on the mountain, essentially as
already
garbage. Now, in a time of “deal making” in exchange for permitting
space
construction of the irty Meter Telescope, there will be some space
the
clean-up. at’s if all goes according to the state’s wishes. e
junk
remains on schedule to be removed by the end of 2021, said
observatory
Simons, a management board member. e observatory
Doug
process involves a full site restoration, including removing
decommissioning
structure, lling its foundation and restoring the terrain to its original
the
Simons said.
topography,
e idea would be that, by the end of next year, you wouldn’t even know
“
was a telescope here at all,” he said. 103 at’s hopeful.
there
need Kapu Aloha … to bring back the balance from the insanity and

of our earth.’ We want to show the world how ‘to really live
destruction
erently’ while protecting the land.” For any veteran of Standing Rock,
di
story resonates. “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.
that
a quiet day, I can hear her breathing,” said Arundhati Roy.
On
Native Hawaiians, there is a question of our right to selfdetermination
“’For
as de ned by international law, but I think it’s so much bigger
that,’ said Pisciotta. ‘It’s about us learning to live and be
than 104
interdependent.’”
Pisciotta, a spokesperson for Mauna Kea Anaina
Kealoha
told Michelle Broder Vandyke from the Guardian
Hou,
newspaper: “
e movement is ‘pushing back on the
culture’ through Hawaiian concepts of ‘Kapu
corporate
which emphasizes compassionate responses,
Aloha,’
towards opponents, and ‘Aloha ‘A¯ina,’ a saying
especially
translates to ‘love of the land.’”
that
a larger sense it is about two di erent worldviews, and who gets to
In
the future. As Doug Hernan would write in the Smithsonian
determine
“For many … Indigenous peoples, sacredness is not merely a
magazine,
or label. It is a lived experience of oneness and connectedness with
concept
natural and spiritual worlds. It is as common sense as believing in
the
is experience is very much at odds with the everyday secular….
gravity.
of course, seeing nature as inert facilitates both commercial
And
and scienti c exploitation.” 105
exploitation
a time of con ict between sacred beings and technology. And it’s also a
It’s
of the Water Protector. Kalani Souza, a Hawaiian scholar, talks about
time
beyond the Doctrine of Discovery, to the Doctrine of
moving 106 He reminds me again, “It’s really about the water, a name for
Relationship.
mountain is also Ka’ohe, the Water Holder, but the name also refers to
the
at’s because this is the largest freshwater aquifer in the world. It
bamboo.
created in the ice age. From the inside of the largest mountain in the
was
— that’s Mauna Kea. “Snow, rain, are living entities that have a
world”
on the earth, it’s all this that we are ourishing from…. ose
purpose
are interconnected from the Wakea to the bottom of the ocean.”
beings
Native Hawaiian traditional knowledge of realms above and below led to

their success in navigating the largest body of water in the world.
e
Nation treatied with over 140 nations in the world and navigated
Hawaiian
world long before Captain Cook. As we understand the genius of
the
Hawaiian thinking, adapted over the centuries, one can’t help be in awe.
e
Iolani Palace had electricity before the US president had electricity
Hawaiian
the White House. As the Hawaiians contemplate the most complex of
in
systems, the people know the Mauna is a sacred living being.
knowledge
knowledge is not held by those who seek to colonize land and space.
at
You must remember, never cease to act because you fear you may fail.
— Queen Lilio’kalani

Part 3
Mni Wiconi

From Buffalo to Black Snake
2016, late summer, and the weight of American corporate interests has
It’s
to the Missouri River, the Mother River. is time, instead of the
come
Cavalry, or the Indian police dispatched to assassinate Sitting Bull,
Seventh
is Energy Transfer Partners and Enbridge, with their Dakota Access
it
Pipeline (
). Every major pipeline project in North America must cross
lands, Indian Country. And these days, every project faces bold
Indigenous
But something special is happening here. e people of the Oceti
resistance.
(Great Sioux Nation) and their allies have gathered en masse to
Sakowin
the river.
defend
road west of Fargo is rarely taken. In fact, most Americans just y over
e
Dakota, never seeing it. Let me take you there.
North
head clears as I drive. My destination is the homeland of the Hunkpapa
My
the Standing Rock Reservation. It is early evening, the moon full. If
Oceti,
close your eyes, you can remember the 50 million bu alo—the single
you
migratory herd in the world. e pounding of their hooves would
largest
the Earth, make the grass grow.
vibrate
were once 250 species of grass. Today the bu alo are mostly gone,
ere
by 28 million cattle, which require grain, water and hay. Many of
replaced
elds are now in a single crop, full of so many pesticides that the
the
butter ies are dying o . But in my memory, the old world remains.
monarch
you drive long enough, you come to the Missouri River. Called Mnisose,
If
great swirling river, by the Lakota, she is a force to be reckoned with. She is
a
“ e Missouri River has a xed place in the history and
breathtaking.
of the Lakota and other Indigenous nations of the Northern
mythology”
author Dakotah Goodhouse explains. 1
Plains,
the time before Sitting Bull, the Missouri River was the epicenter of
In
agriculture, the river bed extremely fertile. e territory was
northern
known as the fertile crescent of North America.
at was then, before the
that reduced the Lakota land base. But the Missouri remained in the
treaties
— the last treaty of 1868 used it as a boundary.
treaties

came the the of land by the US government and the taking of the
en
Hills in 1877, in part as retaliation against Sitting Bull’s victory at the
Black
of the Little Big Horn. In a time prior to Native Lives Matter, great
Battle
like Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were assassinated at the hands of
leaders
police.
e Lakota people have survived much.
into reservation life, the Lakota attempted to stabilize their society,
Forced
the dams came. Over the course of 20 years, the six large dams
until
authorized by the 1944 Pick Sloan Plan
ooded out the Missouri River
displacing thousands of tribal people and taking the best bottom
tribes,
from the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara, the Lakota and Dakota. e
lands
Oahe and Fort Randall dams created some of the largest reservoirs
Garrison,
North America, eliminating 90% of timber and 75% of wildlife on the
in
destroying infrastructure that to this day has never been
reservations,
inundating entire tribal communities and desecrating countless
rebuilt,
archaeological sites. 2 On the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River
ancient
alone, over 200,000 acres were ooded by the Oahe Dam itself,
Reservations
not only relocation but a loss of the Lakota world. According to
forcing
author, historian and activist Vine Deloria Jr., the “Pick-Sloan Plan
Lakota
without doubt, the single most destructive act ever perpetrated on any
was,
by the United States.” 3
tribe
is how a people are made poor. Today, the Standing Rock poverty rate
at
triple the national average, food insecurity is widespread, and many go
is
electricity, running water or access to health care and education. 4
without
land and Mother River are what remain, a constant, for the people. at
e
what is threatened today, as Enbridge and Energy Transfer Partners
is
to drill through the riverbed at Lake Oahe, where the Cannonball
prepare
joins the Missouri.
River
September 3, 2016, private security forces working for the pipeline
On
attacked Water Protectors with dogs as they put their bodies in
companies
of heavy equipment to stop the intentional destruction of a known
front
site, sacred ground. On that day, LaDonna Brave Bull Allard,
archaeological
historian and genealogist, matriarch of the o resistance and
tribal
of the Sacred Stone Camp, published an article honoring the 153rd
founder
of the Whitestone Massacre of September 3, 1863. 5
anniversary
On this day, 153 years ago, my great-great-grandmother Nape Hote

(Mary Big Moccasin) survived the bloodiest con ict between the
Win
Nations and the US Army ever on North Dakota soil. An
Sioux
300 to 400 of our people were killed in the Inyan Ska
estimated
Massacre, far more than at Wounded Knee. But very few
(Whitestone)
the story.
know
we struggle for our lives today against the Dakota Access Ppipeline,
As
remember her. We cannot forget our stories of survival.
I
50 miles east of here, in 1863, nearly 4,000 Yanktonais, Isanti
Just
and Hunkpapa gathered alongside a lake in southeastern
(Santee),
Dakota, near present-day Ellendale, for an intertribal bu alo
North
to prepare for winter. It was a time of celebration and ceremony —
hunt
time to pray for the coming year, meet relatives, arrange marriages,
a
make plans for winter camps. Many refugees from the 1862
and
in Minnesota, mostly women and children, had been taken in
uprising
family. Mary’s father, Oyate Tawa, was one of the 38 Dah’kotah
as
in Mankato, Minesota, less than a year earlier, in the largest
hanged
execution in the country’s history. Brigadier General Alfred Sully
mass
soldiers came to Dakota Territory looking for the Santee who had
and
ed the uprising.
is was part of a broader US military expedition to
white settlement in the eastern Dakotas and protect access to
promote
Montana gold elds via the Missouri River.
the
my great-great-grandmother Mary Big Moccasin told the story, the
As
came the day a er the big hunt, when spirits were high. e sun
attack
setting and everyone was sharing an evening meal when Sully’s
was
surrounded the camp on Whitestone Hill. In the chaos that
soldiers
people tied their children to their horses and dogs and ed.
ensued,
was 9 years old. As she ran, she was shot in the hip and went
Mary
She lay there until morning, when a soldier found her. As he
down.
her into a wagon, she heard her relatives moaning and crying on
loaded
battle eld. She was taken to a prisoner of war camp in Crow Creek
the
she stayed until her release in 1870.
where
grew up on the banks of the Cannonball and Missouri rivers and
Allard
a young girl when the oods came in the late 50s. She remembers it
was
well:
ey took all our trees, all our forest, when they ooded us.
ey took all

our medicines, our plants, the things that we survive on. And so, if you
of
to the people that are my age and older, you can hear the grief in our
talk
because we still grieve for the loss of this land. And they moved us
voice,
top of the hills, where it is more of a clay-based soil, so we could no
on
grow gardens, we could no longer plant trees, we could no longer do
longer
things that we did. 6
the
As the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s former historic preservation o
cer and
historian and genealogist, Allard also carries the larger history of
current
land: that
the Cannonball River joins the Missouri River, at the site of our
Where
today to stop the Dakota Access Ppipeline, there used to be a
camp
whirlpool that created large, spherical sandstone formations.
e river’s
true name is Inyan Wakangapi Wakpa, River
at Makes the Sacred
and we have named the site of our resistance on my family’s
Stones,
the Sacred Stone Camp. e stones are not created anymore, ever
land
the US Army Corps of Engineers dredged the mouth of the
since
River and ooded the area in the late 1950s as they nished
Cannonball
the Oahe Dam.
ey killed a portion of our sacred river.
north and east now, toward the construction sites where they
Look
to drill under the Missouri River any day now, and you can see the
plan
Sundance grounds, burial grounds, and Arikara village sites that the
old
would destroy. Below the cli s you can see the remnants of the
pipeline
that made our sacred stones. Of the 380 archeological sites that
place
desecration along the entire pipeline route, from North Dakota to
face
26 of them are right here at the con uence of these two rivers. It
Illinois,
a historic trading ground, a place held sacred not only by the Sioux
is
but also the Arikara, the Mandan, and the Northern Cheyenne.
Nations,
it is the US Army Corps that is allowing these sites to be
Again,
destroyed.
US government is wiping out our most important cultural and
e
areas. And as it erases our footprint from the world, it erases us
spiritual
a people. ese sites must be protected, or our world will end, it is
as
that simple. Our young people have a right to know who they are.
ey
have a right to language, to culture, to tradition.
e way they learn
these things is through connection to our lands and our history.

we allow an oil company to dig through and destroy our histories,
If
ancestors, our hearts and souls as a people, is that not genocide?
our
on this same sacred land, over 100 tribes have come together to
Today,
in prayer and solidarity in de ance of the black snake. And more
stand
keep coming.
is is the rst gathering of the Oceti Sakowin (Sioux
since the Battle of the Greasy Grass (Battle of Little Bighorn) 140
tribes)
ago. years
father is buried at the top of the hill, overlooking our camp on the
My
below. My son is buried there, too. Two years ago, when
riverbank
Access rst came, I looked at the pipeline map and knew that
Dakota
entire world was in danger. If we allow this pipeline, we will lose
my
everything.
are the river, and the river is us. We have no choice but to stand
We
up. 7
I drive west through the Plains towards the Missouri River and take the
As
route around the roadblock that state law enforcement has put up in
scenic
of dissuading people from joining the protest camps or spending
hopes
at the tribal casino, I remember the bu alo. I remember the grass. I
money
the beauty of the way of life so freshly taken from these people.
remember
I am grateful for memory. e great Lakota leader Mathew King once
And
“the only thing sadder than an Indian who is not free, is an Indian who
said,
not remember what it is to be free.”
does

movement here at Standing Rock represents that ongoing struggle for
e
and the future of a people. ere are many at Standing Rock today
freedom
remember their history and the long stando at Wounded Knee in
who
a similar battle for dignity and human rights. In fact, many of those at
1973,
Rock today were there.
Standing
am not sure how badly North Dakota wants this pipeline. If there is to be
I
siege, it will be here. For a people with nothing else but a land and a river, I
a
not bet against them.
would
this is also a battle for a future for all of us. An old Lakota prophecy
But
of a time when a great black snake would come to the land, bringing
tells
and destruction not only to Lakota and Dakota communities, but to
sickness
water and land of all Mother Earth. And that the people would have to
the
come together to kill that black snake.
at time is now.

The Deep North
Dakota did not become the Deep North, as it is now called, overnight.
North
people have been treated poorly here for more than a 150 years,
Native
with the Indian Wars and the smallpox epidemics that wiped out
starting
of their population. en the dams drowned their villages, drowned
90%
agricultural wealth, drowned their history and rewrote it into
their
manual of agricultural progress. ere is an unspeakable poverty
America’s
of loss, and it is di
cult to imagine a deeper grief.
most, North Dakota is something unknown. We y over the plains,
For
about how the movie Fargo was funny and wonder sheepishly how it’s
talk
out in the Bakken. Very few visit, and there is almost no civil
working
to advocate for the environment or the people — as evidenced by the
society
that, before o , the Sierra Club had one sta person in North
fact
and the American Civil Liberties Union had one sta member
Dakota,
both North and South Dakota. It is as if North Dakota is just too
covering
for a progressive movement. Instead, we have watched.
uncomfortable
North Dakota is a place of entrenched, systemic racism. It is a place
Today,
Nazis move. e Native incarceration rate is six times higher than that
where
whites, 8 Native suicide rates are several times that of North Dakotans
of 9 and basic infrastructure on the reservations — like hospitals,
overall,
schools, grocery stores — is profoundly insu
cient. People freeze to death
overdose in the shadow of the Bakken oil elds.
and
of this is just a second layer of abuse, of course, underneath the day-to-
All
discrimination, harassment by cops and white supremacists now
day
by Morton County and the Trump government, and the
emboldened
of missing and murdered Indigenous women. Almost every family
epidemic
my community has one of those women. It’s not because we’re not
in
anything. It’s an ongoing stress in the community, something we live
“post”
every day.
with
population decline of North Dakota was pretty well documented in
e
and Deborah Popper’s book e Bu alo Commons. Young people
Frank

Mother Earth
Cannibalizing
I’m an economist by training, and I refer to our current economic
Now,
moving out, to anywhere but North Dakota, so the state became a
started
people le , particularly white people. Native populations continue to
place
dramatically, at a rate almost twice that of non-Indians. In the midst of
grow
a state that clearly had some populist progressive history became
this,
conservative.
increasingly
comes the oil industry. Along the gentle rolling hills of the northern
In
Missouri River is the Fort Berthold Reservation, home to the
ree
A
liated Tribes, the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara. It is also known as the
spot for Bakken crude oil. I went to Fort Berthold a er riding
sweet
with family, friends and allies to raise awareness about a pipeline
horseback
to pump this fracked oil through my community and the sacred
intended
of Lake Superior. I wanted to see what was happening at the source,
waters
where this oil is extracted.
as Wiindigoo Economics. In our Anishinaabe stories, the Wiindigoo
system
a giant murderous monster that used to rampage through the north
is
fueled by an insatiable greed and a relentless desire for human esh.
woods,
fuel era capitalism is like the Wiindigoo: a predator economics, the
Fossil
of a cannibal. It is a system based on colonization, wastefulness
economics
ravenous greed, a system that destroys the very source of its own wealth
and
well-being, Mother Earth. In my lifetime, we’ve consumed 50% of the
and
oil. at means there’s still a whole bunch le , but most of it is really,
known
hard to get out of the ground. So this system of cannibal economics,
really
the Lakota might call Wasicu, Taker of the Fat, economics, has led us
which
the era of extreme extraction. Extreme extraction is when you blow the
to
o of 500 mountains in Appalachia to get coal for export to Asia; it’s
tops
you strip mine tar from the oil sands of Northern Alberta and turn
when
First Nation communities into sacri ce zones; it’s when you inject
entire
of millions of gallons of chemical-laced water into the bedrock of
hundreds
Earth at such pressures that you cause earthquakes. at’s where we
Mother
at right now.
are
around 2007, extreme extraction came to the Northern Plains in
Starting
form of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, also known as
the
— two relatively new technologies that allowed the pro table
fracking

Needs Regulations Anyway?
Who
North Dakota, sex tra cking, violence, pollution and corruption have
In
of tight shale oil formations like the Bakken Formation of North
extraction
e resulting boom was dramatic. By 2011, the State of North
Dakota.
had a billion-dollar budget surplus and the lowest unemployment
Dakota
in the country. 10 Along with the money and rapid population growth
rate
profound housing shortages, skyrocketing rates of violent crime and
came
of drug and sex tra cking. 11 e man camps — temporary trailer
epidemics
where transient oil workers are housed — are hubs for all of this.
parks
men have more money than they know what to do with, and they are
ose
from their families. Indigenous women and girls from surrounding
far
are kidnapped, bought, sold and murdered.
communities
industry claims about health and safety, fracking is actually just a
Despite
experiment, made possible by a lack of regulation and the unlimited use
big
the commons as a dumping ground. Fracking involves the use of
of
amounts of water mixed with salt and toxic chemicals. Proponents
immense
to say that the process uses chemicals that are regularly found in the
like
home. at might be true — if we all ran meth labs out of our
average
In fact, the water used by fracking companies is laced with over 1000
houses.
and carcinogens. 12 ose chemicals are considered trade secrets and
toxins
so are not subjected to federal scrutiny. 13
is has become a bit of a problem.
with spills simply do not know the nature of the chemical
Communities
contamination.
of the polluted water is simply being dumped into deep
Much
caverns. A 2017 report found that “US industries have injected
underground
than 30 trillion gallons of toxic liquid deep into the earth, using broad
more
of the nation’s geology as an invisible dumping ground.” 14 It seems
expanses
have built an entire industry on the unquestioned belief that what goes
we
can’t come up.
down
the state’s capacity to address them. Or perhaps it is the
overwhelmed
that have overwhelmed the state. In North Dakota, as with
corporations
corporations direct state policy. Known as “regulatory capture,”
everywhere,
and gas companies move in, take control of a state’s regulatory process
oil
manipulate it to serve their bottom line. In other words, North Dakota
and
sold not only its water, but also its soul, to the oil companies.
has

Flares
Gas
Berthold is the tribal epicenter of the fracking industry, home to about
Fort
this happens, states nd themselves doing weird stu , like excusing
When
spills without penalty. Less than one 1% of spills result in nes from the
oil
Dakota Industrial Commission or Department of Health, and even
North
they do issue nes, companies o en negotiate them down to a fraction
when
of the original amount. 15
is is hardly surprising since states regularly fall
over themselves to ensure corporations don’t have to compromise their
all
ts by putting money into the public purse.
pro
some of the other decisions made by the state may be more surprising.
But
the decision to legalize nuclear waste in municipal dumps. Yes, you
Like
that correctly. In 2016, in an e ort to accommodate the fracking
read
the North Dakota Department of Health approved a 10-fold
industry,
to the allowable level of radiation in municipal and county
increase
lls. 16 ey call it — Technologically Enhanced Naturally
land
Radioactive Materials. It’s naturally occurring so it must be safe,
Occurring
I testi ed against it at the public hearings, but they approved it
right?
anyway.
at same year, a study conducted by Duke University found soil at
spill site that was contaminated with radium, and at one site, “high levels
a
contaminants were detected in residual waters four years a er the spill
of
17 So nuclear waste is in our dumps, our soil and our water. And,
occurred.”
our bodies.
undoubtedly,
the height of the oil boom in 2012, the Associated Press in Bismarck
At
that North Dakota had experienced over 300 oil spills and 750
announced
eld incidents” in just over a year and a half. Not one of these 1000+
“oil
was reported to the public. Why? Because regulators are not
“incidents”
by state law to do so. 18 Of course, this corporate takeover of
required
processes has been supported at the federal level. e
regulatory
Amendment” of the 2005 Energy Policy Act, which exempted
“Halliburton
sectors of the oil and gas industry, especially fracking, from most major
key
environmental laws, is a particularly egregious example of this. 19
of the state’s oil wells. 20 At night, Fort Berthold is lit up with gas aring
20%
the wells, like the omnipresent lidless Eye of Sauron. ese ares burn
from
natural gas that is a byproduct of crude oil extraction. Without enough
the
to transport the gas, about a third of what’s released each day —
pipelines

$1.4 million — goes up in smoke. 21 According to Bloomberg News,
worth
a percentage basis, more gas was ared in the state [of North Dakota]
“On
in any other domestic oil eld and at a level equal to Russia and twice
than
in Nigeria.” 22
that
there is twice as much aring on the reservation as anywhere else in
But
state. Tribal members say as much as 70% of gas from wells on the
the
is ared. “Every single day, more than l00 million cubic feet of
reservation
gas is ared away. at’s enough to heat half a million homes. at’s
natural
much carbon dioxide emitted as 300,000 cars,” Fort Berthold tribal
as
Kandi White observes. “ at’s crazy.”
member
White is sta with the Indigenous Environmental Network and part
Kandi
the grassroots advocacy group is Is Mandaree, along with many other
of
community members, like
eodora and Joletta Birdbear. Together with
like Lisa Deville of Fort Berthold Protectors of Water and Earth Rights
folks
), is Is Mandaree has been ghting the threats to their community
(
for over a decade. “
e companies have generously put up signs for us to tell
that the toxins are present in the air,” says White. “What do we do? Just
us
breathing?”
stop
health of the Missouri River has been especially taken for granted.
e
the Missouri is the seventh most polluted river in the country. 23
Today,
runo and now fracking have contaminated the river. In the
Agricultural
days of the Sacred Stone Camp, my sister shed a gar out of the river, a
early
prehistoric sh, only to nd it covered with tumors.
giant
2013, North Dakota su ered the largest oil spill in state history when a
In
Tioga farmer discovered 800,000 gallons of oil in his
elds, about two
a er it had started seeping out of a quarter size hole in a pipe. It
months
ve years and $100 million to clean it up. 24 Two years later, another
took
occurred at the Garden Creek gas processing plant resulting in a
“incident”
spill of about 10 gallons. at’s fairly insigni cant as far as spills go.
reported
that it turns out they lied. A whistleblower later revealed it was
Except
over 11 million gallons, larger than the devastating Exxon Valdez
actually
25 Not so insigni cant a er all.
spill.
out these companies have a bit of a problem with truth-telling.
Turns
companies generally claim a 99% safety record, but studies have
Pipeline
that to be grossly inaccurate. A 2012 study by the US Pipeline and
found
Hazardous Material Safety Association, found that “the ‘average’ pipeline

Toxic Garbage
More
the while, North Dakota has become a petri dish for neo-Nazis.
All
has a 57% probability of experiencing a major leak, with
therefore
over the $1 million range, in a ten-year period.” 26 Not good
consequences
odds.
is against this backdrop — of lackluster regulation, regular spills,
It
contamination and outright lies — that the Dakota Access Pipeline
obscene
proposed to cross the Missouri River just upstream of the tribe’s water
was
intake. What could go wrong?
at’s to
say, in the midst of chaos, more chaos came.
e town of Leith, North
was the focal point for an attempted takeover by white supremacist
Dakota,
Cobb, an American Canadian white nationalist neo-Nazi. In 2010, he
Craig
to the town of 16 and purchased 12 plots of land with the intention
moved
building a community of people that share his white nationalist ideology,
of
gaining the electoral majority. His battle for political power
thereby
failed as a result of multi-racial organizing and opposition. e
ultimately
Welcome to Leith, which was directed by Michael Beach Nichols and
lm
Walker and premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival,
Christopher
documented the con ict over Leith.
at was right before Standing Rock.
Christopher Hagen, a reporter for the High Plains Reader (
), really
have received a Pulitzer Prize for his writing on Standing Rock and
should
undercover journalism in North Dakota. His January 25, 2017,
his
entitled “White Supremacists’ Hit List of Small Towns” documents an
article
movement.
ongoing
the town of Leith’s victory against white supremacists, eleven
Since
across North Dakota made their hit list. e towns range from
towns
of 16 to nearly 7,000. Listed by names, pictures and real
populations
advertisements by Pioneer Little Europe North Dakota, a white
estate
operation welcoming Nazis, the Creativity Movement, Ku
supremacist
Klan, militants, white nationalists and racialists, the North Dakota
Klux
are the group’s next targets to become Aryan enclaves. Known
towns
Underwood, Carson, Kenmare, Washburn, Tioga, Newburg,
targets:
City, Antler, Sherwood, Landa and Leith. Operative concept:
Valley
Little Europes are identi ed as the “vanguard model for the
Pioneer
next form of a white community, a vessel for its cultural revival,”

to white supremacist Hamilton Michael Barrett, a prominent
according
and author of the operation. Operative goal: create “arks of
gure
for the white race, and prepare for RaHoWa, or racial holy
survival” 27 war.
a pretty tall order in the face of climate change.
at’s
Dakota represents a state of mind and a moment in history. One
North
for sure, the Native community is not going anywhere; in fact, it’s
thing’s
Another thing: We will all be drinking the same water.
growing.

The Seventh Generation
April 2016, with snow still on the ground, a small group of Standing Rock
In
members erected a tipi and lit a sacred re on Ladonna Bravebull
tribal
Allard’s land at the mouth of the Cannonball River.
e Sacred Stone Camp
founded. For months the camp remained small, made up mostly of
was
of the local community of Cannon Ball. e Dakota Access
members
had been proposed to cross just north of the reservation, a 570,000-
Pipeline
pipeline to carry that fracked oil.
barrel-a-day
July, a group of Standing Rock youth organized a prayer run to hand
In
petitions opposing the pipeline. ey rst ran from Cannon Ball to
deliver
Army Corps of Engineers Omaha District branch in Nebraska, then
the
on to Washington DC, over 2000 miles in all. e youth named
continued
campaign “Rezpect Our Water” and quickly gained the support of a
their
key celebrities that helped amplify their voices. In addition to the
few
of the black snake, there is a second prophecy held by many tribes
prophecy
reiterated in the nal vision of Lakota Chief Crazy Horse, that tells of a
and
that the seventh generation would rise up and join with those of other
time
to bring healing and unity to the world. ese courageous young
nations
announced their arrival on the world’s stage as the ful llment of that
people
As 23-year-old Terrell Iron Shell put it, “We’re the answers to our
prophecy.
prayers.” 28
ancestor’s
August 1, we nished the spiritual horse ride of our fourth annual Love
On
Not Oil tour in Northern Minnesota, with a celebration feast in our
Water
Rice Lake, on the White Earth Reservation. We rode and prayed
community,
our Dakota relatives for two weeks, along the route of the proposed
with
and Line 3 pipelines. e next day, we threw a party in Bemidji to
Sandpiper
the tour, with fabulous music, food and friends. As we drove away
conclude
the venue and watched the northern lights dance on the horizon, we
from
the phone call saying that the Sandpiper project was likely dead.
got
had just announced their purchase of 28% of the Dakota Access
Enbridge
Pipeline, with plans to terminate their joint venture partnership with the

anchor shipper, Marathon Petroleum. 29
Sandpiper’s
proposed Sandpiper would have carried 640,000 barrels a day of
e
oil out of the Bakken in North Dakota, weaving through the Ojibwe
fracked
of Northern Minnesota and through a vast aquatic ecosystem of
reservations
lakes, wetlands teeming with biodiversity and some of the largest
pristine
rice beds in the world. Enbridge said it was the only route that would
wild
And so for four years our people went to every single regulatory
work.
and, whether single mom, traditional rice harvester or tribal
hearing
said the same thing: Gaawiin, No. We prayed, we held
government,
and we rode our horses. We fought in the courts, in the media,
ceremonies,
the streets and on the land and water. And we were not alone, because
in
is not North Dakota, and a lot of non-Indian people love the
Minnesota
as much as we do. And we won.
water
was a historic victory, one that showed us how powerful we are when we
It
together and take a stand. Enbridge, the largest energy infrastructure
come
in North America, had planned to be long nished with
company
by then, but we stopped them. But it was also a bittersweet
construction
for although we won the battle, the war remained. e black snake is
victory,
hydra — cut o one head and two more will emerge.
a
headed west to team up with Energy Transfer Partners, which
Enbridge
not on the best nancial footing, to help get that oil out of the Bakken.
was
by four years of accountability in Minnesota, they changed
Frustrated
course to follow the path of least resistance.
ey thought that, as usual, no
was paying attention to North Dakota. And so, although our
one
in Anishinaabe Akiing still faced the expansion of the Alberta
communities
pipeline, a proposed new Line 3 pipeline in a brand new corridor,
Clipper
daily threat of a whole set of ancient crumbling pipelines already in the
the
and proposed nickel and copper mines that would poison
ground
we have le , we too headed west, to answer the call from the
everything
Stone Camp and stand with our Lakota and Dakota relatives.
Sacred
Lakota legal and regulatory objections, construction on the Dakota
Despite
Ppipeline had recently begun, in May 2016, a er an egregious rubber
Access
job by the states and the US Army Corps of Engineers, without tribal
stamp
consultation or meaningful environmental review.
e 1600 mile route
to snake through North and South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois, where it
began
to connect to a larger pipeline network with access to the re neries in
was

Cancer Alley and export markets via the East and Gulf Coasts. A
Louisiana’s
pipeline, Dakota Access would carry a proposed 570,000
30-inch-diameter
a day of fracked Bakken crude oil, crossing hundreds of water bodies
barrels
hundreds of historic and archaeological sites.
and
important but o en forgotten detail: the Dakota Access Ppipeline was
An
slated to cross the Missouri River just upstream of Bismarck. But
originally
order to avoid the predominantly white population — indeed, in response
in
concerns about proximity to their drinking water source — the company
to
the route south to Lake Oahe, just 500 feet from of the boundary of
moved
Standing Rock Reservation and just a mile above the tribe’s water intake
the
30 One cannot imagine a clearer or more egregious example of overt,
valves.
environmental racism.
intentional
late July, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, represented by Earthjustice,
In
a lawsuit in US District Court for the District of Columbia, against the
led
US Army Corps of Engineers. 31
e Army Corps has jurisdiction over all
waters in the country and must issue a permit each time a
navigable
pipeline is to cross one. Standing Rock claimed that the Army
proposed
Corps’ approval of
’s crossing of the Missouri River violated federal law
failing to uphold the trust responsibility to protect rights guaranteed to
by
Great Sioux Nation in the treaties — in this case, hunting, shing and
the
gathering rights. Standing Rock also
led an intervention at the United
in coordination with the International Indian Treaty Council.
Nations,
Chair David Archambault Jr. explained, “ e Environmental Protection
As
the Department of the Interior and the National Advisory Council
Agency,
Historic Preservation supported more protection of the tribe’s cultural
on
but the Corps of Engineers and Energy Transfer Partners turned a
heritage,
eye to our rights. e rst dra of the company’s assessment of the
blind
route through our treaty and ancestral lands did not even mention
planned
tribe.” 32 e Army Corps had approved the water crossing without even
our
conducting an environmental impact statement (
). Instead, they issued a
brief document that simply concluded a “ nding of no signi cant
very 33 A rubber stamp.
impact.”
is this possible? Well, through the usual loopholes. One of the main
How
of pushing these projects through is fragmentation — divide it up
strategies
that many di erent jurisdictions each look at their own small piece, such
so
no one is responsible for the whole thing and no one even seems to have
that

the power to say no.
e particular loophole used in this case takes
to the extreme. As they have done for many other pipelines,
fragmentation
Army Corps approved the 203 water crossings using a fast-track
the
called “Nationwide Permit No. 12,” a general permit process for the
process
Water Act and National Environmental Policy Act that grants
Clean
from environmental reviews for small construction projects with
exemption
impact. 34 e general permit program was intended for things like
minimal
ramps, mooring buoys and small recreational facilities. But by abusing
boat
program and arti cially treating the project as simply a collection of
that
of tiny, separate construction projects, the Corps avoided entirely
hundreds
transparent and thorough review process required by federal law.
the
September, Honor the Earth, the Indigenous Environmental Network
In
the Sierra Club sent a letter to the US Army Corps of Engineers, making
and
case and asking for a full environmental impact statement on the
this
Dakota Access Pipeline. at never happened.
proposed
wish I could say that what happened to Standing Rock was unusual, but it
I
not. Typically, what passes for “tribal consultation” is, at best, simply a
was
for the corporation to “get to yes.” Sometimes, it is just a letter sent to
way
tribe to inform them of the corporation’s plans. For me, consultation
the
doesn’t mean that. It’s just like sex: each party has a right to say no.
is is
in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
articulated
which sets the standard of “Free, Prior, and Informed Consent.”
Peoples,
state of North Dakota and the federal government say to the tribe,
e
you didn’t participate in our process!” But the tribe had voiced their
“Well
clearly and directly, at a tribal council meeting held on Sept. 30,
concerns
when and the ND Public Service Commission rst noti ed them
2014,
the new route. And frankly, I have participated in “the process.” I have
of
time and time again to work within the system. Even in Minnesota, a
tried
with at least the accouterments of a sensible regulatory structure, the
state
is thoroughly skewed against us. In North Dakota, the system is
system
screwed.
totally
came the desecration. In mid-August, Standing Rock Tribal Chair
en
Archambault II and Councilmember Dana Yellowfat were arrested by
Dave
police, a er charging onto a construction site when archaeological
state
were found.
remains
are laws to protect historic and sacred sites. On Friday, September 2,
ere

day before Labor Day weekend, Standing Rock submitted to the court
the
ndings of rare cultural sites, which include 27 graves, stone prayer
detailed
and other sacred artifacts directly in the path of the proposed pipeline.
rings
are at least 380 archeological sites that face desecration along the
ere
entire pipeline route. Early the next morning,
responded by bringing
construction crews and bulldozing the speci c areas described by
in
Rock in their ling. When protectors of the site entered the
Standing
area, private security guards attacked them with dogs and
construction
spray.
pepper
is demolition is devastating,” Tribal Chair Archambault said. “ ese
“
are the resting places of our ancestors. e ancient cairns and stone
grounds
rings there cannot be replaced. In one day, our sacred land has been
prayer
into hollow ground.” 35
turned
National Historic Preservation Act expressly prohibits the Corps from
e
the nal permit for the river crossing if it is shown that the company
issuing
destroyed or impacted potential historic sites along the
intentionally
path. But despite our e orts to hold them accountable, the Corps
pipeline’s
a blind eye.
turned
in Iowa, as the lawsuit of three Iowa farmers moved forward
Meanwhile,
the pipeline company and the Iowa Utilities Board attempting to
against
the loss of their land through eminent domain, three res erupted
prevent
heavy damage to equipment and an estimated $2 million in
causing
Investigators suspected arson. 36
damages.
oil companies are a lot like Custer, no idea what they’re walking into.
ese
clearly thought they’d bought a slam-dunk pipeline. ey were wrong.
ey

The Rise of the Water Protector
Protectors. ey came from the four directions. ey came from the
Water
ey came from the mountain they stood and protected. ey came
stars.
from the depths of the beautiful ocean.
ey came from the corn pollen
and sage they had gathered in their hands.
ey came wounded from
generations of pain.
ey came bearing gi s of strength, tears, and song.
is is where they stood in the four directions.
—Inyan Wakankagapi Wakpa, Sara Juanita Jumping Eagle
simply do not know what brought about the rise of the Water Protector.
We
our people have been protecting water since time immemorial, and we
Yes,
continue to do so as long as we live. But something special happened at
will
Rock in 2016 — a ful llment of prophecy, the blossoming of a
Standing
social movement led by Indigenous Peoples and rooted in
historic
teachings, but o ering a home to anyone, of any race or culture,
Indigenous
to ght for the water. Water Protectors are everywhere.
willing
of all places, why Standing Rock? We do not know. I do not say that to
But
in any way, the courage of LaDonna and Joye Braun and the
diminish,
people who founded the Sacred Stone Camp, or the power of those
young
youth’s 2000 mile run to Washington DC. With no material
Lakota
beyond their own willingness to take a stand in the face of
resources
odds, they started a movement. All alone, they stuck their necks
impossible
to demand clean water and defend their sacred sites. And they ended up
out
the rst gathering of the Oceti Sakowin since the Battle of the
convening
Grass in 1876. ey inspired the largest gathering of North
Greasy
American tribes in modern history.
ey started the most powerful and
confrontation of colonial and corporate resource extraction in recent
direct
right in the heart of America’s most backward petro-state.
memory,
why here? Why now? Of all the terrible projects constantly being
But
and resisted across Indian Country, why was Dakota Access the
proposed
one that ignited a movement?
e answer, most will say, is in the stars and
with the greatest of mysteries.

st exposure to the American Indian Movement was at 17. Having
My
my rst year at Harvard, I went to work for the International Indian
nished
Council in researching natural resource exploitation on Indigenous
Treaty
at was in l977. e International Indian Treaty Council had just
lands.
in 1974. In 1977, the Council held their meeting, prior to the rst
formed
Nations Conference on Discrimination against Indigenous Peoples,
United
Wakpala on the Standing Rock Reservation. Indeed, the modern political
at
of the American Indian Movement was formed at Standing Rock,
arm
the leadership of the Lakota traditional Chiefs of the Oceti
following
and the Lakota Treaty Council, who had strong convictions and
Sakowin
spiritual guidance. A er all, the Lakota had rejected the proposed
stronger
Claims Commission settlement of $105 million for the Black Hills of
Indian
Dakota, reminding the US that the Black Hills were not for sale. As
South
interest on the account increased (it’s over $1 billion now), the Lakota
the
to the United States with a bill, telling Congress that the only
returned
for land is land. Called the Bradley Bill (introduced by former
compensation
Jersey Senator Bill Bradley), the bill called for the transfer of 1.3 million
New
of Black Hills National Forest land to the Great Sioux Nation, lands
acres
excluded Mount Rushmore National Memorial, private lands,
that
and other park lands. Interest from the judgment award
municipalities
be distributed amongst the tribes as compensation for the loss of use
would
the land; the principal would remain in the trust fund. Appropriations
of
be provided to assist the Sioux Nation in managing the returned
would 37 lands.
this is to say that, as astonishing as it is, some people still have integrity
All
moral convictions that remind them that money is not God, and that a
and
wellspring, like the Black Hills or the Missouri River, is in fact
spiritual
at said, even without looking back to the 70s and the
sustaining.
Indian Movement, the constant struggle to survive as Indigenous
American
in a place as repressive as the Dakotas meant endless legal cases,
Nations
defense of children and human rights — and always ghting to
advocacy,
our water. e emergence of stronger sovereign governance
protect
and the increasing aggression of late stage extractive capitalism
structures
more organizing, that is, tireless organizing which laid the
meant
for more Indigenous resistance — from Idle No More and
groundwork
opposition to extraction in the Bakken, to tribal resistance to the
grassroots

Here and Now
Why
that proposed Keystone XL pipeline, for example.
Consider
Are the Water Protectors?
Who
the summer, it was mostly local folks from Cannonball and
roughout
Keystone XL pipeline.
proposed
scientists and historians can always identify the conditions that
Social
it possible — the long history of oppression that eventually reached a
made
point, the vision and bravery and leadership that paved the way —
tipping
there remains a mysterious spark that eludes all attempts at analysis.
but
no exactness in the re of a social movement. We hope that people
ere’s
will
nd their power, their understanding and the strength of collective
as it is there that change is made. But what is it that brings about a
action,
James Cameron, director of Avatar, would say that righteous
moment?
and hope are the tipping point, when people come together and
indignation
— like the Zapatista did — “Enough.” Or take to becoming magical
say
and rage against the machine. We can make plans, we can develop
beings
strategies and workplans, but there are forces at play much larger than
goals,
ourselves, and sometimes that spark comes when we least expect it.
e threats
by the two pipelines to the environment, public health and tribal and
posed
rights are strikingly similar. But before it ever received permits,
human
a seven-year, multi-million-dollar campaign of opposition led by some
saw
the largest environmental nonpro ts in the world, with regular media
of
attention in major international outlets.
e advocacy campaign to stop
Access — well, there wasn’t one. It passed largely under the radar.
Dakota
in early August, as the youth ran to DC and a dozen people from
Even
Stone set up a tipi on the North Dakota capitol lawn during a special
Sacred
session, many assumed the pipeline to be a done deal. It seemed it
legislative
simply end up like the 16 other crude oil pipelines already operating
would
North Dakota. 38 But just a few weeks later, a thousand people from across
in
continent were camped at river’s edge, many of them prepared to
the
ce everything to keep that pipe out of the ground. A people had been
sacri
awakened. A historic siege had begun.
communities on the Standing Rock Reservation holding it down at
nearby
Sacred Stone Camp. When construction began in early August, just days
the

er the youth runners reached DC, people from Sacred Stone started
a
vehicles from entering the nearby Cannonball Ranch. ey were
blocking
arrested. Upon rumor that
had encountered archaeological artifacts,
Rock Tribal Chair Dave Archambault II and Councilmember Dana
Standing
were arrested while attempting to push through the police line to
Yellowfat
39 Each day the confrontation escalated, and each day more and
intervene.
people showed up, mostly from Standing Rock, Cheyenne River,
more
Pine Ridge and other Lakota and Dakota reservations. But many
Rosebud,
tribes from across the continent were soon represented, and plenty of
other
allies answered the call to support as well. Soon, LaDonna’s land
non-Native
couldn’t t another tipi or tent, so new arrivals were sent to camp on
simply
adjacent federal land, just on the other side of the Cannonball River.
the
they just kept coming. Something magical was happening. Prayers
And
being answered. Whole families were showing up, with Elders,
were
horses. ere was excitement in the air. A paddle demonstration
children,
organized and the Cannonball River was covered in canoes all the way
was
the con uence with the Missouri. At night, hundreds of camp res lit up
to
sky across the prairie. It became clear that the “Over ow Camp” had in
the
become the setting for the rst gathering of the Oceti Sakowin, the
fact
Seven Council Fires, in 140 years.
us was born the Oceti Sakowin Camp.
within it, dozens of other smaller camps soon emerged — Rosebud
And
Red Warrior Camp, Two-Spirit Camp. Wild Oglala, Ponca, Yankton.
Camp,
whole tribal universe.
A
really are no words to describe what that space meant for people, the
ere
power in it. If you were there, you understand.
at is really all we can say.
me, it was in the camps at Standing Rock that we remembered what it
To
like to be free. We remembered what it was like to create a village of
feels
of people, a powerful Indigenous space that welcomed people of
thousands
di erent colors and nations. And we remembered what it feels like to
all
the infrastructure we need to care for ourselves entirely outside the
create
money economy — to feed and clothe our people, to have stable
colonized
and quality medical care for everyone, to have control of our
housing
upbringing, to practice our spirituality freely and share our stories
children’s
Every single night, all through the night, the drums would echo
unafraid.
across the plains — the heartbeat of Mother Earth — and the singers
out
would pour every bit of themselves into those songs, their ancestors owing

them as they cried out to future generations that we were all there
through
protect. I was so proud to be a part of that moment. Everyone was.
to

came from the far corners of the world. Many gave up their jobs,
People
houses, even their relationships back home. ey came with the shirts
their
their back and found a place in the movement. Some felt called to the
on
lines, others helped cook and wash dishes, cared for children, chopped
front
winterized shelters or supported the legal defense of those
rewood,
e Standing Rock Medic and Healer Council was sta ed by top-
arrested.
professional herbalists, doctors, nurses and other medical
notch
from around the world, but drawing on generations of plant
practitioners
held by Linda Black Elk and other Indigenous leaders. Families
wisdom
child care, and Sacred Stone Camp built a beautiful school. People
organized
what was going on and said, “You know, I want to be the person that I’m
saw
to be. I’m going to go to Standing Rock to nd myself.” And that’s
supposed
we did; we found ourselves at Standing Rock.
what
siege escalated quickly, with the State of North Dakota declaring a
e
State of Emergency in order to fund their brutal response, including setting

a military style checkpoint on the highway between Bismarck and the
up
as a form of economic sanction against the tribe, which relies on
reservation
casino revenue to survive.
e rst lockdown actions came at the end of
when two Lakota Water Protectors — one from Standing Rock and
August
from Rosebud — locked their bodies to heavy equipment and stopped
one
for the day as Morton County Sheri s spent more than six
construction
clumsily and recklessly trying to extract them. In early September, the
hours
companies intentionally desecrated the sacred sites disclosed by the
pipeline
archaeologist in a legal ling the day before. When Water Protectors
tribe’s
to intervene, private security guards attacked them with dogs, injuring
tried
including one pregnant woman. A few days later, the Canoe Families
several,
the Salish Sea and across the Paci c Northwest paddled down the
from
to the camps — some 18 canoes in all, massive ocean-going vessels
Missouri
in a majestic display of pride and solidarity. e journey ful lled a vision
—
the late Tribal Canoe Journey Elder Tom Heidlebaugh had over 20 years
that
in which he saw the canoe people and the horse people come together at
ago
mighty river to join forces to protect the earth.
a
of such visions and prophecies were not uncommon, and tribal
Stories
became almost a daily occurrence, as representatives from
delegations
all over the world were received at the sacred re in the Oceti Camp,
nations
gi s, words of support and resolutions of solidarity from their tribal
bearing
By fall, the main dirt road in camp was lined with hundreds of
councils.
ags. Many came in full regalia and o ered their traditional songs and
tribal
ere was a spirit of celebration, reverence and determination. e
dances.
people of Northern Russia and Scandinavia sent a delegation. e
Sami
community of Sarayaku, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, sent a
Kichwa
in ful llment of the ancient Incan prophecy of the Eagle and the
delegation,
in which the Indigenous Peoples of North America and South
Condor,
come together and the Earth awakens. Delegations also arrived
America
non-Native liberation movements — the Palestine Youth Movement,
from
Lives Matter — and from faith communities of countless di erent
Black
religions and denominations.
e Veterans came, in an epic show of
and force, and found their place in a moment of struggle
commitment
enemies foreign and domestic. ousands of people came to
against
Standing Rock, thousands of Water Protectors.
ey came from everywhere,
from every economic sector; clergy, veterans, school children, families,

Native people from all these categories, elected o
cials and many more.
ey came because they wanted to protect the water.
ey came because
Earth needs us.
Mother
sent semi loads of logs for rewood, endless bu alo meat, dried
Tribes
salmon, plant medicines.
e food was good, our spirits and prayers
For all of us it was a magical place to be, to have an understanding
renewed.
a battle on the ground, to see yourself in history. Walking through camp or
of
Rock’s Prairie Knights Casino (that’s where you could get a hot
Standing
if you had a friend) was like time traveling. People who had known
shower
other for four or more decades, veterans of other Indian Wars, veterans
each
social justice struggles, would meet and smile, greet each other and be
of
pleased that we were in this moment in time.
en we would look and see
children and our future. We were together. We were epic, and we still
our
are.
the battle continued and the state’s militarized response escalated,
As
continued to build, beyond what anyone imagined was possible.
energy
faced an outrageous militarized and violent response from North
ey
law enforcement with knowledge that millions all over the world
Dakota
watching and supporting us. In addition to the hundreds of tribes
were
resolutions in support, labor unions started to follow suit, then
passing
cities across the US — Los Angeles, Seattle, Cleveland, Minneapolis,
major
St. Louis, Nashville and more. In mid-November, organizers in the
Portland,
called for a National Day of Action, and demonstrations were
camps
online in over 300 cities across the world, including several
registered
numbering in the thousands.
protests
yet, on some level it was a moment we all knew had been coming, in
And
the violence and perversion of our economic system would start to
which
It was a moment of extreme corporate rights and extreme racism
unravel.
by courage, prayers and resolve. It was remarkable what our
confronted
were able to do. We learned that when we work together, we can
people
change, that when we stand together, we can nd our courage. For
make
of us, Standing Rock was a Selma Moment where all of our mettle and
many
was tested as we faced down large multinational corporations
determination
lots of guns and said: “We’re still standing.” A moment when we all
with
woke up and said, “
is is when we become the ancestors our descendants
will be proud of.”

not that we were free
It’s
really not
on a clear day
But
could see what
we
looked like
freedom
Tilsen 40
—Mark
The Siege at River’s Edge
I did not experience these confrontations with police rsthand, but have
Note:
my best to reconstruct the events based on descriptions from my relatives
done
did. who
A small procession of women walks slowly, humbly, towards a pink
Dawn.
and orange sky.
ey carry a copper vessel to the bank of the Cannonball
o er prayers and tobacco and sing songs for the water, as they do each
River,
It is October 27, 2016, a day that will be remembered for many
morning.
to come.
generations
four days, Water Protectors have maintained blockades on the two
For
connecting the camp (and the reservation) to the rest of North
roads
A small radio tower has been erected to facilitate communication
Dakota.
outposts. And a new encampment has blossomed on the
between
Ranch, the private land adjacent to the Army Corps’ land where
Cannonball
the Oceti Sakowin camp is located.
e 1851 Treaty Camp, as it has come to
called, is located directly in the path of the pipeline, just across the
be
from the sacred ground that was intentionally desecrated in early
highway
on the day of the dog attacks. It is called the Treaty Camp
September
this land was never ceded to the US government, and in fact it was
because
preserved as sovereign territory of the Oceti Sakowin by the Fort
explicitly
Treaties of 1851 and 1867.
Laramie
autumn deepens, this escalation in tactics has birthed a new sense of
As
Water Protectors have gone on the o ensive. e resistance has
power.
beyond questions of environmental racism and cultural preservation,
moved
an assertion of fundamental rights to the land, a questioning of settlement
to

People have literally put their physical bodies in the way of
itself.
e point is not just to shed light on the fact that the state is
colonization.
of trespass, that the treaties have been consistently violated for the
guilty
of corporate resource extraction ever since their signing. e idea
purposes
to take the land back.
is
absurd as North Dakota’s hyper-militarized response to unarmed
As
on prayer walks has been, to some extent the two sides have been
people
on this deeper level all along. Why else would hand drums
communicating
sage smudges be met so consistently with tanks, assault ri es and
and
weapons? e deployment of police forces to protect the oil and
chemical
barons and keep money owing out of the ground is nothing new, but
gas
case has been di erent — Water Protectors have faced a uni ed, well-
this
military force of oil industry personnel, local, state and federal
coordinated
enforcement, federal intelligence agencies, the National Guard and
law
from unlicensed paramilitary organizations fresh from the war
mercenaries
of Iraq and Afghanistan. In many cases, the line between that o cial
zones
and everyday white supremacist North Dakotan vigilantes has
structure
blurry to say the least. You see, the memory of genocidal colonial
been
is fresh here; in fact it is still happening, and North Dakota seems
violence
understand very well a fact that much of the rest of America has managed
to
forget — that its entire economy and way of life is predicated on the the
to
Indigenous lands.
of
is why they have come for the Water Protectors on this beautiful fall
is
wielding all their toys. A battalion of cops decked out with riot gear and
day,
tactical equipment, armored tanks and snipers on the
state-of-the-art
come to clear out a few handfuls of tipis and tents. ere are long
hillside,
of tense confrontation as the Water Protectors gather to face the
moments
line. Eventually, a er an extended performance of Orwellian police
police
and threats over the loudspeaker, that line advances, and the Water
warnings
are pushed backward. Some are snatched to the other side and
Protectors
Some are snatched back. As a young woman is seized by police and
arrested.
to the ground, live gunshots are red. Cops with assault ri es slash
wrestled
canvas walls of tipis and drag half-naked Elders out of their sweat lodges.
the
are beaten with batons and thrown to the ground. Pepper spray ies
Bodies
the gallon. e sound cannon (long range acoustical device, or )
by
across the plains. Police shoot tasers, rubber bullets and bean bag
echoes

ounds.
is disagreement among the Water Protectors about whether to stand
ere
retreat — barricades are built, then dismantled, then built again. One is
or
on re. Vehicles and trailers are placed in the path of the police, and
set
dive under them and lock their necks to the steel. New tipis are
people
at lightning speed, hay bales are dragged and logs rolled frantically
erected
a desperate attempt to slow things down. But the police line keeps
in
and the Water Protectors lose inch a er painful inch. Suddenly,
advancing,
the east, the bu alo herd is charging, ying over the hills in a cloud of
to
e Water Protectors cheer and war whoop. A group of young Lakota
dust.
horse riders has herded them towards the con ict, and cops on
s have
pursuit, ring rubber bullets at the riders in full gallop.
given
the midst of all the chaos, a private security worker races his truck
In
the road full of people, with an assault ri e visible through the
through
Water Protectors quickly hop in a vehicle and ram the truck o the
window.
He jumps out and is chased into a backwater of the river, standing
road.
deep as he points the assault ri e at the Water Protectors, nger on the
waist
Eventually he gives up the weapon to a Bureau of Indian A airs cop.
trigger.
the blockade of the other main access road has been lit on re.
Meanwhile,
crude pile of logs and tires blazes, and a vehicle has been ipped upside
A
into the ames, barring a second unit of police from anking the
down
Protectors in retreat. People will go to prison for this. On the side of
Water
road near the burning vehicle, a few small bodies huddle around a pan
the
of sizzling grease, making frybread.
e tanks and riot cops are just beyond
crest of the hill.
the
the police reach camp, Water Protectors retreat to what will later
Before
become known as “Backwater Bridge.”
ere, in a move of questionable
they build a massive blockade, and as darkness approaches they set
strategy,
on re, facing o with police all through the night. In the morning, two
it
military trucks will have been burned, and their charred frames
heavy-duty
remain on the bridge dressed in gra ti for weeks, a new obstacle
will
blocking tra
c between camp and the pipeline route, as well as between the
and the outside world. Over 140 Water Protectors will wake up
reservation
jail. in
Militarization

there is a turning point in the story of o resistance, this is it —
If
27, the raid of the Treaty Camp. e weeks leading up to it had seen
October
steady escalation on the part of law enforcement in response to relentless
a
actions by Water Protectors, shutting down work sites day in and day
direct
In addition to consistent lockdowns, and daily marches and prayer
out.
Water Protectors also led Toxic Tours, where caravans of dozens of
walks,
would gather at one of the camp’s exits and proceed to active
cars
sites to stop work. O en these actions would result in mass
construction
with police actively targeting journalists and medics, in violation of
arrests,
humanitarian law. Just days before, on October 22, over 140
international
were suddenly arrested a er walking many miles down the pipeline
people
followed by police, singing songs and burning sage.
corridor,
enforcement assembled an army over 1300 strong, drawing from
Law
across North Dakota and nine other states, through what is called
counties
Emergency Management Assistance Compact, an interstate agreement
the
to facilitate the sharing of resources for natural disaster relief.
intended
own Hennepin County, home to Minneapolis, sent many
Minnesota’s
cers, and they proved to be some of the most brutal.
o
Armed with mine-resistant armored personnel carriers (
), long range
devices, rubber bullets, mace, tear gas, water cannons, bean bag
acoustic
concussion grenades and razor wire, and with the full force of the
guns,
government behind them, law enforcement injured, tormented,
federal
and humiliated hundreds of Water Protectors. Many of those
taunted
were stripped and cavity searched and placed in dog kennels in
arrested
cold conditions, with numbers written on their arms with
freezing
marker. Some had hoods placed over their heads, a practice
permanent
considered torture.
generally
was not until months later, thanks in large part to leaked documents and
It
excellent investigative journalism of e Intercept, 41 that we fully
the
the degree to which this multi-agency army of cops, feds, private
appreciated
and oil men was actually coordinated by the private paramilitary
security
TigerSwan. Folks had grown accustomed, in the tragic way that
group
get used to trauma, to the daily low-level ights of privately owned
humans
planes and helicopters circling over the camp, despite the “noy
surveillance
zone” declared by the . We knew they were using hi-tech equipment
to jam our cell phones, folks had found bugging devices in their hotel rooms

Promises
Empty
er the raid of the Treaty Camp came something of a stalemate, North
A
the casino, and we assumed there were in ltrators among us. But we did
at
know that the hyper-militarized police program was being led by a
not
“war on terror” defense contractor hired by a Fortune 500 oil
private
comparing us to “jihadist insurgents” in order to sell the rural
company,
on the need for “aggressive intelligence preparation of the battle eld.”
cops
did we appreciate the depth of the so-called “counter-terrorism
Nor
they led, with a level of surveillance, in ltration and provocation
program”
seen in Indian Country since the ’s of the 1970s, an
not
to destroy the American Indian Movement, the Black Panthers and
attempt
revolutionary groups, by any means necessary.
other
le the burned trucks on Backwater Bridge for many weeks,
Dakota
that the bridge itself might be structurally compromised. But
claiming
everyone knew the bridge was ne.
e truth was that the images of the
trucks provided media cover for their brutality, plus they got a free
burned
out of the deal. e blockage of the highway connecting Bismarck
roadblock
the Standing Rock Reservation was absolutely critical to their strategy, a
to
war tactic of restricting freedom of movement and su ocating the
classic
enemy economically.
e tribe lost millions in casino revenue, its main
of income. Meanwhile, construction could proceed on the
source
Ranch and Water Protectors had no way of accessing it — they
Cannonball
trapped in camp. Life went on, direct actions continued, and the
were
movement of solidarity ourished, but the tribe’s legal
international
were gaining no traction, and winter was on its way.
challenges
early November, Water Protectors used canoes and a makeshi oating
In
to cross backwater creeks and attempt to occupy a small hill north of
bridge
e hill, which came to be known as “Turtle Island,” is a sacred burial
camp.
home to the remains of several children and well-known local
ground,
women. ey climbed the hill to protect the sacred site, but law
Lakota
attacked with tear gas and pepper spray from atop the hill and
enforcement
motorized boats, destroying the bridges. So people swam across, in ice
from
water, only to emerge shivering at the base of the hill and be doused
cold
pepper spray. On that exact same day, President Obama spoke about
with
the situation publicly for one of the rst times, making vague statements

a possible reroute but saying “we are gonna let this play out for a few
about
weeks.” No reroute considerations were announced, he did not
more
to stop the violence, and his federal agencies continued to work
intervene
with TigerSwan and North Dakota cops to repress the resistance.
closely
had visited Standing Rock personally in 2014, becoming only the
Obama
US president to ever visit a reservation, and as he kissed the babies he
third
the tribe he would be “a president who honors our sacred trust and who
told
your sovereignty.” More empty promises.
respects
than a week a er the stando at Turtle Island, Donald Trump was
Less
as the 45th president of the United States.
elected
November 20, Water Protectors tried to clear the trucks o the bridge.
On
ensued was one of the most dangerous and terrifying clashes of the
What
campaign, the Battle of Backwater Bridge. Law enforcement blasted
entire
Protectors with water cannons in freezing temperatures for nearly
Water
eight hours, causing widespread hypothermia.
ey sprayed mace and red
gas and rubber bullets, o en aiming for the groin and the face.
tear
were injured, including multiple fractured bones, one grand mal
Hundreds
one permanent eye injury, severe lacerations, blunt traumas and
seizure,
bleeding. Twenty-one-year-old Sophia Wilansky’s arm was blown
internal
by a concussion grenade. Linda Black Elk, matriarch of the Standing
apart
Medic and Healer Council, said, “We are 100% con dent that if our
Rock
medics and the Standing Rock
had not been there … local law
would have deaths on their hands.”
enforcement
weeks later, on December 4, as a group of thousands of US military
Two
arrived at Standing Rock to stand in solidarity with the Water
veterans
with talk of marching in formation to overtake the drill pad, the
Protectors,
Corps of Engineers announced a delay in granting the essential
Army
for to drill under the Missouri River, with plans to rst
easement
an environmental impact statement to “evaluate reasonable route
conduct
We all wondered, had the Obama administration nally
alternatives.”
listened? Some celebrated, cautiously.
en the sun set and the oodlights
on the hill overlooking the camps. Snow dri ed down onto the
remained
wire of the walled fortress surrounding the drill pad. e national
barbed
police and armored vehicles stayed in place. Nothing changed.
guardsmen,
Transfer Partners described the decision as a “purely political
Energy
action” written in obvious “Washington code” and consistent with the

Filth of North Dakota
The
January of 2017, a newly elected Governor Burgum worked with North
In
handling of the situation for the previous four months —
administration’s
intention to delay a decision in this matter until President Obama is
“their
out of o
ce.” 42 Sadly, their take on the situation was one of the most
accurate.
is uent in the language of death, destruction and lies, and at
moment when President Obama asked Native people to love him even
that
er his government had once again brutalized our grandmas and our
a
children,
understood him perfectly. He was simply delaying a crisis and
kicking the can to Donald Trump.
authorities to peddle a story to the media about the feces and
Dakota
runo into the river from the Oceti Sakowin Camp, requiring their
garbage
attention as a public health risk. 43 Rather ironic, since the state
immediate
ago removed all sanitation support to the thousands of people who
long
to live in the l4th largest city in the state of North Dakota. Forced out
came
thousands of pounds of food was bulldozed and tossed by federal
midwinter,
stores for a winter camp that might have gone to people, tents,
authorities,
the whole is gone, along with strawbale structures, greenhouses and
tipis,
more. All of this to clean up a er “protestors.”
e spin continued in North
corporate fed media. As Dr. Jumping Eagle explained in a
Dakota’s
post:
FaceBook
biased media use this as opportunity to talk smack once again.
Racist
empty tents and cardboard can be recycled, etc.… benzene, oil,
Some
other chemicals in the water cannot be removed. So … when it
and
to trash and waste, I will take some jacked up tarps any day, over
comes
years of contaminated water from oil pipeline spills and frack
50–100
contamination. It’s too bad that Morton County doesn’t look in
waste
own trash — maybe they would nd their integrity, honesty, and
their
buried in there somewhere. ey likely burned them while
humanity
were busy taking sel es with half naked freezing Water Protectors
they
cages in the background ala Guantanamo Bay and Auschwitz.
in
be honest. North Dakota does not care about garbage. Nor pollution.
Let’s
fact, in 2015, the state decided that instead of protecting citizens from the
In
radioactive waste from fracking, they would just increase the recommended

Those Pipeline Spills
About
January 2016, more than 100,900 gallons of crude oil, waste oil, bio
Since
allowance of radiation allowed in the state from 5 picocuries per gram
daily
50 picocuries per gram. 44 In Orwellian terms, “Technically Enhanced
to
Occurring Radioactive Materials” is really just a word for fracking
Naturally
Let me remind Governor Burgum, that at no point has radiation
wastes.
safer for your citizens.
become
just the beginning of the garbage insanity. Morton County sprayed a
at’s
of unknown toxins onto the Water Protectors — from antifreeze-laden
lot
cannons, to mace — which then ended up in the river.
water
then there’s David Meyers, a “rancher” who purchased 40,000 pounds
And
Rozol, a prairie dog poison that causes animals to bleed to death, for use
of
land adjoining the Missouri River. An Environmental Protection
on
investigation determined that the Rozol poison had been
Agency–led
distributed across more than 5,400 acres on both the Cannonball
illegally
and the Wilder ranches. As the investigation noted, instead of
Ranch
applied into the prairie dog burrows, the bright blue poison pellets
being
broadcast on the ground. Dead prairie dogs were le where they died
were
of being expeditiously removed to protect other wildlife. Six dead
instead
were found in April, and dead bison were also found as recently as
eagles
documents said. According to the report, Meyer did not have
August,
pesticide certi cation to apply the Rozol. Meyer was given probation
proper
return for a timely guilty plea, $58,000 in restitution fees and a $50,000
in 45 ne.
you were worried, Meyer’s had no problem paying those fees. Six
Lest
a er he poisoned the land, Meyer sold the Cannonball Ranch to
months
Transfer Partners for a reported $18 million. 46 Nice ranching. And,
Energy
some garbage that will not be easy to clean up.
that’s
natural gas and brine were spilled in North Dakota and surrounding
solids,
according to the North Dakota Department of Health records. It’s
areas,
a weekly asco. Approximately 50,000 gallons of slaked lime solids
almost
into the Missouri River in June causing unknown impacts.
slid
companies are ever ned, in a North Dakota regulatory system that
Few
to be controlled by oil companies. According to the Bismarck
appears
Tribune, in early 2016, the Commission reviewed six outstanding spill cases

with nes totaling $600,000. 47 As journalist Chris Hagen writes,
past spills are still being cleaned up around the state, such
Additionally,
the Tesoro Corp. spill of 2013, the Energy and the Oasis
as
Inc. spills of 2014 and 2015, according to Bill Suess, Spill
Petroleum
Program manager of North Dakota Department of
Investigation
Spills occur on a daily basis, Suess said, the cleanup is costly,
Health.
companies are rarely ned. “Not everyone gets ned,” Suess said.
and
“Usually we hold o as long as we can on the
nes because it is a
motivator to get them cleaning it up.” 48
2015 and 2016, North Dakota Industrial Commission proposed a total
In
$4,525,000 in penalties, collecting a paltry $125,976. 49 So, let us talk about
of
North Dakota.
garbage
North Dakota cheered the completion of the pipeline, the Trump
As
Administration buried an Interior memorandum which rea
rmed the
of the permit. A er all, if the pipeline was not good enough for the
denial
supply of Bismarck, why would it be good enough for the water supply
water
Standing Rock?
of
things change but a lot do not. While the Water Protector clearances
Some
out by the Burgum administration were portrayed as being in the
carried
of public health, there’s something pretty egregious about destroying
interest
and housing in the middle of winter. LaDonna Brave Bull Allard
food
us of the Whitestone Massacre, where General Sully, not unlike the
reminds
National Guard, Morton County and
cops, destroyed the food of a
people.
to historical sources, Sully ordered all the Indian property
According
abandoned in the camp to be burned.
is included 300 tipis and 400,000 to
pounds of dried bu alo meat, the winter supplies of the Indians and
500,000
product of 1,000 butchered bu alo. 50 Some things don’t change much.
the
can’t say it’s water under the bridge, at this point. I can say that North
I
Governor Burgum has a lot of work cut out for him to clean up the
Dakota
of the state. Not only the toxins of an oil industry, unregulated, but
garbage
toxins of human rights violations. is will be a challenge.
the
think North Dakota has violated the covenant with the Creator, and
I
of Nature. Filth is everywhere. It is time to come clean.
Rights

Art of Indigenous
The
Resistance
the machines tore into sacred ground on the horizon, Dakota artist
As
Rencountre created a statue. Not Afraid To Look sits on a blu
Charles
the Missouri River, directly above the site of the Sacred Stone
overlooking
at the mouth of the Cannonball River. Today, the statue is the only
Camp
that remains — the tents, the tipis, the barracks, the schools, the
thing
and inipis (sweat lodges) constructed during the o resistance
clinics
all been bulldozed.
have
is a traditional pipe carver, and the statue is modeled on what
Rencountre
called an “e gy pipe,” a smoking pipe originally carved in the l820s. e
is
one of which wound up in the collection of President Andrew Jackson,
pipe,
a small Native gure carved into the shank and facing the attached bowl,
has
depicts the face of a white man. e pipe had a name: Not Afraid To
which
at the White Man. “How much courage does it take to sit on the earth
Look
no weapons looking straight ahead into the eye of the storm with no
with
It is much like counting coup on an enemy in the sense that one only
fear?
to touch the enemy, not take his life. Touching the enemy with your
needs
with your gaze, is the highest capacity of honor, courage and
eyes,
he explains. 51
compassion,”

found Charles Rencountre and his rst Not Afraid To Look statue at the
I
for American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. e statue
Institute
large over us both, and his story was compelling — to take the gi s
loomed
from our ancestors and bring them into a modern medium.
collected
Rencountre’s great-great-great grandfather was a signatory of the 1851

of Fort Laramie, between the US government and the tribes of the
Treaty
Sioux Nation. As the o resistance blossomed in the late summer
Great
2016, he came to Standing Rock to build another Not Afraid To Look, this
of
on Ladonna Allard’s land overlooking the river.
time
Afraid To Look begins as a symbol from my Plains ancestors, who
Not
me that although we have faced genocide — we continue to
remind
in many good and surprising ways. We are here. And we are here
thrive
outsiders who tried to kill or erase us all. We are also changing.
despite
the human people face today is similar to what my ancestors
What
in the 19th century. Not Afraid To Look comes out of a living
faced
and worldview. It may remind human people to use the
cosmology
instilled within us to endure and face what seems
power
insurmountable.
e piece symbolizes our relationship when we human
connect with the earth because that is the lineage it comes from.
people
the earth has faced many forces evoked by fear, anger, delusion,
ough
denial by the human people, the earth endures and will endure.
and
people can do this too. ere is truth that when we listen we
Human
face things that look like hell realms and still nd ways that are
can
and valuable to us … we, as human beings, have the
meaningful
to overcome historical di erences, wounds and antipathies, to
capacity
together for what is sacred and what is our right to respect, to
work
protect, and to live, as part of its life. 52
will be more of these statues elsewhere, I assume. Rencountre and
ere
wife, Alicia Rencountre-Da Silva, want to build one here on the shores of
his
(Lake Superior), in New York and Washington DC, and in the
Gitchigami
alley” of Louisiana.
“cancer
artists, my wife and I have visions to place Not Afraid To Look in
As
that are in need … places where humanity is avoiding
places
to look at what is happening … Art creates a response
responsibility
builds community; that re ects and gives voice to those in need of
that
truths — and it is our way to move forward. We see art as a
its
and a gesture within and from a community that begins a
relationship
process for healing of that which has been unheard and denied. 53
e o resistance at Standing Rock brought together some of the best

and brightest Native artists and compelled them to create.
e result was no
than a renaissance of Indigenous resistance art in a multitude of
less
erent media, from tattoos to poetry and everything in between. New t-
di
banners and murals abounded in the camp, with new artists
shirts,
silk screens on site, in a time of wearable art everywhere. And
producing
er the siege had ended, the ood of creativity and expression that began at
a
Rock spread across the continent, breathing life into other
Standing
and struggles while processing the emotions and trauma, the
campaigns
and defeats, of the history that had just been made on river’s edge.
victories
Standing Rock it grows.
From
could, of course, never name them all — but here is a short sample of
I
of the incredible work inspired and ampli ed by the movement: the
some
Rock underbird Tattoo by Stephanie Big Eagle; poster art by
Standing
Moon; murals and music by Annie Humphrey; the roo op mural at
Jackie
Indian Community Housing Organization in Duluth, Minnesota,
American
Votan; hip hop from Nataani Means, Immortal Technique, Yaz Like Jaws,
by
and others; clothing line Obsidian, recently featured in Vogue
Tufawon
visual art from Isaac Murdoch and Christi Belcourt of the
magazine;
Collective; It Ain’t Over Until We’re Smoking on the Drill Pad, a
Onaman
of poetry by Mark Tilsen; Standing Strong, a book of photography of
book
o movement by Josue Rivas; Akicita: e Battle of Standing Rock, a
the
directed by Cody Lucich. Honor the Earth has also sponsored two years
lm
an exhibit called the Art of Indigenous Resistance, curated by Dine artist
of
Smith. It includes primarily paintings, giclees and fabric pieces, as
Kimberly
as mounted wheat paste murals. Smith explains the thinking that
well
guided the creation of the exhibit:
reservation areas where high rates of addiction, poverty, and loss of
In
threaten our way of life, we have to create ways to engage and
culture
our communities. Our mission is to create awareness for, and
upli
social and environmental issues, and to showcase empowering
support
indigenous art from across the country.
rough this indigenous lens,
want to show that indigenous self-expression is deeply embedded in
we
tradition and culture. Song, dance, storytelling, and prayer
indigenous
all done to honor Mother Earth and to heal. Our connections to
are
Earth through cultural practices have sustained us for
Mother

Art has power. Art has the ability to wake up the people.
millennia.
it, we can evoke emotion, tell stories, inspire and motivate, and
rough
channeled as a vehicle for issues of consciousness, it can become a
when
for meaningful change. People are working hard to make a shi
catalyst
and socially, and we must take this opportunity to show
politically
and remind our communities of how resilient we are. With a
solidarity
of art, music, and activism, we are taking this opportunity as
blending
people to step up, be innovative, support one another, and grow
young
into our roles. 54
too must be not afraid to look at the enemy or at our own weaknesses.
We
the beauty of art should be in the darkest and brightest of times both.
And

How The Dust Settles
January 18, 2017, the Standing Rock Tribal Council voted unanimously
On
close the camps and serve eviction notices. 55 ey had been telling people
to
go home ever since the Army Corps delayed the key river crossing permit
to
early December, but hundreds had ignored that request and persevered
in
a harsh winter. With blockage of the highway strangling the tribe
through
they nally canceled plans for a separate winter camp and
economically,
they would bring in law enforcement and equipment to clear the
announced
at the end of the month. eir repeated instructions to have faith in the
area
and the legal process were curious; for the past six weeks,
had been
taking control of the federal government.
literally
days a er the Army Corps’ decision in early December, former Texas
Just
Rick Perry resigned from the board of directors of Energy
Governor
Partners, parent company, and was named Trump’s rst
Transfer
for Secretary of Energy. 56 Trump also tapped three other friends of
choice
join his cabinet: Rex Tillerson, the of Exxon, one of the main
to
shippers of oil through
, as secretary of state; Wilbur Ross, the majority
shareholder of Navigator,
’s major export partner, as secretary of
commerce; and Gary Cohn,
of Goldman Sachs, a major nancer of
as director of the National Economic Council and chief economic
,
to the president. 57 On January 20, two days a er the tribe’s decision,
advisor
became the 45th president of the United States. Four days a er that,
Trump
signed an executive order directing the Army Corps to scrap the
he
Impact Statement and issue the permit to drill under the
Environmental
immediately. 58
river
Protectors made their last stand on top of a hill just outside of camp,
Water
the Backwater Bridge, on unceded treaty land owned by .
overlooking
Child Camp was created in honor of Crazy Horse, who had founded
Last
warrior society of the same name. On February 1, a highly militarized
the
force once again raided the camp, tearing down tipis, disrupting
police
and arresting 76 people. e Standing Rock Tribal Council sided
ceremonies

law enforcement and North Dakota’s corporate media in dismissing
with
arrested as “rogue protestors” acting outside the “original intent of the
those
Protectors.” 59 A week later, the Army Corps issued the nal permit.
Water
free to drill under the river.
was
North Dakota governor Doug Burgum issued an evacuation
Incoming
cra ing a tall tale about trash in the camps and saying, with painful
order,
that evacuation was necessary “to avoid an ecological disaster to the
irony,
River” in the spring. 60 e Standing Rock Tribal Council issued its
Missouri
trespass notice to Ladonna Allard, evicting the entire Sacred Stone
own
from her land on the reservation. Ladonna was shocked. Not only
Camp
the tribe supported the founding of the camp with a formal resolution,
had
also, she was unaware that some of her siblings had sold their portions
but
the family land back to the tribe many years ago, giving the tribe a
of
ownership of the parcel. On February 21 and 22, the Oceti Sakowin
majority
Camp was raided by
teams, riot cops, helicopters and tanks, arresting
50 people. Several structures were burned to the ground before they
nearly
be seized, and one Water Protector was trapped inside a burning
could
su ering third degree burns across her head and face. A few days
tarpie,
the entire Sacred Stone Camp was bulldozed to the ground. Along with
later,
straw bale school, the kitchen, greenhouses, composting toilets, tipis and
the
went countless memories and visions for a permanent cultural
wigwams,
where young people could come to live close to the land and learn
camp
language and history. is was not the ending that anyone had
their
Water Protectors were forced to remove, as thousands of our
imagined.
before. In less than a month, had nished construction on
ancestors
the entire pipeline and lled it with oil.
Searching for Justice
all was said and done, how did the dust settle from this historic event?
When
battle continues to this day in courtrooms across the country. Of the
e
of legal cases that came out of it, did anyone get justice?
hundreds
July 11, 2017, Water Protector Red Fawn Fallis was sentenced to 57
On
in federal prison, followed by three years of probation. 61 Originally
months
with the attempted murder of a police o cer, she ended up
charged
guilty to “civil disorder” and “possession of a rearm by a convicted
pleading
e feds dropped the main charge, “discharge of a rearm in a felony
felon.“

of violence.”
crime
the day before, President Trump had pardoned two Oregon cattlemen,
Just
and Steven Hammond, both convicted in 2012 of arson for the
Dwight
of destroying federal property. A good friend of Vice President
purposes
Mike Pence even gave them a ride home in his private jet. 62
e Hammonds’
had been the inspiration for Aamon and Ryan Bundy and their rightwing
case
militia’s armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in
in 2016, for which the Bundys were later tried and acquitted of all
Oregon
e system works di erently for Native people.
charges.
that “civil disorder” charge, for example. It’s a vague statute that is
Take
rarely used; in fact it is used almost exclusively to repress social
very
It was created in the late 1960s at the height of the Black Power,
movements.
Power and anti-war movements. It was used against members
Red
involved in the occupation of Wounded Knee.
is is not a coincidence. As
Baldwin said, “History is not past. It is the present.” Indigenous
James
movements in this country have a clear lineage, as does the
resistance
of those movements by the US government. In Red Fawn’s case,
repression
attorneys alleged that she red a gun while being arrested on October 27,
US
during the raid of the 1851 Treaty Camp. e gun was later revealed to
2016,
belonged to her boyfriend, Heath Harmon, from the Fort Berthold
have
who she met in the camps but turned out to be a paid
Reservation,
informant. He never revealed this fact to her, continuing his
undercover
even during visits to see her in jail — the truth came out only through
lies
investigative journalism of e Intercept. 63 Harmon’s uncle had been a
the
cer that fought alongside the , against , during the occupation
o
Wounded Knee, and then with the ’s Special Operations unit was
of
to every major Native con ict that happened in the US.” 64 Not
“detailed
that one of Harmon’s roles in the o camps was to con rm
surprising
the the presence of speci c members. Red Fawn, who he clearly
for
grew up in the American Indian Movement; her mother had
targeted,
start the Colorado chapter in the early 1970s. Red Fawn and her
helped
maintained her innocence, stating that she was forced to accept
supporters
plea deal because she could not receive a fair trial due to bias in the
the
Dakota jury pool and the prosecution’s withholding of evidence.
North
addition to Red Fawn, six other Water Protectors were charged at the
In
level, all of them Indigenous. Five were charged with “civil disorder”
federal

“use of re to commit a felony,” for their alleged role in the burning of
and
during the raid of the Treaty Camp: Michael Markus (Rattler),
barricades
White (Angry Bird), Michael Giron (Little Feather), Dion Ortiz and
James
Miller-Castillo. All of them accepted plea deals except Miller-
Brandon
who still has not been arraigned. Red Fawn and Rattler remain in
Castillo,
Little Feather, Dion Ortiz and Angry Bird are still under mandatory
prison.
supervision.
federal
Nastacio was one of the Water Protectors who stopped Kyle
Brennan
the private security worker who was chased into the river while
ompson,
an assault ri e at people during the raid of the Treaty Camp.
pointing
Nastacio likely saved lives, he was charged with federal-level
Although
terrorism charges. 65 ompson himself was never charged with a
felony
(neither was the man who pulled a gun on Water Protectors during a
crime
at the Mandan rail yard). Nastacio’s charges were eventually
demonstration
dropped a er
ompson himself did an interview expressing regret for his
and saying “It was just a miscommunication on both sides.” Two
actions
Water Protectors, Mike Fasig and Israel Hernandez, were charged with
other
level felonies for their role in de-escalating ompson. ey agreed to
state
diversions and, a er paying nes and doing community service,
pretrial
had their charges dismissed. 66
eventually
Reznicek and Ruby Montoya, two young women from the
Jessica
Stand” o camp in Iowa, were indicted in late 2019 on
“Mississippi
federal felony charges, a er publicly claiming responsibility for
multiple
the pipeline with acetylene torches and re, causing millions of
sabotaging
of damage. eir trial is scheduled for June 2020, and they each face
dollars
to 110 years in prison. 67
up
the state level, over 750 people were arrested, producing more than 800
At
criminal cases, with charges ranging from misdemeanor trespassing to
total
rioting. 68 Nearly 400 of those cases were thrown out, mostly for lack
felony
evidence. Only about 170 resulted in convictions, most of those through
of
agreements. Nearly 200 cases were resolved through pretrial diversion,
plea
the case is postponed and the charges eventually dismissed if the
where
meets certain conditions. Forty-two were acquitted at trial,
defendant
the judges’ refusal to move trials to a di erent part of the state that
despite
not been as saturated with biased media. A survey by the National Jury
had
Project found that about 80% of the potential jury pool in Mandan and

had already prejudged the Water Protector defendants as guilty,
Bismarck
it impossible to get a fair trial.
making
A Purple Heart for Sophia
then there is the case of Sophia Wilansky. Long a er the camps at
And
Rock were cleared and oil was already owing through the
Standing
I found myself on the Fourth of July at the Sisseton Dakota Pow
pipeline,
where everything that is important to me was popping … dancing,
Wow,
moccasin games and thousands of beautiful Native people. As is
rodeo,
at the opening, veterans and patriotism are honored. at is
customary,
I found Sophia Wilansky, being honored at the Sisseton Powwow, for
where
sacri ces she made protecting Mni Sose, the Missouri River. I would like
the
give her a purple heart.
to
Sophia Wilansky is someone that North Dakota would like to
Frankly,
A er all, when 21-year-old New Yorker Wilansky’s arm was blown
forget.
by a concussion grenade during the Battle of Backwater Bridge,
apart
County Sheri Kirchmeier suggested that the Water Protectors were
Morton
perpetrators. Her father, attorney Wayne Wilansky, di ered, “ e police
the
not do this by accident — it was an intentional act of throwing it directly
did
her.” As Wilansky’s father’s statement went viral, subsequent police reports
at
Wilansky’s arm was injured when a propane canister she was
stated
to throw exploded.
attempting
the hospital, police took her clothing and the shred of shrapnel removed
In
her arm. ey then convened a secretive grand jury and attempted to
from
the Water Protector that had driven her to the hospital. He
subpoena
that subpoena and refused to testify. Wilansky and her attorneys
resisted
for almost two years to get the evidence back, but the federal
tried
has refused, saying it is “needed for the ongoing investigation.”
government
November 2018, Wilansky sued Morton County for millions of dollars for
In
force, assault, negligence, emotional distress and defamation. 69 To
excessive
day, the government refuses to give up the evidence, and no one has
this
arrested or indicted in relation to her injury. 70
been
I saw Sophia at the pow wow, she had a big support system for her
When
and looked frail, but resolved. I gave her a small hug, introduced myself
arm
gave her a kiss on the forehead. I thanked her for her courage, and I
and
in awe and wonder at the Sisseton Dakota Powwow, full of
walked

joy and honor. I am always in awe of the Dakota people, perhaps
celebration,
of the most persecuted Native people in this country. ey received
some
wrath of General Sibley, were massacred by the Army, forced into prison
the
hung in the largest mass hanging in US history and expelled from
camps,
homelands with bounties on their heads. But there they were, honoring
their
Wilansky, fellow patriot to the land.
Sophia
long list of other civil lawsuits were led a er the camps at Standing
A
nally cleared. Two more were led against law enforcement for their
Rock
that same night during the Battle of Backwater Bridge, one by a
brutality
of nine Water Protectors who su ered injuries at the hands of police, 71
group
the other by Marcus Mitchell, a young Dine (Navajo) Water Protector
and
was shot in the eye by a beanbag round. Mitchell permanently lost
who
in his le eye and all other senses in parts of his face. His cervical
vision
was injured during a brutal arrest, and police later concealed his
spine
from family for days while they shackled him to a hospital
whereabouts
and interrogated him incessantly. 72 Both those cases are still pending.
gurney
members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and a reservation priest
Two
law enforcement and state o cials over the prolonged shutdown of the
sued
claiming it violated tribal members’ constitutional rights to travel,
highway,
pray and express themselves. ey also claim the highway closure
assemble,
a form of extortion against the tribe and an attempt to manipulate
was
coverage of the Water Protector camps. 73 at case is still pending.
media
Transfer Partners sued Greenpeace and other environmental
Energy
for racketeering and defamation, seeking $300 million in damages
groups
claiming that the entire o movement was concocted by “a
and
of putative not-for-pro ts and rogue eco-terrorist groups who
network
patterns of criminal activity and campaigns of misinformation to
employ
legitimate companies and industries with fabricated environmental
target
claims.” 74
at case, which was clearly nothing more than an intimidation
was thrown out in February 2019. 75
tactic,
mentioned previously, a North Dakota rancher named David Meyer
As
guilty to federal charges for killing six bald eagles through improper
pled
of a poison called Rozol. 76 Meyer was the owner of the Cannonball
use
the private land adjacent to the Oceti Sakowin camp, on which the
Ranch,
Treaty Camp was established and raided. In early 2016, just as the
1851
Sacred Stone Camp was rst being founded, Meyer spread over 40,000

of Rozol across 5400 acres of his ranch. Dead bu alo, bald eagles,
pounds
other wildlife were found on his ranch and on the reservation nearby. In
and
2016, Meyer sold the entire 7000 acre ranch to Energy Transfer
September
It turns out that Meyer did not have the required license to use the
Partners.
poison, and he failed to follow
guidelines for applying it — instead of
it underground in the prairie dog burrows, he just spread it all over
putting
surface. He also failed to dispose of the dead prairie dogs correctly. 77
the
his federal conviction, Meyer was let o with probation and some
Despite
nes. Many Water Protectors feel the Rozol might be responsible for
small
“ cough,” the horrible respiratory infections and ailments that
the
of people su ered from in the camps.
hundreds
Symptoms of the
cough include coughing accompanied by severe
deep lung congestion and discomfort. Not cured by antibiotics,
fatigue,
o en lasts from two to 16 weeks. Some report bloody noses and brain
it
Others report coughing up blood. Some say the cough is a simple
fog.
to the weather and the rough winter living conditions at camp
response
a possible reaction to repeated exposure to chemicals sprayed by the
or
at the front line. Others blame low- ying crop-dusting planes
police
that might be dropping chemicals on the camps late at night. 78
investigation into the chemical spraying of Water Protectors is
e
In March of 2020, Indigenous Life Movement posted the following
ongoing.
to Facebook,
WHO WERE IN STANDING ROCK OCTOBER
INDIVIDUALS
NOVEMBER 2016
THROUGH
you were in Standing Rock the months of Oct to Nov 2016, you
If
intentionally poisoned by the Governor of North Dakota Jack
were
Kyle Kirchmeier of Morton County Sheri s Department
Dalrymple,
the pilot who knowingly sprayed poisonous chemicals over the
and
Rock Oceti Sakowin and Sacred Stone Camps.
Standing
this time, the Morton County Sheri s Department directed a
During
operation where they sprayed an aerosol called Chlorophacinone,
secret
known as (a poison used to kill prairie dogs). e poisoning
also
human life took place during the overnight hours nearly 7 weeks by
of
agricultural aircra .
an

who were at the camps were poisoned by the State of
Individuals
Dakota and may have developed severe memory loss (short and
North
term), behavioral changes (anxiety, paranoia, delusions),
long
and various forms of cancers (brain, breast and lungs)
depression
their time at the Standing Rock camps.
following
to be released show the agricultural aircra spraying chemicals
Photos
the “Oceti Sakowin” camps.
over
individuals who were at the camps during these months contact us
All
you noticed a change in your health following the Standing Rock
if
Please help us make the connections between changes in your
Protest.
health following November 2016 and the
spraying.
Please message
through the message section on our page.
you ank
of you are familiar with the severe cough that followed the
Many
in Standing Rock and many who were attending have developed
protest
brain tumors, various forms of cancers and other severe health
rare
issues. 79
North Dakota attorney general is suing the federal government to
e
money the state spent policing the protests. 80 State law enforcement
recoup
emergency management agencies spent $43 million policing the
and
funded by loans from the state-owned Bank of North
demonstrations,
Dakota.
ey were reimbursed $15 million from pipeline owner Energy
Partners and $10 million from the federal government 81 and are
Transfer
suing the feds for the remainder. 82,83
now
North Dakota Private Investigation and Security Board led a civil
e
against TigerSwan, the private security company that led the multi-
lawsuit
agency intelligence operation.
e lawsuit stated that the security company
its founder worked illegally in North Dakota. 84 e had noti ed
and
in September 2016 that it was illegally providing security services
TigerSwan
North Dakota. TigerSwan then applied for licensure twice and was
in
both times. But according to the lawsuit, TigerSwan’s mercenaries,
rejected
with semiautomatic ri es and sidearms, continued security services
armed
during and a er its license application was rejected. TigerSwan
before,
that within North Dakota’s borders it provided only consulting
maintains
e case against them was dismissed in May 2018, 85 and the ND
services.

Court upheld the decision in August 2019. 86
Supreme
Transfer Partners themselves faced 83 counts of permit violations
Energy
during construction of the pipeline.
e North Dakota Public Service
let them o with zero nes, just promises to plant some trees. 87
Commission
how about the pipeline itself? Standing Rock and three other tribes
And
suing Energy Transfer Partners and the federal government over the
are
of the Dakota Access Ppipeline itself, hoping to get it shut down.
approval
As that case proceeds,
has proposed to double the capacity of the line. In
March 2020, just as this book went into publication, a US District Court
late
ordered the US Army Corps of Engineers to go back and conduct a
Judge
environmental impact statement, ruling that they had not met the
full
of the National Environmental Policy Act. e judge has asked for
standards
legal brie ngs from both sides about whether to shut the pipeline
further
in the interim.
down

Spreading the Sacred Fire
the future, our descendants will be sitting around a re in their lodges
In
this story of when the two legged tried to destroy the earth. We are
telling
doubt in a sacred legend that will be told for thousands of years. For
no
reasons, we have been speci cally placed here on earth to
whatever
in this incredibly sacred time. We need to believe in what our
participate
tells us and to nd the strength to follow it. is sacred story needs
heart
and we are the chosen ones. Rise strong and never stop believing in
heroes
great power of this earth. We are completely surrounded by our
the
ancestors.
—Isaac Murdoch, Anishinaabe artist
the sacred res of the o camps at Standing Rock were nally
When
they spread across the continent. Water Protectors had given
extinguished,
everything to be there, formed new connections and gained new skills,
up
gotten the world’s attention. We had tasted the power that comes from
and
land, our ancestors, our prophecies and our coming together to face our
the
and stand for Mother Earth. e ght against zuzeca sapa, the black
enemies
continues.
snake,
Protectors headed east to resist the Mountain Valley pipeline in
Water
and the network of Enbridge pipelines in the Great Lakes,
Appalachia
a proposed new tar sands pipeline called Line 3 right here in our
including
Anishinaabe communities of Northern Minnesota.
ey headed south to
the other portions of Dakota Access in Iowa, Illinois and the swamps
battle
Louisiana, where Cherri Foylin and the folks at L’eau Et La Vie Camp
of
months of delay in the line’s completion. In Florida, the Seminole
caused
led massive opposition to Enbridge’s Sable pipeline. In Texas, the Two
youth
Camp and Society of Native Nations led direct action campaigns
Rivers
the Trans-Pecos pipeline, another project. In Tennessee, Osage
against
Muskogee youth leaders blockaded the entrance to the Valero re nery,
and
of the proposed Diamond Pipeline. In New Mexico, the Diné
endpoint
(Navajo) and their allies successfully stopped the Piñon Pipeline proposed

Chaco Canyon, a World Heritage Site. And, in Oregon the battle against
for
Pembina Pipeline Company, another Calgary-based black snake,
the
continues to rage.
e state has opposed the pipeline, landowners and tribal
have stood in its way, and, in the time of the Trump regime, new
people
attempt to tear jurisdiction from state hands. In February 2020,
regulations
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission postponed a critical decision,
the
more insecurity for investors and some reprieve for Water
leaving
Protectors.
the north, Indigenous-led resistance continues to this day against the
To
Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion and the Coastal Gas Link
proposed
which threatens the unceded territories of the Wet’suwet’en Nation,
pipeline,
encampments supported by the hereditary Chiefs of all ve clans have
where
blocking construction for years. e Lakota and Dakota are now
been
the proposed expansion of Dakota Access, which would double its
battling
and have also turned their attention to new proposals for uranium
capacity,
in the Black Hills, as well as the Keystone XL pipeline, resurrected by
mining
a er a successful seven-year campaign had killed it during the
Trump
era. And of course, our relatives in Hawaii continue the ght to
Obama
their sacred mountain, Mauna Kea.
protect
about these battles is new — Indigenous Peoples have been
Nothing
their water, sacred sites and territories for thousands of years,
protecting
against the threats of extractive industry. But Standing Rock
especially
two things. First, it breathed new life into these struggles. More
changed
once in the months following the siege on the Missouri River I was
than
in my writing by a string of young grandchildren tumbling
disturbed
my kitchen on Round Lake, all carrying shields and wearing
through
and gas masks and bandanas.
helmets
I write this, Enbridge is trying to gure out how to reroute its old Line 5
As
around the Bad River Reservation in Northern Wisconsin, a er the
pipeline
refused many millions to renew their easement and has sued the
tribe
demanding removal of the line. e mid-term elections of 2018
company,
a record number of Native American candidates, and Deb Haaland
saw
Pueblo) and Sharice Davids (Ho-Chunk) became the rst two
(Laguna
American women elected to Congress. 88 In North Dakota, Ruth Anna
Native
alo, from the Fort Berthold Reservation, won a state house seat by
Bu
ousting the author of the racist Voter ID bill that would disenfranchise

voters, which passed just before the mid-terms. 89,90 Water Protectors
Native
everywhere.
are
the struggle at Standing Rock shed new light on Native people and
Second,
struggles. It has done more for Native visibility than any other event in
our
memory. Many had forgotten, but in fact we are still here.
recent
has in turn changed the conversation around fossil fuels in this
is
by humanizing the abstract debates around carbon emissions and
country,
front-line communities slowly towards the center of the discussion
moving
the climate crisis and the urgent need to transform our energy system.
about
Rock put legs on recent proposals for a Green New Deal and
Standing
people to infuse those proposals with a consideration of “climate
forced
Indeed, the plan’s architect, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, was also at
justice.”
Rock. She talks about feeling like a magnet, driving to Standing
Standing
and the watershed moment it was for her individually and our
Rock,
movement. Lakota People’s Law Project lead counsel Chase Iron Eyes said,
so encouraging to see Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez say that the
It’s
for her historic run for Congress was what happened at
impetus
Rock: the Grand Awakening, the spiritual awakening of all of
Standing
people who nd themselves in our hemisphere, who nd a home in
our
Green New Deal movement, we’ve always had a home for you….
the
we nd ourselves in this struggle together. Every aspect of the
Now,
New Deal must be implemented now. We have to take this
Green
… hit the streets with it, hit every dusty road with it, and go
initiative
right into the halls of Congress. 91
the Indigenous Just Transition movement is growing nationally and
Today,
recognizing that 80% of the world’s biodiversity is in
internationally,
territories and that First Nations have a long history of
Indigenous
ese proposals include work to move away from fossil fuels,
sustainability.
agriculture, create the next economy with hemp and ensure justice
restore
Mother Earth as well as people.
for
communities continue to lead the transition to renewable
Indigenous
In fact, the rst solar farm in North Dakota went up this year, the
energy.
Community Solar Farm on the Standing Rock Reservation.
Cannonball
from the ashes of the Dakota Access Pipeline battle, the project shows
Born
us all what the future looks like. It has added 300 kilowatts into the grid,

the Cannonball Youth Center and the Veterans Memorial
powering
Building.
some of the largest coal mines and coal power plants are being closed
As
on the Navajo Nation, the largest tribe in the country is
permanently
renewable energy to market on the same power lines that carried
moving
generation for 50 years. In 2017, the Kayenta Solar Facility came online
coal
27 megawatts of power, a wholly owned Navajo project and the rst
with
solar project within the Navajo Nation. Dozens of solar and
utility-scale
projects are popping up all over Indian Country. Native people are
wind
the way.
leading
fact, Indigenous Peoples carry the answers to many of the political,
In
ecological and social crises of our time. We have lived in balance
economic,
Mother Earth, honoring our covenants with the Creator, for many
with
of years. It is a question of relationships. Standing Rock forced all
thousands
us to question our relationships with the water and the land and with all
of
beings, with one another as Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.
living
the Lakota are not free, we are not free. If the river is not free, we are not
If
free.
Rock is an unpredicted history lesson for all of us. More than any
Standing
I recall since Wounded Knee, the Vietnam War or the time of
moment
Luther King, it stands as a crossroads in the battle for social justice. It
Martin
about economic system transformation and profoundly a question of
was
future of this land. Standing Rock rekindled a memory of a people, not
the
a free people, but a people who faced their fears, knowing that the
only
of the Wasicu is a powerful force, but it is not as powerful as the
economy
we know.
world
Rock is not only a place, it is a state of mind, and it is action. In a
Standing
when the rights of corporations override the rights of humans, stay
time
and remember that the law must be changed. For civil society is
human
as democracy is made, by the hands of people, courageous people,
made,
is not a spectator sport. While at one time slavery was legal, it is no
and
and soon we must free our Mother Earth from her slavery to an
longer,
economy and ensure her rights. Absent any legal protections and
exploitive
a regulatory system hijacked by oil interests and a federal government
with
crisis, the people and the river remain the only clear and sentient beings.
in
is the time of the seventh generation, rising up to save Mother Earth.
is

your responsibility for this moment. I understand mine. As I
Understand
my brothers and sisters in every direction continue to ght for the
watch
and water, I am awed, inspired, and I remember that I am one of them.
land
this moment, be present. Your descendants would appreciate your voice,
In
and action.
words
LaDonna Bravebull Allard reminds us,
As
want to destroy this movement because it is too powerful because
ey
stand in prayer. ey don’t know that this is just the beginning.
we
we will be stronger in prayer. Remember how history will
Tomorrow
you as the people who stood up to save the water and the world
record
the people who betrayed the world. You all have a name in history.
or
are you in this time and place? e world is watching. 92
Where
corporations are some of the most powerful in the world. And the
ese
systems are set up to protect them, not the water and de nitely
regulatory
us. In other words, our ght continues. So we must continue to devote
not
full selves, and all our power, towards protecting our water and our
our
Earth, from all that which would destroy us.
Mother
at the same time, we must create the future we want. In our
And
prophecies we are told of a time when we would have a choice
Anishinaabe
two paths… one path is well-worn but scorched, and the other path
between
is green.
is is known as the prophecy of the seventh re. And that is where
are today. Now is the time to choose the green path over the scorched
we
e stakes are raised daily: Fires burn to the north, west, south and
path.
and we all feel the grief of our Mother Earth, for we are her children. It
east,
time to be a Water Protector. It is time to be a Black Snake Killa. It is time
is
be a Wiindigoo Slayer — that is, it is time to stop the monsters and
to
that plague our villages. It’s time for this generation to summon up
cannibals
our courage, vision and prayers.
ey have the money, but we have the
We also have a vision for life in the future.
people.
are not just ghting against something, but clearly and decidedly
We
walking with open eyes and hearts down the path that is green.
is is the
we belong to, and we will continue to protect it, as our ancestors did
land
us. is is our covenant with the Creator and with Mother Earth. Let
before
take time to be grateful for all we have accomplished. Let us celebrate the
us
and commitment it took. And let us keep moving forward.
courage

Part 4
The Last Tar Sands Pipeline

A Pipeline Runs Through It
It’s a moment in time. Standing with one-
h of the world’s water are the
the people of the manoomin and sturgeon. And they are
Anishinaabeg,
three million barrels a day of tar sands oil. Regulatory systems
facing
to serve “the public” have been compromised for the sake of
intended
corporations, many of them Canadian-born. An epidemic of
multinational
a
uenza has caused confusion.
is late stage Wiindigoo Capitalism. Wiindigoos are cannibals in
It
knowledge, and that’s what this is. at’s when the economics
Anishinaabe
extraction are brutal, or as the United Nations has explained, “because
of
are for the rst time in human history shi ing to energy sources
economies
that are less energy e
cient, production of usable energy (exergy) will
more, not less, e ort on the part of societies to power both basic and
require
human activities.” 1 at’s extreme extraction, the bottom of the
non-basic
so to speak, from tar sands to copper mining.
barrel
fact is that the United Nations itself, and many leading scientists, have
e
out that the economic models of extreme extraction and late stage
pointed
must go: “It can be safely said that no widely applicable economic
capitalism
have been developed speci cally for the upcoming era. Here we
models
underutilized tenets of existing economic-theoretical thinking that
highlight
assist governments in channeling economies toward activity that causes
can
radically lighter burden on natural ecosystems and simultaneously ensures
a
equal opportunities for good human life. Our focus is on the transition
more
the next few decades.” 2
period,
is is a story about the infrastructure we build in North America.
is is
story about what the Anishinaabeg refer to as the time of the Seventh Fire,
a
time when it is said that we will have a choice between two paths — one
a
well worn and one scorched.
is is, from Calgary-based Enbridge’s
a story about their biggest proposed project — Line 3
perspective,
a $7.5 billion proposal to build an entirely new pipeline in a
Replacement,
new route through the heart of pristine lakes and wild rice territories in

Anishinaabeg
The
invisible colonial line crosses through the heartland of Anishinaabe
An
or Anishinaabe Territory, and this is a story about the people
Minnesota,
oppose that line and why they oppose it.
who
the land to which the people belong. Today, Anishinaabe People are
Akiing,
three Canadian provinces and ve American states. We remain. Seven
in
remain in the north of Minnesota: Leech Lake, Fond du Lac,
reservations
Earth, Red Lake, Grand Portage, Mille Lacs and Bois Forte
White
Reservations.
ere are around 50,000 Anishinaabeg in Minnesota, and
territory spans about three million acres, with additional tribal
tribal
in the 1837, 1854 and 1855 Treaty Territories. Manoomin, or
jurisdiction
rice, is a centerpiece of both the ecosystem and economy of the
wild
— providing food for not only the belly, but the soul, as well as
territory
for the family. Manoomin is the most sacred food of the
income
and is explicitly protected under treaty.
Anishinaabeg
Anishinaabeg are numerous. Not as numerous as we once were, but
e
there are over 50,000 Anishinaabeg in Minnesota, most from the
certainly
reservations in the north.
is is important because Enbridge’s history of
is largely with smaller First Nations in Canada.
“negotiations”
is di erent. We have large reservation lands, and politically the
Minnesota
exercise more jurisdiction in the state than in Canada, and arguably
bands
more political power. ere’s a history written on the land.
exercise
dam projects and big mines came rst — the copper boulders
Clearcutting,
the big pines. Seventy- ve million acres of forest were clear cut in
and
Territory, most of the Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota
Anishinaabe
laid to waste over the course of 50 years of exploitation. at built
forests
empires, like Weyerhauser, one of the largest lumber companies in the
some
at also brought on an apocalypse of the Wiindigoo. As Elaine
world.
Fleming writes in several essays in Tribal College Journal,
building the dams on the Mississippi River, which runs through our
In
42,000 acres of land were ooded. We are water people.
reservation,
villages and burial sites were next to the lakes and rivers. When the
Our
society built its dams to provide energy for the mills in St. Paul
settler
Minneapolis, and also to help oat the logs downriver to support
and
logging industry, the Ojibwe people were not asked how we would
the

Come to the North Country
Pipelines
in the 1950s, a er all these dams, railroads, toxic waste dumps and
Starting
be a ected.
e e ects were devastating, destroying our wild rice beds,
bogs, villages, and ooding our gravesites.
cranberry
Wiindigoo killed us in many ways, taking our land and culture.
is
1880, dams were constructed on Leech Lake and Lake
In
Our reservation is currently 50% water. In Minnesota,
Winnibigoshish.
the third,
h, eighth, and twel h largest lakes are on our reservation.
lakes are now reservoirs, no longer natural. We are water people.
e
harvest wild rice and eat sh. We gather swamp cranberries. Our
We
homes and villages were next to the lakes and streams.
ey were our
Our gardens and graveyards were also next to the water. Water
“roads.”
on these lakes were raised 9 to 11 feet and ooded 42,000 acres of
levels
our land.
e water destroyed our rice beds that grow best in two to
feet of water. According to Anton Treuer, a noted Ojibwe scholar
three
language professor, the ooding resulted in clear cutting, poverty,
and
on annuities, destruction of gravesites, malnutrition and
dependence
illness, and death. With the completion of Winnibigoshish
starvation,
Dam, not only were 62 square miles of land
ooded, but we also
a smallpox epidemic. Wiindigoo continued to eat our
experienced
up.… Federal Dam was completed on Leech Lake and 78 square
people
of land was ooded. Today, 75% of the land within the Leech Lake
miles
is this Chippewa National Forest. Because of the huge
reservation
of white pines on our reservation, the logging industry
stands
our lands.… Less than 4% of the land within the reservation
deforested
is held by the Leech Lake Band. at’s what colonialism looks like. 3
politicians, sociologists and more always talk about the resilience
Scholars,
Native people. A er all, we are still around a er all these Wiindigoos.
of
because we are a strong people. Nice to be acknowledged, but most of
at’s
would rather just have an opportunity to live happily, not just survive and
us
be resilient.
third world treatment and racism, Interprovincial Pipeline Company
the
its US subsidiary, Lakehead Pipeline Company, began building crude oil
and
across Anishinaabe Territory. It built four crude oil pipelines,
pipelines
unimaginatively Lines 1, 2, 3 and 4, across northern Minnesota to
called

Superior, Wisconsin.
ese connected to Line 5, which transported oil to
and Detroit via northern Wisconsin and the upper peninsula of
Ontario
and to Line 6, which brought Canadian crude to Chicago.
Michigan,
pipelines were constructed before the creation of federal
ese
laws like the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, and
environmental
chose the route through the Anishinaabe reservations, all quickly
Lakehead
by the Bureau of Indian A airs, and during a time when federal
approved
policies were underway as well as the relocation era — moving
termination
people to the cities. e pipes ran through many Anishinaabe
Native
including Red Lake, Leech Lake and Fond du Lac
communities,
in Minnesota, the Bad River Reservation in Wisconsin and the
Reservations
Odawa Territory in Michigan.
e Anishinaabeg share treaties throughout
territory taken by these pipelines, but the pipelines were built with
the
for our Treaty Rights. During the 1980s and 90s Canadian crude
disregard
production grew slowly, and Lakehead responded by pushing more oil
oil
its existing pipelines. ese pipelines became known as the
through
System.” In early 1998, Interprovincial Pipeline Company
“Mainline
its name to “Enbridge Inc.,” which is a contraction of “energy” and
changed
as a public relations move that kicked o a new and more
“bridge,”
phase of oil extraction: tar sands and then fracked oil. As
dangerous
Enbridge will tell a history:
work was pivotal in spurring the growth of Western Canadian oil
Our
In our rst full year of pipeline operations, we shipped 30.6
production.
barrels of oil. Today we transport an average of 2.8 million
million
of oil every day. rough the years, we’ve continued to open new
barrels
for Canadian crude, and played a critical role in developing
markets
American energy infrastructure.
North
Feb. 27, 2017, Enbridge Inc. and Spectra Energy Corp. nalized
On
terms of a de nitive merger agreement. e transaction created the
the
energy infrastructure company in North America, and one of
largest
largest in the world — with an enterprise value of approximately
the
billion (C$166 billion), a US$58 billion (C$75 billion)
US$126
of secured and potential capital growth projects, and
inventory
anticipated annual dividend growth of 10 percent through 2020. 4
The Forgotten Oil Spills

Black Snake Grows: Tar Sands and Fracked Oil
The
Pipelines
early pipelines brought oil spills to Anishinaabe Territory for the rst
ese
in history, including many of the largest on-land oil spills recorded in
time
US. For example, just in the US, Line 3 alone spilled 1.9 million gallons
the
the 1970s, when it was new, 1.8 million gallons in the 1980s and 2.8
in
gallons in the 1990s, for a total of 6.5 million gallons of crude oil.
million
leak, and they contaminate our water. For example, on March 3,
Pipelines
5 the Line 3 pipeline ruptured near Grand Rapids, Minnesota, spilling
1991,
1.7 million gallons of oil into the Prairie River, a er a negligently
over
delayed response by the company. 6
e Prairie is a tributary of the
so were it not for the 18 inches of ice on top of the river, the spill
Mississippi,
have poisoned the drinking water of millions downstream, and would
could
likely be remembered very di erently.
ankfully, this was back in the days
our territories were still frozen and snow-covered in March, before
when
change had begun to sink its teeth in.
climate
to sheer luck, the cleanup was relatively quick and e ective, so the
Due
received nowhere near as much media attention as the catastrophic
spill
Kalamazoo River spill of 2010.
sands (also known as oil sands) is a low quality form of oil that
Tar
of bitumen mixed with sand, clay and water. Vast quantities of
consists
substance are found in Alberta, Canada, and in eastern Venezuela.
the
deposits are known to exist in Utah, parts of Russia, Congo
Other
Madagascar and elsewhere, but it is currently only
(Brazzaville),
produced in Canada and Venezuela.
commercially
sands is extreme oil in every way. Its extraction is particularly
Tar
and water-intensive, polluting, and destructive. It is either strip
energy
or produced by injecting high pressure steam into the ground to
mined
the bitumen and get it to ow to the surface. To process it into
melt
fuel requires complex upgrading and re ning that is also highly
usable
intensive and polluting. 7
energy
sands oil needs a lot of special processing because it’s about the
Tar
of peanut butter and that won’t work out well. ere are
consistency
basically two ways to process the bitumen or tar sands oil. As Inside Climate

explains, “Some tar sands producers use on-site upgrading facilities to
News
the bitumen into synthetic crude, which is similar to conventional
turn
oil. Other producers dilute the bitumen using either conventional
crude
crude or a cocktail of natural gas liquids. e resulting diluted bitumen,
light
dilbit, has the consistency of conventional crude and can be pumped
or
pipelines.” What comprises the diluent is a trade secret, making it
through
even bigger challenge to clean up. One of the knowns in the cocktail is
an
a pretty well known carcinogen. 8
benzene,
sands oil is also more dangerous to transport because it’s corrosive.
Tar
to say, it began as sand, so has a good deal of quartz in it, causing
at’s
friction. More than that however the dilbit requires dilution.
at diluting
involves a lot more chemicals, all of which are corrosive.
ere are all sorts
Canadian studies which say that it’s not corrosive, but the fact is that the
of
are corroding. e US is crossed by about two million miles of
lines
pipelines. Every year there are leaks. As Scienti c American reports,
charge that pipelines carrying diluted bitumen, or ‘dilbit’ — a
Critics
oil extracted from tar sands mined in northern Alberta — pose a
heavy
risk because, compared with more conventional crude, they
special
operate at higher temperatures, which have been linked to
must
corrosion. ese pipelines also have to ow at higher
increased
that may contribute to rupture as well. Environmental group
pressures
Natural Resources Defense Council (
) notes that pipelines in the
Midwest that routinely carry oil from tar sands have spilled 3.6
upper
more oil per pipeline mile than the US average.…
times
chemistry of the tar sands oil could contribute to corrosion as
e
In processing, the tar sands are boiled to separate the bitumen
well.
the surrounding sand and water, and then mixed with diluent —
from
hydrocarbons produced along with natural gas — to make the oil
light
viscous and able to ow. But even so, the resulting dilbit is among
less
lowest in hydrogen as well as the most viscous, sulfurous and acidic
the
form of oil produced today. 9
c American goes on to talk about the Pegasus Pipeline spill in
Scienti
e Pegasus, built in the 1940s, carries 100,000 barrels of oil per
Arkansas.
from Illinois to Texas. But given its age, to carry tar sands oil
day
had to retro t the tube to “compensate for the demands of
ExxonMobil

3 Redo
Line
get old and pipes get brittle. Enbridge’s main line was built over 50
Pipes
tar sand oil through in the opposite direction, but the higher
pushing
and pressures may nonetheless have contributed to the rupture
temperatures
sped up preexisting corrosion.”
or
the while the Alberta government has been saying that tar sands oil, or
All
is no worse for pipelines than conventional oil. A study found that
dilbit,
is not corrosive at pipeline temperatures, though it is highly corrosive
dilbit
re nery temperatures, suggesting that the higher temperatures might even
at
bene cial, killing o bacteria that does corrode pipelines. “‘ ere is no
be
that dilbit causes more failure than conventional oil,’ geologist John
evidence
of the provincial government research rm Alberta Innovates said….
Zhou
helped prepare the Canadian province’s analysis of dilbit.” In the
Zhou
Glen Hooks of the Sierra Club in Arkansas points out what
meantime,
might be obvious to some. “
ere is no reason to trust oil companies when
they say pipelines are safe when there’s been spill a er spill a er spill.” 10
ago and represents the life blood of Canadian tar sands exports. With
years
press a er the Kalamazoo spill and some signi cant regulatory
bad
proceedings, Enbridge entered what’s called a “consent decree.”
is is part
Enbridge’s problem.
of
July 19, 2016, the US Justice Department “announced a consent decree
On
Calgary based Enbridge agreeing to pay $177 million and improve
with
safety, resolving claims from oil spills in Illinois and in Michigan in
pipeline
e consent decree also said Enbridge ‘shall’ replace ‘Line 3,’ a 292
2010.
pipeline that carries Canadian crude from Neche ND to Superior
mile
Wisconsin.
e decree said Enbridge should replace the pipeline ‘as
as practicable a er receiving required regulatory approvals
expeditiously
permits.’ If Line 3 isn’t replaced by December 31, 2017, Enbridge will be
and
with additional safety and monitoring requirements, according to
saddled
settlement agreement.” 11
the
the Line 3 was easy to approve in Canada. A er all, if Enbridge
Politically
been shipping 75% of the tar sands oil, there was no way that a
had
government was not going to support that. Enbridge is the third
Canadian
corporation in Canada, and they billed it a replacement project, since
largest
they would be replacing a decaying pipeline.
at reality was not the

Minnesota reality.
e Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe refused Enbridge’s o er
rebuild the line in place, noting that they had already the burden of the
to
lines and the new Alberta Clipper (2010) line. at forced
remaining
to look for a new corridor. Now the company had a new pipeline
Enbridge
doubled in capacity, and a third of the route would have to be a
proposed:
route. new
2013, Enbridge began to work on the route — that is, the company
In
a pipeline, known as the Sandpiper, which was intended to carry
proposed
barrels a day of fracked oil from North Dakota’s Bakken elds to the
640,000
Re nery (now Husky) in Superior Wisconsin, and then on to the
Calumet
of the east. at project began so ening up the politics of northern
pipelines
looking for a new route outside the Leech Lake Reservation.
Minnesota,
selling pipelines is not the easiest thing, and in northern Minnesota it’s
Now
proven to be more di
cult than in Canada.
project opened awareness about the state of Enbridge’s increasingly
e
infrastructure, and a new multi-racial alliance was formed between
risky
shore owners who would be impacted by the project, Ojibwe tribes and
lake
rice harvesters, as well as an increasingly vocal and powerful
wild
environmental and climate movement.
e Sandpiper opposition, however,
received the national attention nor the support of major
never
groups, largely because it was a fracked oil pipeline and the
environmental
climate groups did not deem the danger to the environment to be of the
big
caliber as the very dirty tar sands pipelines, like the Keystone XL.
same
opposition was at a local level in Minnesota, largely led by Native
Instead,
like Honor the Earth and grassroots citizens organizations like
organizations
Friends of the Headwaters and Northern Water Alliance, comprised of
the
owners around the Park Rapids and Brainerd areas, a prime resort
lakeshore
and lake home area.
at pipeline project was defeated in 2016, as the
moved to the Dakota Access Pipeline to insure access to the
company
fracked oil elds. (Just to be clear the fracked oil is also pretty
Bakken
and volatile.) In addition to the extreme nature of fracking, the
dangerous,
2013 Lac Megantic Quebec oil train disaster was fracked oil from the
July
Bakken. 12
opposition to the proposed project was strong. It’s not surprising
e
the proposed route ran through the center of wild rice territory. All
because
of the Ojibwe bands are concerned, and most questioned if the Public

to Minnesota: Enbridge Returns after Standing
Back
and the Line 3 Regulatory Capture
Rock
Commission has the sole authority to grant permits over tribal
Utilities
within the 1855 treaty area. Six Anishinaabe governments came out
lands
opposing the project. In the
rst round on the Sandpiper, cultural
and any consultation were sorely lacking.
assessments
is not possible to identify — let alone to avoid — sites of historic,
“It
and cultural signi cance, without consulting with the Tribal
archaeological,
Preservation O ce. Not doing so raises serious concerns about
Historic
ability,” Susan Klapel, Commissioner of Natural Resources for the
Enbridge’s
Lacs band of Ojibwe, wrote in a letter to the Public Utilities
Mille
“I ask you to not grant Enbridge (Sandpiper) permits through
Commission.
proposed southern route,” Klapel wrote.
the
pipeline would cross lakes, creeks and watersheds, including
Enbridge’s
where tribes have worked long and hard to restore native sturgeon
those
and to protect wild rice. Imagine that one day you wake up and
populations
out that a pipeline company wants to run a thirty-inch pipe pumping
nd
barrels of oil per day under high pressure through your burial
640,000
sacred sites, medicinal plant harvesting areas, and no more than a
grounds,
from your biggest wild rice harvesting areas. And, they didn’t even bother
mile
mention it. at is to say that the company almost entirely neglected to
to
wild rice in the environmental impact assessment.
mention
it is that Enbridge pursued the Sandpiper, and a er a three-year pitched
So
with tribal governments and local citizens, a lawsuit was led by non-
battle
organization Friends of the Headwaters. e lawsuit resulted in a
Native
Court ruling to require an Environmental Impact Statement, and
Minnesota
lost. at is, the company withdrew its application for the project
Enbridge
a er four years. 13 en, in August of 2016, Enbridge purchased the
—
Access Pipeline — well, 28% of it. e epic story of the battle at
Dakota
Rock is well known; what’s not so well known is that Enbridge’s
Standing
shored up the project, providing the security of the largest pipeline
money
company in North America as a backer.
$38 million in military force and winter came to Standing Rock,
As
returned to northern Minnesota, prepared to create a new
Enbridge
dialogue on their “replacement” project, which was not exactly a

eplacement.
December 13, 2016, Enbridge held an informational meeting in Bemidji
In
aimed at white landowners and county commissioners. But when
primarily
Barrett, aka omas X, learned of the meeting, he shared the
omas
widely, and Enbridge representatives found themselves in a
information
of 100 plus concerned landowners, many from Leech Lake, Red Lake
room
White Earth.
and
was an uncomfortable moment for the corporation. A er all, the
It
Energy Board of Canada had, on November 29, 2016, denied
National
to Enbridge’s $3.5 billion Northern Gateway Pipeline project. Nine
approval
earlier, at Backwater Bridge on Standing Rock, a full military assault on
days
Protectors had resulted in a number of injuries, including that of
Water
Wilensky, whose arm was brutally torn apart by a compression
Sophia
lobbed by security forces.
grenade
e Sandpiper had been cancelled on August 2, 2016.
at’s when
bought 28% of the Dakota Access Pipeline Project. A lot of those
Enbridge
who opposed the Sandpiper had become politicized by big oil
people
projects, and when they heard about Standing Rock, a lot of them
pipeline
out there. ousands of Minnesotans went to Standing Rock, including
went
leaders, school groups, veterans and state representatives.
church
meeting did not go as Enbridge had planned. at’s to say the least.
is
company had planned a meet-and-greet in Bemidji at the Doubletree,
e
a cold day in December. Everyone was crowded into a small room. e
on
representatives had set up tables around the perimeter of the
Enbridge
a set of learning stations, like a science fair. ey had some cookies to
room,
out. I walked into the room just to see what was going on. Magistrate
give
Treuer was leaning up against the wall with her oxygen tank, a couple
Peggy
Elders were standing there looking at things, and there were no chairs.
other
seemed rather, well, inhospitable.
at
were a lot of Natives mulling about, far more than non-Natives.
ere
folks were talking earnestly to a few of the non-Indians, but they
Enbridge
seem very keen to talk to the Native people.
didn’t
I decided to ask a question. I see that omas X is there, and I say to
So,
someone should say something. He said, ‘You should, you know the
him,
about it.’ So I did, in my biggest Mom voice, I asked: “As one third
most
owner of the Dakota Access Pipeline project, is Enbridge responsible for the

to our people? Are you going to shoot us here for your pipeline
injuries
project?”
pretty much what I asked.
at’s
answer from the company’s representatives who had been passing out
No
And, then, a lot of other people started demanding an answer, and
cookies.
got loud. And then the police came. at’s how it started: Round Two of
it
with Tanks.
Enbridge
began a confusion of regulatory proceedings.
en
Minnesota Court of Appeals had ordered an environmental impact
e
on the proposed Sandpiper pipeline project. Prior to that the
statement
Utilities Commission had thought that it could approve these mega
Public
without an environmental impact statement. e through the
projects
of Commerce did the scoping for Sandpiper and Line 3
Department
but then when Sandpiper was withdrawn, the did not provide
together,
comment process to allow consideration of Line 3 by itself. In good form,
a
and the Minnesota decided to hold a series of public
Enbridge
In the depth of winter. In hard to reach locations. With very little
meetings.
notice. at was the Sandpiper style. What Enbridge and the
public
anticipate was the depth of conviction of our people. So we all went,
didn’t
across those scary roads at ten below zero to Fosston, Halstad, ief
skated
Falls, Bagley and all sorts of small towns in a depressed agriculture
River
in the north. Pipelines had been presented, basically as panaceas for all
sector
of the economy. Have a depressed rural economy? What you need is a
woes
a Canadian pipeline. Enbridge started making promises it would
pipeline,
be able to keep.
never
the and Enbridge switched pipeline projects, many of us had
When
pretty extensive testimony on the impact of the Sandpiper on our
prepared
and wild rice, and now found we were in a di erent regulatory
water
at was pretty confusing. en add in the police force, which
hearing.
to show up in numbers at the public hearings. At one point, in the
began
town of Hackensack, citizens who wanted to testify had to walk
small
a gauntlet of police just to get into a public meeting, James Reents
through
the Northern Water Alliance told me, irritated, for sure, that the public
of
being so heavily policed for a Canadian project.
was
process became more cumbersome and confusing. Forced into an
e
impact assessment project, the Public Utilities Commission
environmental

Intervenors
The
have to stand up against government agencies and corporations.
People
that the Department of Commerce should complete the
insisted
review, not the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, which,
environmental
700 sta and a large budget for environmental review, seemed to be an
with
choice. Administrative Law Judge Ann O’Rielly presided over the
obvious
e 22 “public information” meetings during the process and
hearings.
/ process were in June 2017. e public hearings (the ones
early
over by ALJ O’Reilly) were in September and October 2017 just
presided
the Line 3 evidentiary hearing in early November 2017.
before
these hearings hundreds of people would stand there to talk. Or sign up.
At
times, getting to talk was, well, sort of like winning the lottery. We
Many
each given three minutes to ask questions and present our views. We,
were
people, would cry, explain ecosystems, our culture, our wild rice,
the
treaties, climate change and scienti c data.
those people are from di erent walks of life, but they all agree on
Sometimes
point, in this case, that no one wanted an oil company to put a new
one
through our collective watersheds and into our collective future. To
pipeline
the regulatory process which had been created, a set of citizens,
address
and corporations became intervenors in the Public Utilities
tribes
process — that is, weighing in on either the side of the water or
Commission
oil. the
intervenors included the tribal governments of Leech Lake, Fond du
e
Mille Lacs, Red Lake and White Earth. It also included grassroots
Lac,
organizations like the Northern Water Alliance (represented by Jim
citizens
and Mary Ackerman), Friends of the Headwaters (Richard Smith,
Reents
legal counsel Scott Strand from Minnesota Center for Environmental
with
and Youth Climate Intervenors, a group of high school and
Advocacy)
students who, like others nationally and internationally, had come to
college
for future generations and against climate change practices
speak
also included Donovan and Anna Drydal, a farming couple
Intervenors
whose land would be crossed by the proposed Line 3 pipeline project.
e
Club also intervened in the process. On the Enbridge team were
Sierra
of labor and oil interests. Kevin Pranis appeared on behalf of
representatives
Laborers District Council of Minnesota and North Dakota (Laborers

Council).
e rest of the interests were largely represented by attorneys.
Anna Friedlander, O’Donoghue & O’Donoghue,
and Sam Jackson,
& Cummins, appeared on behalf of the United Association of
Cummins
and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry of
Journeymen
United States and Canada, - (United Association). Michael
the
Dorsey & Whitney, , appeared on behalf of Shippers for Secure,
Ahern,
and Economical Petroleum Transportation (Shippers).
Reliable
while the administrative law judge was listening to our comments, all
But
of them, against the pipeline, Enbridge was busy lobbying the Public
68,000
Commission. ey spent a total of $11 million in Minnesota
Utilities
when all was told. 14 And, that’s how a democracy gets bought by a
lobbying,
corporation. ey focused on the Public Utilities Commission,
Canadian
there, they only had to move ve people. And those people were not
because
they were appointed. And, the Public Utilities Commission
elected,
appeared to believe they were above the law.
generally
tribes became more frustrated with their exclusion from the process,
e
that the pipelines not only crossed tribal lands, but also crossed the
noting
Treaty Territory, where the Anishinaabeg harvest signi cant wild rice.
1855
mid-March 2017, Minnesota’s Public Utilities Commission rejected a
In
appeal by White Earth and other tribal nations to consider a survey of
joint
cultural properties in the nal decision to approve or reject the new
tribal
3. 15 Fond du Lac, like Leech Lake Reservation, had already been
Line
by the Enbridge Main Line and was not only facing the Enbridge
crossed
but also proposals for new mining in their watershed — two giant
expansion
which threated their nation. Fond du Lac’s position on Enbridge
projects
with negotiations and money over time, and the tribe began
weakened
with Enbridge and the state to complete a review of 65 miles of the
working
For public relations purposes, it appeared that a division was forming
line.
the tribes in the north, each faced with more threats to their
between
daily.
livelihood
e ’s message sticks to that old story: yeah, we get it, Native culture is
“
so we’ll support a survey … but it doesn’t matter enough to
important
factor into our nal decision to deny Enbridge’s new project or send
actually
new tar sands line through tribal treaty lands and Minnesota’s wetlands,”
a
Houska, then National Campaigns Director for Honor the Earth, said.
Tara
comparison, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights also weighed
In

saying the completion of the cultural survey prior to the nal decision is
in,
least the can do, and, as Houska notes, “pointedly reminding the
the
the resistance at Standing Rock and the need to move past historical
of 16 injustices.”
at the Republican-controlled Minnesota legislature, pipeline
Meanwhile,
began pushing bills which would eliminate entirely a regulatory
proponents
on the pipeline. Later bills would appear which would limit civil
process
and the rights of assembly and freedom of speech to those who
liberties
pipelines as well as most protests, from those against gun violence to
oppose
brutality. 17 ose bills continue to be introduced in Minnesota and
police
nationally.
opposition to these bills continued to grow. Packed hearing
Fortunately,
included people from all walks of life. Dawn Goodwin testi ed at the
rooms
hearing on behalf of White Earth Elders and talked about Rice Lake
3759
eloquently, on perhaps her hundredth time making the trek to a
Village,
“I can have $1000 in my pocket, but if I don’t have wild rice,
hearing.
tea and maple syrup I’m poor.”
blueberries,
although exhausted from driving all over the state, we prepared for
Next,
Hearings in St. Paul. ere we heard from Enbridge, and more
Evidentiary
Enbridge, and did not even hear our sacred wild rice mentioned.
e
law judge then held more hearings, about 60 of them. In total
administrative
72,000 people testi ed at hearings involving Enbridge’s Line 3. Of that
about
68,000 people testi ed against the project.

Ticking Time Bomb?
Which
3 is now over 50 years old, well past its intended lifespan. Enbridge’s
Line
Corridor has six pipelines in it — the old Lakehead Lines 1, 2, 3
Mainline
4, plus the new Alberta Clipper and its diluent companion, Line 13.
and
governmental reports refer to Lines 3 and 4 as a single unit, because of
Many
complicated ways they work in tandem. Together, they are responsible
the
not only the 1991 Grand Rapids spill, but also the catastrophic 2002 spill
for
Cohasset, MN; the 2007 explosion in Clearbrook, MN, that killed two
near
a serious spill in Regina, Saskatchewan, in December 2014; and
workers;
other ruptures and spills. 18 Enbridge reports that since 1990, Line
countless
has had at least 15 large spills (more than 50 barrels each), but the number
3
small spills and leaks is anybody’s guess. At one point, the number was
of
Greenpeace reports that, “over the past decade, hazardous liquid
800.
spills in the US have led to 20 fatalities, 35 injuries, $2.6 billion in
pipeline
and over 800,000 total barrels spilled (34 million gallons, or more than
costs,
gallons every day.” 19 at’s some oil.
9,000
3 is crumbling. According to Enbridge’s own data, it has 10 times as
Line
corrosion anomalies per mile than any other pipeline in their
many
Mainline System.
ey estimate over half a million structural anomalies in
3, or about 1 every 10 feet. Enbridge Integrity Supervisor Laura