Working on slopes thick with red pine outside Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College in Cloquet on Tuesday, a crew armed with hatchets and chainsaws took some of the thinnest and youngest trees marked for harvest with orange ribbons. The men hailed from all over the country and were working under the guidance of Jim Northrup III. The 48-year-old Northrup is a member of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and has been hauling repeated loads of delimbed pines to support the ongoing protest at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota. In a couple of days, he'll have been to Standing Rock and back home again, loading for yet another caravan of pickup trucks and trailers. "They don't have a lot of trees out there in Standing Rock," Northrup said, explaining how the trees will be used for teepees and other dwellings such as yurts, earth lodges and the bent-stick huts called waginogans. "The people out there need homes and we're trying to house them all." The college was supportive of the harvest. "We need to thin the trees anyway," said college spokesman Tom Urbanski. Standing Rock is the site of a monthslong and ongoing protest of a proposed crude oil pipeline near the reservation. The fear among the thousands of people gathering there is that the proposed pipeline would one day degrade or fail in a way that contaminates the local rivers and water sources. The people are bracing for a cold winter on the Dakota plains. Firewood is being hauled in from all directions and other groups are contributing housing infrastructure such as wood stoves made from drum barrels.
"This is the most important moment in my memory," said a young man from Utah, Will Munger, who acknowledged sharing a name with the late Minnesota conservationist, Willard Munger. Dressed in heavy orange logging chaps and working with purpose, Munger added, "A North Dakota winter is no joke." Northrup said "I meet 4,000 people a day" at Standing Rock, where there are camps and camps within camps filled with tribes and people from across the globe gathering in support of the cause. The protest has made headlines since summer and continues to do so with regular court rulings and the arrests of celebrities, journalists and protesters, who refer to themselves are protectors of the water or peaceful warriors. Northrup said that what he observes are people praying - many of them elders and children. The particular 30-foot red pines being harvested outside the college were cut specifically for teepees destined for a camp called the Red Warrior Camp. A trio of members of the Red Warrior Camp accompanied Northrup on this trip. Two of the three men wore bandanas over their faces to protect their identities - from future repercussions, they said - and one of them said they'd hitchhiked from their home with the Diné tribe in Arizona - commonly known to Americans as Navajo - all the way to Standing Rock. "It was pretty much a calling," said a man who gave only part of his name, Lytle. "I had, like, a dream - a lot of dreams that came to me. I just wanted to help out." The men took breaks to smoke, but worked diligently. One young man, an Ohioan named Brennan Hay, had been arrested over the weekend and released on bail arranged by supporters using a legal defense fund established at the site of the protest. Hay proudly showed off a video of his arrest near the front line of the protest, where the reservation ends and the authorities' barricades begin. "I went limp and made them roll me," Hay said, after having just chopped a tree and hauled it up the slope on his shoulder. "Take the smaller trees," Northrup told him, "you've got bigger hands than we do." Northrup admired the youthful exuberance of the crew and said he takes a different one back with him every time. Standing Rock and now Cloquet, said Joseph Shotridge of Eugene, Ore., "is the farthest east I've ever been. So far, I like it."Working on slopes thick with red pine outside Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College in Cloquet on Tuesday, a crew armed with hatchets and chainsaws took some of the thinnest and youngest trees marked for harvest with orange ribbons.The men hailed from all over the country and were working under the guidance of Jim Northrup III. The 48-year-old Northrup is a member of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and has been hauling repeated loads of delimbed pines to support the ongoing protest at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota.In a couple of days, he'll have been to Standing Rock and back home again, loading for yet another caravan of pickup trucks and trailers."They don't have a lot of trees out there in Standing Rock," Northrup said, explaining how the trees will be used for teepees and other dwellings such as yurts, earth lodges and the bent-stick huts called waginogans. "The people out there need homes and we're trying to house them all."The college was supportive of the harvest."We need to thin the trees anyway," said college spokesman Tom Urbanski.Standing Rock is the site of a monthslong and ongoing protest of a proposed crude oil pipeline near the reservation. The fear among the thousands of people gathering there is that the proposed pipeline would one day degrade or fail in a way that contaminates the local rivers and water sources.The people are bracing for a cold winter on the Dakota plains. Firewood is being hauled in from all directions and other groups are contributing housing infrastructure such as wood stoves made from drum barrels.
"This is the most important moment in my memory," said a young man from Utah, Will Munger, who acknowledged sharing a name with the late Minnesota conservationist, Willard Munger. Dressed in heavy orange logging chaps and working with purpose, Munger added, "A North Dakota winter is no joke."Northrup said "I meet 4,000 people a day" at Standing Rock, where there are camps and camps within camps filled with tribes and people from across the globe gathering in support of the cause. The protest has made headlines since summer and continues to do so with regular court rulings and the arrests of celebrities, journalists and protesters, who refer to themselves are protectors of the water or peaceful warriors. Northrup said that what he observes are people praying - many of them elders and children.The particular 30-foot red pines being harvested outside the college were cut specifically for teepees destined for a camp called the Red Warrior Camp.A trio of members of the Red Warrior Camp accompanied Northrup on this trip. Two of the three men wore bandanas over their faces to protect their identities - from future repercussions, they said - and one of them said they'd hitchhiked from their home with the Diné tribe in Arizona - commonly known to Americans as Navajo - all the way to Standing Rock."It was pretty much a calling," said a man who gave only part of his name, Lytle. "I had, like, a dream - a lot of dreams that came to me. I just wanted to help out."The men took breaks to smoke, but worked diligently. One young man, an Ohioan named Brennan Hay, had been arrested over the weekend and released on bail arranged by supporters using a legal defense fund established at the site of the protest.Hay proudly showed off a video of his arrest near the front line of the protest, where the reservation ends and the authorities' barricades begin."I went limp and made them roll me," Hay said, after having just chopped a tree and hauled it up the slope on his shoulder."Take the smaller trees," Northrup told him, "you've got bigger hands than we do."Northrup admired the youthful exuberance of the crew and said he takes a different one back with him every time.Standing Rock and now Cloquet, said Joseph Shotridge of Eugene, Ore., "is the farthest east I've ever been. So far, I like it."
