Local view: Diverse gathering at Native camp in ND seeks healing for Mother Earth

The Dakota Access oil pipeline is routed to pass under the Missouri River in North Dakota just upstream from the Standing Rock Sioux tribal reservation. The Missouri is the reservation’s water source. Earlier plans to cross the Missouri upstream of Bismarck, N.D., were rejected, in part, due to protect the safety of Bismarck’s residents. For many months, Native-led encampments have nonviolently resisted the pipeline construction while legal challenges to the permitting process move through the courts.
I recently took a trip to one of those camps.My stay at the Sicangu Oyate Camp was prompted by an invitation. A white friend who had been there asked if I would go to witness and support the work of those committed to stopping this oil pipeline. With some apprehension, I agreed. Two days prior to my planned departure, 21 people were arrested without warning as they prayed in an area along the planned route. Was I willing to let my life be disrupted over a pipeline in another state?We arrived in the camp near Cannon Ball, N.D., just before midnight, having passed through the National Guard checkpoint, its concrete barriers reminiscent of Marines and embassies in distant lands. We also passed by the frontline pipeline camp and the expansive Red Warrior Camp, where so many of those who are risking arrest and sometimes worse are forming community, practicing nonviolent resistance and preparing for the long winter ahead. Morning brought my first real glimpse of the size of the community gathered. Four camps host well over 2,000 people. In the day and a half I was there, I met people from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, the Carolinas, Wyoming, Oregon and Hawaii. Many were staying weeks or months, others like me for less than a week.The time I spent washing dishes with water boiled over a wood fire, sifting through donated clothes for items suitable for harsh northern winters and wrapping supplies in tarps so they would survive the harsh prairie winter gave me a chance to hear the stories of those drawn to this place and this time. Those stories frame my emerging understanding of what Standing Rock is and the promise it holds.I washed dishes with Emily who told of her Sami heritage - native people of the Scandinavian region of the world who, like the original peoples of this continent, were subjected to colonization. As we spoke about privilege and social identity, she reflected on how, even for descendants of oppressed peoples, there can be blindness to the way hierarchy, power and bias play out toward others.I had lunch with Victoria, who readily cited statistics attesting to the overharvesting of the oceans, climate-related impacts of our animal-based diet and the implications of so much farming that ineffectually aims at converting plants into animal protein. Her voice aimed to broaden the conversation around oil production and consumption to focus on the dire yet reversible trajectory that currently exists.I watched as a young Native boy walked along the river to a steady beat that rang out from the small drum he held: “boom … boom … boom,” the future absorbing and resonating the pride and comfort in being Native that seemed to reside in that place. I met Tony, a Native man from a Southern state, while I was in a nearby town looking for the community center to drop off donated clothes that were not suited for camp life. When I stopped to pick him up, he handed me sage as a thank-you, directed me to the center and told me his story as we unloaded the boxes before heading back to the camp that has become home for him.I worked with Luke - age 18½, though he appeared younger - who took a leave from both school and work to travel from South Carolina with two friends. They will stay the winter, drawn to this place where the direction of the future, their future, will in part be written.On another trip to another community with yet another load of indoor clothes, I was joined by Julie. She is 35, eyes bright and full of life. She is from a Western state, Native on both sides of her family, though from distinct tribes. The camps, she said, were the first place she ever felt really at home. We pondered if the camps were some version of what it was like prior to colonization, with tents and teepees spread wide in the crook of the river, communal meals and a shared purpose.I was told this is the largest gathering of Native people in well over a century. The 300-plus flags of distinct Native nations that fly along the main roads of Red Warrior Camp attest the breadth of this movement. Julie told me about her life, mistakes made young, the joy of parenting, pride in her heritage and the burning need to share this moment, this movement, with her children. There is a powerful reclaiming, not just of sovereignty over the land and preservation of clean water, but of the wisdom and place of the Native relationship to the Earth we share. I spoke with Sheila, my guide in this space, about the prophecies from many Native traditions that foretold of a black snake that would wreak destruction and of the Lakota People who would first confront it. She told of the camps, which forbid all violence, alcohol and weapons. She told of Native people using sweat lodges and traditional medicine to treat both bodies and spirits. There is healing in this movement, for individuals, for the community, and, if we respond, for our cultural obsession with a lifestyle that is not sustainable. I returned home with new, or at least more urgent, questions on my heart, echoing like the singular beat of the young boy’s drum. This pipeline may be many miles away, but the real conflict is in my life and in all of our lives. We are depleting and destroying the very environment that we depend on for the continuation of our shared existence.When will it stop? How will it stop? I believe that this very well may be that moment, that movement, that will begin the long, slow turn toward a better, more-sustainable path. “Boom … boom … boom.” If we listen carefully, I think we will hear the drum inviting us to allow our lives to be disrupted and ultimately transformed. Kevin Skwira-Brown of Duluth is a co-facilitator of workshops focusing on understanding white privilege.The Dakota Access oil pipeline is routed to pass under the Missouri River in North Dakota just upstream from the Standing Rock Sioux tribal reservation. The Missouri is the reservation’s water source. Earlier plans to cross the Missouri upstream of Bismarck, N.D., were rejected, in part, due to protect the safety of Bismarck’s residents. For many months, Native-led encampments have nonviolently resisted the pipeline construction while legal challenges to the permitting process move through the courts.
I recently took a trip to one of those camps.My stay at the Sicangu Oyate Camp was prompted by an invitation. A white friend who had been there asked if I would go to witness and support the work of those committed to stopping this oil pipeline. With some apprehension, I agreed. Two days prior to my planned departure, 21 people were arrested without warning as they prayed in an area along the planned route. Was I willing to let my life be disrupted over a pipeline in another state?We arrived in the camp near Cannon Ball, N.D., just before midnight, having passed through the National Guard checkpoint, its concrete barriers reminiscent of Marines and embassies in distant lands. We also passed by the frontline pipeline camp and the expansive Red Warrior Camp, where so many of those who are risking arrest and sometimes worse are forming community, practicing nonviolent resistance and preparing for the long winter ahead. Morning brought my first real glimpse of the size of the community gathered. Four camps host well over 2,000 people. In the day and a half I was there, I met people from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, the Carolinas, Wyoming, Oregon and Hawaii. Many were staying weeks or months, others like me for less than a week.The time I spent washing dishes with water boiled over a wood fire, sifting through donated clothes for items suitable for harsh northern winters and wrapping supplies in tarps so they would survive the harsh prairie winter gave me a chance to hear the stories of those drawn to this place and this time. Those stories frame my emerging understanding of what Standing Rock is and the promise it holds.I washed dishes with Emily who told of her Sami heritage - native people of the Scandinavian region of the world who, like the original peoples of this continent, were subjected to colonization. As we spoke about privilege and social identity, she reflected on how, even for descendants of oppressed peoples, there can be blindness to the way hierarchy, power and bias play out toward others.I had lunch with Victoria, who readily cited statistics attesting to the overharvesting of the oceans, climate-related impacts of our animal-based diet and the implications of so much farming that ineffectually aims at converting plants into animal protein. Her voice aimed to broaden the conversation around oil production and consumption to focus on the dire yet reversible trajectory that currently exists.I watched as a young Native boy walked along the river to a steady beat that rang out from the small drum he held: “boom … boom … boom,” the future absorbing and resonating the pride and comfort in being Native that seemed to reside in that place. I met Tony, a Native man from a Southern state, while I was in a nearby town looking for the community center to drop off donated clothes that were not suited for camp life. When I stopped to pick him up, he handed me sage as a thank-you, directed me to the center and told me his story as we unloaded the boxes before heading back to the camp that has become home for him.I worked with Luke - age 18½, though he appeared younger - who took a leave from both school and work to travel from South Carolina with two friends. They will stay the winter, drawn to this place where the direction of the future, their future, will in part be written.On another trip to another community with yet another load of indoor clothes, I was joined by Julie. She is 35, eyes bright and full of life. She is from a Western state, Native on both sides of her family, though from distinct tribes. The camps, she said, were the first place she ever felt really at home. We pondered if the camps were some version of what it was like prior to colonization, with tents and teepees spread wide in the crook of the river, communal meals and a shared purpose.I was told this is the largest gathering of Native people in well over a century. The 300-plus flags of distinct Native nations that fly along the main roads of Red Warrior Camp attest the breadth of this movement. Julie told me about her life, mistakes made young, the joy of parenting, pride in her heritage and the burning need to share this moment, this movement, with her children. There is a powerful reclaiming, not just of sovereignty over the land and preservation of clean water, but of the wisdom and place of the Native relationship to the Earth we share. I spoke with Sheila, my guide in this space, about the prophecies from many Native traditions that foretold of a black snake that would wreak destruction and of the Lakota People who would first confront it. She told of the camps, which forbid all violence, alcohol and weapons. She told of Native people using sweat lodges and traditional medicine to treat both bodies and spirits. There is healing in this movement, for individuals, for the community, and, if we respond, for our cultural obsession with a lifestyle that is not sustainable. I returned home with new, or at least more urgent, questions on my heart, echoing like the singular beat of the young boy’s drum. This pipeline may be many miles away, but the real conflict is in my life and in all of our lives. We are depleting and destroying the very environment that we depend on for the continuation of our shared existence.When will it stop? How will it stop? I believe that this very well may be that moment, that movement, that will begin the long, slow turn toward a better, more-sustainable path. “Boom … boom … boom.” If we listen carefully, I think we will hear the drum inviting us to allow our lives to be disrupted and ultimately transformed.Kevin Skwira-Brown of Duluth is a co-facilitator of workshops focusing on understanding white privilege.