A first-hand view of the Dakota Access Pipeline Standing Rock protests

Oceti Sakowin Camp, North Dakota. Early November, 2016

It is night when we enter camp, turning off of Highway 1806, onto the Avenue of Nations. Tribal communities from across the country and beyond display their flags along the trail, in a show of solidarity. There is an air of celebration at the camp. The Army Corps of Engineers had made a promising announcement regarding a Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) permit delay. Traditional drumming, singing, and social dancing are being enjoyed around communal fires. Smiling faces greeting each other, sharing this unique opportunity together; the chance for Indigenous people and non-natives to come unite to stand in support of Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. All of this despite the DAPL “security” lights shining down on the camp all night long, and DAPL surveillance planes circling overhead.

Around midnight we decide to retire to our tents, knowing that we need a good night of sleep so that we are ready to help in the donation tent and the kitchen the next morning. The drumming and singing continue as I get into my sleeping bag. It is about 12:30am when I hear the DAPL surveillance airplanes, which had been continuously circling overhead, finally fly off into the distance. The drumming ceases. I hear people saying their good-nights and retiring into their teepees and tents. The camp grows quiet in the vast prairie lands of southern North Dakota.

Twenty minutes later, I hear a DAPL plane gradually approach from afar. As the sound of the engine grows closer, several young men throughout the camp holler out. Within seconds, the drumming and singing return, replacing the sound of the plane with the spirit of the people at camp. To me, this action symbolizes the resiliency, fortitude, and comradery required from a group of people coming together to oppose the powerful forces of a large oil company, in order to protect the environment they hold dear.

Standing Rock and their allies continue to stand against the completion of this giant oil pipeline, in order to protect the Missouri River from the contamination caused by a spill or a leak. Hundreds of people have risked their freedom and safety, in an attempt to protect the integrity of the water for future generations.

During a meeting for volunteers one morning at Oceti Sakowin, a participant asked what he could do once he returned home after visiting camp. The answer was to investigate the facts surrounding the pipelines in your own home state. Once I was back home in Michigan, I visited my local library and discovered that Michigan’s chapter of The Sierra Club is very involved in opposing newly-proposed pipelines, as well as encouraging regulations to clean up pipelines currently in use. I am proud to say that I am now a member of Crossroads Group, a vibrant and engaged community of well-informed protectors of the environment. I look forward to working with this group for years to come.

Aimee LeMay