Weather will test pipeline protesters
North Dakota deep freeze that lies ahead could threaten lives.
CANNON BALL, N.D. — So far, the hundreds of protesters fighting the Dakota Access pipeline have shrugged off the heavy snow, icy winds and frigid temperatures that have swirled around their large encampment on the North Dakota grasslands.
But if they defy next week’s government deadline to abandon the camp, demonstrators know the real deep freeze lies ahead, when the full weight of the Great Plains winter descends on their community of nylon tents and teepees. Life-threatening wind chills and towering snow drifts could mean the greatest challenge is simple survival.
“I’m scared. I’m a California girl, you know?” said Loretta Reddog of Placerville, Calif., a protester who said she arrived several months ago with her two dogs and has yet to adjust to the harsher climate.
The government has ordered protesters to leave federal land by Monday, although it’s not clear what, if anything, authorities will do to enforce that mandate. Demonstrators insist they will stay for as long as it takes to divert the $3.8 billion pipeline, which the Standing Rock Sioux tribe believes threatens sacred sites and a river that provides drinking water for millions of people.
The pipeline is largely complete except for a short segment that is planned to pass beneath a Missouri River reservoir. The company doing the building says it is unwilling to reroute the project.
For several months, the government permitted the gathering, allowing its population to swell. The Seven Council Fires camp began growing in August as it took in the overflow crowd from smaller protest sites nearby. It now covers a half square mile, with living quarters that include old school buses, fancy motorhomes and domelike yurts. Hale bales are piled around some teepees to keep out the wind. There’s even a crude corral for horses.
The number of inhabitants has ranged from several hundred to several thousand. It has been called the largest gathering of Native American tribes in a century.
I nc re a s i ngly, more perman e n t wooden s t r u c t u re s a re being erected, even though the Army Corps of Engineers considers them illegal on government propert y. The Standing Rock Sioux insist the land still belongs to their tribe under a nearly 150-year-old treaty.
Nate Bison, a member of South Dakota’s Cheyenne River Sioux, came to the camp after quitting his job in Las Vegas a week ago. He said he intends to stay indefinitely, a prospect that may cause him to lose his house in Nevada.
“But since I’ve lived in these conditions before, to me it’s not all that bad,” he said.
Camp morale is high, he added, despite the onset of winter.
“Everybody I’ve talked to, you hear laughter and people just having a good time, enjoying the camaraderie and the support from each other,” Bison said. “And the love. People are taking the shirts off their own backs for other people. No one is left out that I’ve seen.”
Camp dwell e r s a re ge t t i ng ready for the hardships of a long stay. Mountains of donated food and water are being stockpiled, as is firewood, much of which has come from outside of North Dakota, the least-forested state in the nation. A collec tion of Army surplus tents with heating stoves serve as kitchen, dining hall, medical clinic and a camprun school. Many of the smaller tents have become tattered by the wind.
Tribes from the Great Plains states are adept at surviving brutal winters, he said. Others from warmer climes are being taught how to endure the frostbite-inducing temperatures that are sure to come.
A carpenter named Joel Maurer came from California last month. He’s been building small shedlike bunkhouses that will sleep seven people each with room for a stove.
“I know things are going to get real here real quick,” he said.