Stories from Standing Rock, a perspective on the #NoDAPL camps pt.3

When I arrived back to Sacred Stone the sun had just began to touch the hills, and a dim blue light made the silence of the snow beautiful. At first, I assumed everyone was asleep. As I walked into what was considered "downtown" Sacred Stone, I noticed that many chimneys were smokeless. I turned before reaching the medical and infirmary wogs, to walk behind one of three buildings referred to as the kitchen. With relief, I saw the community had put up a tipi around the sacred fire! I'm not sure if this is common knowledge, but one of the things that made the sacred fire so special was that it had been burning since April 2016! Carefully listened to and nurtured, the fire was always tended by someone. When I walked into the tipi I found the tender napping, a small yet robust fire sat before me. This is the one thing you will never see a photo of from the camps, this was a place to pray and sit with the ancestors the flames represent. Throughout the day various people would come in to offer tobacco to the fire, and pray in whatever way made sense to them. After spending some time there, I headed over to the med wog.

Inside I found two people who are very special to me, Chris and Bella. They were clearly all whacked out on caffeine, and looked as if they hadn't seen their beds recently. Within a few minutes I learned that three people were on duty nearly 24/7 in med, since most of the volunteer doctors and practitioners were gone. They rotated out the best they could, and sometimes received help from the Oceti medics. By the end of the day this would become a common narrative, far too few people trying to accomplish as much as they physically could.

Although January had brought another population decrease, the will to fight was just as strong. Over the last few months chairman Dave Archambault had completely turned his back on the camps, and the people who he had a duty to represent. When I returned to camp there was now a missile launcher perched on the opposing hills, that was later stated to be for infrared- a weak cover up of the scare tactic. Suddenly there was a incredibly decent phone signal in camp, you could now get onto the internet easily! Of course, this signal came from the stingray devices and when accessed allowed private contractors and police to monitor us. We wouldn't know this for a few more months, but DAPL had hired a private security firm called TigerSwan that was not licensed in the state. TigerSwan was founded by a former Blackwater employee, and had similar controversies in his company for the manner of their operations over seas. This company spied on us, and followed many high profile activists even after SR to form a profile of this movement. I could write an entire series on TigerSwan, from the attempted infiltrations and demoralizing tactics, to the breaches of the 4th amendment and illegal arrests. However the Intercept has published an incredibly detailed series of leaks from inside TigerSwan, which can be found here: https://theintercept.com/2017/05/27/leaked-documents-reveal-security-firms-counterterrorism-tactics-at-standing-rock-to-defeat-pipeline-insurgencies/ I will instead only speak on my personal experiences with them in this story.

I spent my first few days back doing odd jobs, and catching up with my Sacred Stone family. There had been a running plan to build an eco-village, and there was still a small amount of building going on. Predominantly though, our days were spent maintaining our small village and doing our best to clean up after the people who came and left behind their campsites. I don't mean to be harsh, the snows did come fiercely and much of the needed clean up wasn't possible with feet of snow in the way. I have spent entire days at this point breaking down and packing in abandoned campsites, and fume when people say we are hurting the earth on the same par as the pipeline. I can still remember the feeling of sustaining myself without oil, solar power and wood burning stoves filling all of my needs. I cannot say that the camps ran entirely without oil, but we avoided it in every way possible. Trying to remain friendly online when we addressed the hypocrisy in the movement, we asked when the people would stand up and demand a better option. We insisted that oil was an outdated and dying industry, and that when the people united we would create a new path- one that didn't leave a poisoned future to the next generations. When February found me I had decided to help out in the med wog, and my days were spent hanging out with plants and sick people.

Life was shook up quite suddenly about a week after I got back, the BIA had pushed into camp briefly- stating that they just needed to look around. No warrant was shown, as they entered clearly marked private property. Shortly after that a notice was issued that we needed to move all of the structures in what was considered yurt village- about 20 yurts, 5 tipi, and a kitchen that sat closest to the river. A yurt is a moveable nomadic home without any metal involved, built in layers. The skeleton of a yurt is all wood, the walls are lattice that hold up poles which create a ceiling. The entire thing is then covered with felts- heavy woolen insulation, before being wrapped in canvas and secured with ropes. This wasn't an impossible request, but it was an extremely difficult thing to accomplish. A frantic effort began to pack in the most populated area of sacred stone, and the BIA cursed us with their presence once again.

a completed yurt

I was sitting in med with a woman named Lucy who had come over from Oceti, the day BIA came again. After a largely uneventful morning, Lucy decided to go get some rest. As she left the wog, a commotion ensued. BIA had tried to get into camp, and were stopped. At least a few people had been pepper sprayed and hit with batons, I was told by someone who was breathless after running down the hill. An instant later I heard that someone was badly injured, and was headed my way. Luckily I was able to catch Lucy for help, I fear I would have been completely useless without her. My hands were shaking when Ian was brought to med, his eyes swollen and arm broken. I tried to soothingly stroke his hair while Lucy gathered what was needed to wash out his eyes, and I'll never forget the way he calmly said "Please stop, you're getting the pepper spray back into my eyes". Polite and even tempered even when he was clearly in agony, Ian is one of the strongest people I've ever met- a true warrior. We did what we could to comfort him, but it wasn't safe to do anything with his arm without an x-ray. A badly placed splint could mean a far more difficult healing process, and his arm was visibly in very rough shape already. Lucy wanted to rush him to the hospital, but Ian insisted that he would not go with the near certainty that BIA had hung around. We learned early in this movement that when arrested we would be treated roughly, I think he made the right decision. However, I was scared for him and it hurt that I couldn't do anything. I was helpless as Medics arrived from big camp, and attempted to transport him to Oceti where Med was much better supplied. He was still calm through all of this, which was a series of blunders as there was no good way to get him across the river other than snow mobile. Eventually we made it work, and I sat in prayer and silence in med until I saw my friend again later that night.

I found out later that two people had been attacked, one had been arrested. We had no idea for many days if the other person was hurt, but from her screams on the footage of the attack we all knew she couldn't be doing very well. Ian had been hit once on the arm with a baton and it was broken, she had been hit at least three times. The people who were at the top gate when the BIA came, say that it was apparent that they came for her. As soon as they had her in custody they left- when moments before they were set on getting into camp. This is one example of the spying that we experienced, they knew who was at the center of things. When her bail was set two weeks later, it was 100,000! We wondered if they meant to hide her injuries by setting such an impossibly high bail, and worried about what was happening to her in jail. In the next days we threw our anger and frustration into the work needed to move yurt village. Total we were given an 11 day notice to move the homes of dozens of people.