Water Protectors, Monster Slayers and the Enbridge Hearings
BY LE BOYD AND WINONA LADUKE For the past four years Dawn Goodwin, of Rice Lake, Minn., has driven thousands of miles, and missed weeks of family time and work to challenge the rights of a Canadian oil pipeline company – Enbridge, which threatens Anishinaabe water. The past three weeks of November were no exception as […]
Black Snake Chronicles: KXL Returns and Wiindigo Economics
BY WINONA LADUKE As the plagued Keystone Pipeline spills 200,000 gallons of oil near the Sisseton Dakota reservation, the Nebraska Public Service Commission made a convoluted approval of a permit. In the meantime, the Dakota, Lakota and allies stand strong. “Nothing has changed at all in our defense of land, air and water of the Oceti […]
Enbridge: The last big pipeline battle
BY WINONA LADUKE In late October, I attended the Enbridge pipeline hearings by the state of Minnesota. It’s been a long haul, I feel like I have been in five years of hearings, hanging in there with all sorts of committed citizens, heroines like Dawn Goodwin, Joanne Gagnon, and Tania Aubid, who, I swear have been […]
Into the Mist: UN Declaration at Ten Years
BY WINONA LADUKE As I drive home from Fargo towards evening, there are end-less fields of farm equipment, sugar beets, potatoes and corn. The land is flat, the horizon endless. And then there is the mist. I drive into the mist. The mist is the remaining wetlands. Sparse they are. When I get towards Gaawaabaabaanikaag, or […]
WHAT’S NEW IN THE COMMUNITY: Sept 2017
Dr. Arne Vainio named Physician of the Year Dr. Arne Vainio, M.D. (Mille Lacs Ojibwe) was named Physician of the Year by the Association of American Indian Physicians at its 46th annual conference on July 28 in Shawnee, Okla. Vainio completed his undergraduate studies in 1990 at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, and graduated in 1994 […]
Riding the Line: Enbridge and the horse nation
By Winona LaDuke I am a traveler, for sure, but my love of the horse, the sound of horses on our Mother Earth, the chance to see a monarch butterfly, a back trail, and a ride with my grandchildren brings me to horse. And on Sandy Lake, it brings me to canoes. We have become […]
The Wiindigo and the Water Protectors
Some things never change, no matter the cannibal. The standards are dropping quickly; that is, if there ever were standards. As Donald Trump shamelessly grabs more for corporate interests and fat cats, standards of law, human decency, and rules of engagement in civil society are brushed aside. While actively dismantling all social programs and environmental […]