FOR WHICH IT STANDS Why the Showdown at Standing Rock Was More Than Just a Pipeline Protest January 23, 2017 | $5 | Vol

BEARS EARS NATIONAL MONUMENT | OWL BEDROOMS | TO KNOW A WOLF

High Country ForN people whoews care about the West FOR WHICH IT STANDS Why the showdown at Standing Rock was more than just a pipeline protest January 23, 2017 | $5 | Vol. 49 No. 1 | www.hcn.org 49 No. | $5 Vol. January 23, 2017 CONTENTS

Editor’s note Standing Rock and beyond Earlier this month, a group of protesters calling themselves “water protectors” set up a camp to stop the imminent construction of a controversial pipeline. This was not in North Dakota, however; it was in Texas. The Two Rivers camp, established by activists who were also part of the opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline, or DAPL, aims to stop a similar, 148-mile-long project, the Trans-Pecos. Without the NoDAPL movement, which was inspired by the Standing Rock Sioux’s desire to protect the tribe’s water and cultural sites, the Two Rivers encampment might never have happened. At the very least, it would have looked much different. “We’re going to follow the same model as Standing Rock,” Frankie Orona, an organizer at Two Rivers, told the Guardian newspaper. “This is a huge historical moment for environmental issues, for protecting our water, protecting our land, protecting sacred sites and protecting treaties.” A signpost in the Oceti Sakowin camp bears evidence of people from hundreds of tribes who flocked to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota to oppose the Dakota Access Pipeline. Terray Sylvester The standoff at Standing Rock may well be the start of something historic. In North Dakota, the world watched as an Indigenous land-and-water On the cover FEATURE movement found common cause with climate activism to confront a fossil-fuel corporation Kyle Mateo, Marisa 12 protected by a militarized police force. The Pelletier, and Rick For which it stands Buckman Coe 12 Duty and #NoDAPL By Jenni Monet administration of President Donald Trump may yet overturn the Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to (from left) pose for 14 By Tay Wiles a photograph in Standing Rock’s Ripple Effects halt the pipeline, pending review of its impact on the Oceti Sakowin environmental and cultural resources. But Standing camp on the edge of CURRENTS Rock, as Associate Editor Tay Wiles reports in this the Standing Rock issue, has nevertheless empowered people in new Sioux Reservation in November. Pelletier 5 Bears Ears National Monument is a go Despite compromises, ways. It likely will prove to be just one of many is Ojibwe. The opposition is riled up coming battles, as the stakes of climate change three traveled from 6 The Latest: New legislation to drill in the Arctic continue to rise, and as Indigenous populations Vancouver, British build on the Standing Rock model. Columbia, to oppose 7 Bedroom community In Oregon, artificial burrows Even as our country slides further away from the Dakota Access oil help owls recover democracy and closer to corporate oligarchy, pipeline. Standing Rock provides heartening evidence that Terray Sylvester 7 The Latest: Congress makes it easier to transfer federal lands to states people who stand together still have power. In this 8 issue, we have tried to provide you with a view of A more open forest The Forest Service relaxes restrictions not only how a complex array of actors from across on guided groups the world came together on the High Plains of 9 While wolves still have names As wolf numbers grow, North Dakota, but how they are taking newfound they’ll be managed as a population rather than known as individuals confidence and commitment back home to address a wide range of environmental and justice issues. DEPARTMENTS It’s too early to know where all the protests, prayers, divestment campaigns and new alliances will lead us. But we know these things are adding Complete access 3 FROM OUR WEBSITE: HCN.ORG up. Energy Transfer Partners, for example, the to subscriber-only 4 LETTERS content company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline (and the Trans-Pecos, it turns out) is now having a HCN’s website 10 THE HCN COMMUNITY Research Fund, Dear Friends cash-flow problem. In early January, the company hcn.org 20 MARKETPLACE sought a $568 million infusion from its parent Digital edition hcne.ws/digi-4901 25 BOOKS company, Energy Transfer Equity, which in turn For A Little While by Rick Bass and Dog Run Moon: Stories by Callan Wink. sought outside investment to make the deal. These Reviewed by Jenny Shank peaceful protests, in other words, have at last found Follow us a language the oligarchs can understand: profit 26 ESSAY and loss, cost and benefit. Let more discussions now  Standing Rock’s Men at War By Michelle García commence. @highcountrynews 28 HEARD AROUND THE WEST By Betsy Marston --Brian Calvert, managing editor

2 High Country News January 23, 2017 From our website: HCN.ORG

Will the Endangered Species Act Trending survive House Republicans? Revolutionary For years, House Republicans have tried to modify and consumers weaken the Endangered Species Act. But in December, Prominent among Utah Rep. Rob Bishop went even further and said that President Donald the law is so dysfunctional that lawmakers may “simply Trump’s Cabinet have to start over again” and “repeal it and replace it.” nominees are friends Antipathy toward the act dates back to its 1973 passage, of the energy industry, but Republicans stepped up efforts to weaken it in the such as Scott Pruitt, 1990s, blaming several listings for economic travails. who is slated to run the The attacks on the law haven’t let up since, even though Environmental Protection environmentalists have challenged claims that protection Agency (an agency blocks development. If it’s repealed, protections could he is currently suing), vary widely, and since states get a portion of their funds and possible Secretary from hunting licenses and fees, one obvious pitfall could of State Rex Tillerson, be incentives for them to prioritize game management the chief executive of over at-risk species. Pat Parenteau, a Vermont Law School Exxon Mobil. In an The tiny Delta smelt is notorious among opponents of the Endangered Species Act professor, says: “The truth is the (ESA) isn’t the pitbull of opinion column, HCN because efforts to save it have contributed to farm closures and water reductions, environmental law. It’s a poodle.” Joshua Zaffos Managing Editor Brian yet its population continues to decline. John Ridilla/ USFW More: hcne.ws/endangered-esa Calvert suggests an antidote to corporate takeover. “True power … has been organizing itself around the logic (It is) inconceivable that a of corporate capitalism country would find billions for a long time,” Calvert 35of “social trails,”miles unplanned paths created by “ writes. “We have equally of barrels of oil and leave it in obvious ways to resist: more visitors have visited each of these five parks unauthorized foot traffic, now exist in Zion 500,000 By changing the way we the ground while there is —Yosemite, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Great Smoky National Park. There are only 15 miles of spend.” Mountains and Glacier — in 2016 than in 2015. designated trails. a market for it. Brian Calvert, Opinion —Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during an announcement of a series of You say ”oil sands pipeline approvals. The Park Service centennial celebration’s damage to the lands Bryan Johnson: “Mr. Calvert is implying By some measures, the National Park Service’s centennial year, during which the agency focused Since 2015, Canadian Prime Minister Justin that a vote in 21st marketing campaigns to drive traffic, was a resounding success. Within the Park Service’s 413 units by Trudeau has issued plans for a new nationwide century American the end of 2016, the agency smashed all-time records, welcoming nearly 325 million visitors and far carbon tax, begun phasing out fossil fuel democracy is rooted surpassing the prior record of 307 million, set in 2015. Thirteen parks surpassed the 2 million mark subsidies, and set a goal of achieving net in how we engage in visitation, while 11 reached that level in 2015. But such overcrowding also increases adverse hiker zero emissions by 2050. But a rash of new with capitalism. … Not behavior and vandalism. The most profound impacts could be longer-lasting: Wildlife increasingly fossil fuel projects run counter to Trudeau’s everybody has the succumbs to traffic-related deaths, and the most sensitive landscapes are the most strained and environmental record and cast doubt on privilege and luxury to damaged. National Park Service staff struggled just to keep up. whether Canada can meet its climate goals. sit back and wait it out, Glenn Nelson/Trail Posse S arah Tory particularly queer and More: hcne.ws/celebration-depreciation More: hcne.ws/canada-climate-counter trans folks, people of color, and immigrants.” Ruby Ram: “Something is seriously off with our culture Around the West, in photos when suggestions of This year, as always, we reported many the only way we can be stories in the region, but we also covered ‘heard’ is by shutting some of the little-known corners of the up and just not buying always-surprising West. That included stuff.”

photos of a rare “super bloom” in Death night Charles Fox: K Valley, members of an unauthorized “border c “ Voting with our dollars M son s l i patrol” and a man who braves frigid waters

ll is what we do every day, i

to harvest sea cucumbers. M el W so much more frequently Staff More: hcne.ws/2016-pictures tt mu than voting for president a Ma S every four years. In a sense, our vote for president becomes almost trivial compared to the thousands of votes we cast … through

ohnson our consumption habits.” y J or s More: hcne.ws/ C dollar-democracy nd alla

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Never miss a story. Sign up for the HCN newsletter at hcn.org/enewsletter. www.hcn.org High Country News 3 Letters Send letters to [email protected] or Editor, HCN, P.O. Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428.

High Country News Industrial solar males — are treated in com

Executive director/Publisher shortcomings . this manner throughout Paul Larmer multiple government MANAGING Editor “So Shines a Good Deed”

rtoons organizations and busi-

Brian Calvert gives incomplete coverage a SENIOR EDITOR c ness as a whole. to solar energy develop- al Jodi Peterson The worst part of all ment and presents only one itic Art director l o of this is that with the view of a rather compli- Cindy Wehling /P incoming occupant of the Deputy editor, digital cated situation (HCN, und Kate Schimel l White House — the one 12/26/16). n Associate EDITORs a with Neanderthal lean- Tay Wiles, Both the federal gov- r Maya L. Kapoor ings and cronies with Assistant EDITOR ernment and the article

Dave G Dave the same mentality — Paige Blankenbuehler cited are avid promoters of we can only expect more D.C. Correspondent industrial-scale solar de- of this type of treatment Elizabeth Shogren velopment on public lands. WRITERS ON THE RANGE for far too many people. In California, the total editor Betsy Marston Get ready, America. Associate designer solar energy produced from There will be an exten- Brooke Warren installations on parking sive amount of work to Copy editOR lot structures, warehouse Diane Sylvain be done — beginning roofs and individual homes Contributing editorS now — to avoid a re- significantly exceeds that sive level of government. I’m sure the Cally Carswell, Sarah versal of the decades of toil by many to Gilman, Ruxandra Guidi, produced by industrial-scale facilities. free-market insurance companies that Glenn Nelson, create equal opportunities for everyone These distributed sources are closer to are asked to replace burned homes are Michelle Nijhuis, in what has always been a great nation. Jonathan Thompson the points of use, employ local labor and noticing the lack of county and private CorrespondentS are sited on already disturbed land. It action to protect homes. Perhaps the Don Hagedorn Krista Langlois, Sarah Tory, Joshua Zaffos is much more difficult for the federal locals will be more receptive to govern- Columbia, South Carolina Editorial Fellow government to promote development on ment action when insurance companies Anna V. Smith private lands than on public lands, so raise their rates or cancel their policies An exception, not a ‘loophole’ Interns Emily Benson, it is understandable, but shortsighted, altogether. Becca Worby Elizabeth Shogren’s “Latest” column that the Interior Department should act Development Director Tom Ribe in the Dec. 12 issue grossly mischar- as it has. It is less understandable that Laurie Milford Santa Fe, New Mexico acterized the North Fork coal-mining Philanthropy Advisor High Country News should accept and exception to the Colorado roadless rule, Alyssa Pinkerton print such a view with no caveat. Development Assistant The dark side of the Park Service as a “loophole.” The state of Colorado Neither does the story mention Christine List was never ambiguous with its intent to damage to Native American artifacts, Please give Lyndsey Gilpin my con- Subscriptions MARKETER make provisions for the $1 billion-dollar JoAnn Kalenak tortoise deaths due to translocation, doc- gratulations on her great investigative coal-mining industry in the North Fork WEB DEVELOPER Eric Strebel umented avian fatalities, or the fact that reporting for “How the Park Service coal-mining area with its own roadless Database/IT administrator the Ivanpah facility has failed to deliver is Failing Women” (HCN, 12/12/16). I Alan Wells rule, and this, alongside many other the electrical power that was promised. am in my 23rd year of retirement after DIRECTOR OF ENGAGEMENT exceptions, was part of its original 2005 Gretchen King Honest reporting ought to include a wearing the National Park Service petition. The provision was identified FINANCE MANAGER wider perspective than that shown. ranger uniform for more than 30 and deliberated for seven years in an Beckie Avera years. I can validate and corroborate Accounts Receivable Craig Deutsche open public process; some local environ- every point that Lyndsey writes in her Jan Hoffman Los Angeles, California mental groups even supported it. This is article. That traditional flat hat of the Circulation manager not to deny that the affected coal mines Tammy York Park Service uniform covers up a lot of Regulations rejected have staggering greenhouse gas emis- Circulation Systems admin. weird and strange stuff! I have come to Kathy Martinez sions and that such operations warrant “Will a twice-burned county change its believe that what you write about hap- Circulation scrutiny for their climate consequences. ways?” (HCN, 12/26/16) details how pening in the NPS is not at all unique Kati Johnson, Pam Peters, But to misrepresent the North Fork Doris Teel residents of Montana’s Bitterroot Valley to just one agency. You are likely to coal mining exception as a “loophole” Advertising Director block efforts by their state and county find such a dark sinister side to all U.S. David J. Anderson obfuscates the history of how and why governments to require homeowners in federal agencies. It is my experience and GrantWriter Janet Reasoner this exception exists. In today’s informa- the fire zone to prepare for inevitable observation that if one does not fit into [email protected] tion (and misinformation) landscape, it’s wildfires. Residents reject county the agency mold, then one is drummed [email protected] imperative for professional journalism [email protected] regulation and demand private-property out of the corps. sources to be exacting in pursuit of ac- [email protected] rights. These Bitterroot Valley conser- Alden L. Nash curacy. If reporting creeps ever slightly [email protected] vatives can teach us a great deal about Bishop, California toward confirming suspicions of those FOUNDER Tom Bell a mindset that demands that the federal who wish to cast any professional news Board of Directors government turn public lands over to John Belkin, Colo. Shades of what’s to come? source as “liberal lies,” then hope for the state because of “overreach” on the Chad Brown, Ore. continued democratic processes — like Beth Conover, Colo. part of the U.S. Forest Service (which I thoroughly appreciated, although the one that resulted in this delicately Jay Dean, Calif. has spent tens of millions of dollars pro- was equally saddened by, “How the Bob Fulkerson, Nev. negotiated compromise between land- tecting Bitterroot Valley homeowners Park Service is Failing Women” (HCN, Wayne Hare, Colo. scape conservation and rural economic Laura Helmuth, Md. and fighting fires made worse by past 12/12/16). It does not surprise me that development — is really sunk. John Heyneman, Wyo. subsidized logging). Conservatives not women — and most likely people of Osvel Hinojosa, Mexico Samaria Jaffe, Calif. only reject federal regulation, they re- color, of Hispanic or Muslim back- Ben Graves Nicole Lampe, Ore. ject regulation by the most local, respon- grounds, and others who are not white Paonia, Colorado Marla Painter, N.M. Bryan Pollard, Ark. Raynelle Rino, Calif. Estee Rivera Murdock, D.C. High Country News is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) (ISSN/0191/5657) is published bi-weekly, 22 times a year, by High Country News, 119 Grand Printed on Dan Stonington, Wash. recycled paper. Rick Tallman, Colo. High independent media organization that covers the Ave., Paonia, CO 81428. Periodicals, postage paid at Paonia, CO, and other post offices. Luis Torres, N.M. Country issues that define the American West. Its mission is POSTMASTER: Send address changes to High Country News, Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428. All Andy Wiessner, Colo. to inform and inspire people to act on behalf of the rights to publication of articles in this issue are reserved. See hcn.org for submission guidelines. Florence Williams, D.C. News region’s diverse natural and human communities. Subscriptions to HCN are $37 a year, $47 for institutions: 800-905-1155 | hcn.org 4 High Country News January 23, 2017 CURRENTS

landscape sustainably for generations to Bears Ears National Monument come.” This emphasis on Native American cultures and values, says University of is a go Colorado, Boulder, law professor Charles Wilkinson, promises to make the new Despite compromises, opposition is riled up monument “one of the most distinctive and uplifting landscapes in America’s By Jonathan Thompson public land systems.” The area is home to tens of thousands n the eve of the new year, President return: More than a half-million acres in of archaeological sites, mostly remnants OBarack Obama designated the Bears the original proposal were excluded from of the ancestral Puebloan culture, who in- Ears National Monument — culminat- the final boundaries. habited this landscape for at least 2,000 ing an eight-decade-long struggle to pre- Bears Ears National Monument cov- years. Many of them have suffered from serve this ecologically diverse, archaeo- ers 1.35 million acres in San Juan Coun- illegal pothunting, vandalism and ar- logically rich landscape in southeastern ty currently managed by the Bureau of tifact collecting. Monument supporters Utah, the ancestral homeland of several Land Management and the U.S. Forest hope that the designation will bring the Southwestern tribes. Service. The two agencies will jointly resources needed to enforce existing laws, The Dec. 28 decision is being heralded manage the new monument, with “guid- shore up regulations and educate the pub- as a victory not only for the conservation ance and recommendations” from a com- lic about the importance of these cultural community, but also for the five tribes mission made up of elected officers from resources. that proposed the monument and will play the Hopi Nation, Zuni Tribe, Navajo Na- Opponents often cite the controver- N o president a role in managing it. Yet even its most tion, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and the sial designation of the Grand Staircase- ardent opponents — mostly Utahns who Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah Ouray. Escalante National Monument west has ever tried regard Obama’s use of the Antiquities Act The monument proclamation goes on to of here, created by then-President Bill to abolish a as federal overreach — got something in note: “The traditional ecological knowl- Clinton in 1996. But a better comparison edge amassed by the Native Americans might involve the Canyon of the Ancients monument; it’s Contributing editor Jonathan Thompson is whose ancestors inhabited this region … in southwestern Colorado, also given not clear that it’s writing a book about Colorado’s Gold King is, itself, a resource to be protected and monument status by Clinton in 2000. Mine spill.  @jonnypeace used in understanding and managing this “Canyons of the Ancients was perhaps the even possible.

Areas that were not included in the final monument designation

A. The Daneros uranium mine, along with a vast swath of land near the confluence of the San Juan and Colorado River, was left out of the final monument. This gives the mine room to expand, and keeps other potential uranium mining areas outside the monument.

B. Some of the Ute Mountain Ute people opposed to the monument were concerned about its impact on Ute lands in Allen Canyon; some of those lands were excluded from the monument.

C. The Abajo Mountains and adjacent Harts Draw are popular recreation, grazing and C firewood-gathering areas for locals. B D. Most of the dramatic Raplee Anticline and Lime Ridge were left out. These areas have a history of some oil development and limestone A quarrying.

E E. Black Mesa was left out of the monument as a concession to locals, and because of historic impacts. F F. All but the very end section of Recapture Canyon was left out of the monument. There D is potential for oil and gas development here.

www.hcn.org High Country News 5 first to explicitly recognize that ruins do mineral rights and grazing rights will be Trump has little or no ability to alter this not tell the entire story — that ancients preserved, private lands will not be im- monument,” says Wilkinson. Even if chal- lived in, hunted, gathered and raised pacted, and the feds will work to swap lenged, “there is an overwhelming likeli- crops, and developed water and religious state lands within monument boundaries hood that courts will hew to existing law sites throughout the larger landscape,” for parcels elsewhere. Though the 1996 that the Antiquities Act allows presidents says Bruce Babbitt, Clinton’s Interior sec- Grand Staircase-Escalante designation to create monuments but not to overturn retary. “Bears Ears brings this concept to effectively killed a proposed coal mine, them.” A Shell oil drilling fruition in an even larger landscape.” no such developments are on the table at Hatch wants Congress to ditch the rig in the arctic. In response to stiff resistance from Bears Ears. Antiquities Act altogether, or follow Wyo- Courtesy Shell local politicians and citizens, Obama Nevertheless, the Utah Legislature’s ming’s example and exempt Utah from pared down the original 1.9 million- public lands committee denounced the it. Since the law’s 1906 passage, how- THE LATEST acre Bears Ears proposal by 550,000 designation as “unilateral tyranny,” ever, all but three presidents have used acres, cutting out the Abajo Mountains, and Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch it, protecting tens of millions of acres in Backstory most of the Raplee Anticline and Lime called it an “attack on an entire way of extraordinary landscapes like Death Val- For two years, Sen. Ridge, and a swath of land near the con- life.” That’s despite the fact that the only ley, the Grand Canyon and Zion. It’s hard Lisa Murkowski, fluence of the San Juan and Colorado existing economic activity likely to be to imagine any president willingly giving R-Alaska, worked rivers where uranium is being mined. hindered by the monument is the pilfer- up so much power and legacy-building to reform America’s The final boundaries are closer to those ing and black-market sale of antiquities. potential. decade-old energy in the Public Lands Initiative bill that “Some of the Utah delegation don’t care Meanwhile, environmentalists, ar- policy while Utah Republican Rep. Rob Bishop tried about the actual proclamation,” says John chaeologists, and tribes are prepared to increasing oil drilling and failed to get through Congress in Freemuth, executive director of the Ce- fight to keep Bears Ears — and other in her home state 2016. That bill would have put essen- cil D. Andrus Center for Public Policy at monuments — intact. But for now, they’re (“Lisa Murkowski’s tially the same lands into two national Alter Ego,” HCN, Boise State University. “They only care also celebrating. “Mormon history, the 10/12/15). conservation areas and a wilderness about confrontational politics and clichéd Constitution and laws, and white man’s Murkowski’s bipartisan area. symbolism.” history are written on paper,” said Octavi- Energy Policy The monument’s proclamation pre- Utah lawmakers pledged to urge the us Seowtewa of Zuni. “Our history — the Modernization Act — serves traditional Native American access president-elect to overturn the designa- Native history — is written in stone on which tackled a slew to firewood, herbs and piñon nuts — a tion. Yet no president has ever tried to canyon walls. We celebrate, knowing our of issues including grid major concern for those Navajos and Utes abolish a monument; it’s not clear that it’s history at Bears Ears will be protected for modernization, energy who resisted the designation. Existing even possible. “Existing law tells us that future generations, forever.” efficiency and industry regulation — made it past committee in the fall of 2015 and headed for a vote in Congress. Followup On Dec. 9, 2016, Sen. Murkowski conceded that her bill had died. Despite passing in the Senate by an 85-12 vote, the bill was stopped by House Republicans who were waiting to control both Congress and the White House before revisiting energy policy. In late December, changes in Washington hit close to home for Murkowski: President Obama moved to protect most U.S. Arctic waters from offshore oil and gas leasing. Then, in January, Murkowski introduced legislation to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s coastal plain to drilling. It was her ninth such attempt. Maya L. Kapoor

The Cedar Mesa Citadel Ruins are one of thousands of archaeological sites in the 1.35 million acres of land now designated as Bears Ears National Monument that include rock art, cliff dwellings and ceremonial kivas. Bureau of Land management

6 High Country News January 23, 2017 THE LATEST Bedroom Backstory Even as a majority of community states and counties explicitly reject the idea of transferring In Oregon, artificial burrows federal land to help owls recover states, the transfer drumbeat is getting By Leigh Calvez louder, championed in Congress by Volunteer Julie Republican lawmakers ugging two heavy buckets of rocks, Conley of Yakima, like Alaska’s Sen. Washington, flattens David Johnson trudged across north- Lisa Murkowski and L the soil over an Utah’s Rep. Rob east Oregon’s sunburnt shrub-steppe in artificial burrow the hot mid-May sun. Before him lay the Bishop. Since 2014, a at the Umatilla number of Western U.S. Army’s Umatilla Chemical Depot, Chemical Depot counties have joined where rows of concrete igloos once held in Oregon. Below, the American Lands stockpiled chemical weapons. Now, the a burrowing owl Council, which virtually deserted Depot provides thou- perches on a wire. lobbies to “return” Kathy Aney/East sands of acres of prime burrowing owl Oregonian; Jadine Cook/ lands to states (“The habitat. Johnson, head of the Global Owl Global Owl Project ultra-right ‘remedy’ for Project, dumped the rocks around the public lands,” HCN, man-made owl home he’d recently in- But now the owls face a new hurdle: the 10/24/14). stalled, to coyote-proof it. potential intrusion of construction equip-

Burrowing owls, nine inches tall ment followed by solar panels. When the Followup with white Groucho Marx eyebrows and U.S. Army decided to close the Depot, a fed- Congress kicked long skinny legs, are farmers’ friends — eral task force came up with a plan in 2010 off 2017 with the House GOP passing a single owl family can gobble over 1,000 for its land, including an area for National a package of rules crop-chewing rodents per year. Once found Guard training and a 5,678-acre wildlife that includes one from Minnesota to California, their popu- refuge. To pay for removing base infra- making it easier lations have plummeted as development structure, restoring native species, and to transfer federal encroaches on their habitat — treeless managing the refuge, the plan also called lands to states, grasslands and deserts — and on the for a small solar farm, up to 200 acres. by removing the burrow-diggers they rely on, like badgers After the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service requirement that other and prairie dogs. The owls are considered declined to run the refuge, the Columbia federal programs “birds of conservation concern” federally, Development Authority, a consortium of must be cut by an as well as in eight Western states. public and private business organizations, amount equal to the transferred land’s The burrowing owls on the Umatilla offered to take over. It also proposed a value. Because this Chemical Depot provide a case study in much larger solar farm — 2,000 acres that action involves a unintended consequences. An unsuccess- could generate $1 million worth of electric- House rule, the ful attempt to breed pronghorn inadver- ity annually. “We want to find a balance Senate does not get tently caused the owl population to crash. nate them by trapping. In the process, to protect habitat and economic develop- a vote. This doesn’t The Global Owl Project has helped the they killed most of the Depot’s badgers. ment,” says Oregon State Rep. Greg Smith, mean proposed land bird to recover, but now it faces a new But burrowing owls need badger dens for executive director of the authority. transfers are sure to threat, a proposed solar farm. “This is how nesting and raising their young, and as However, the solar farm would be pass, however: They’d a species becomes endangered in the first the now-abandoned burrows caved in, so built squarely on the “best remaining owl need 60 votes to avoid a filibuster, and place,” says Johnson. When habitat pro- did the population of owls. By 2008, they and curlew habitat,” says Johnson, “in di- Senate Republicans tection and economic development become had almost disappeared, dropping to an rect opposition to why the wildlife refuge outnumber Democrats mutually exclusive, he says, “No one wins.” all-time low of four nesting pairs. was designed and zoned to start with.” 52 to 48. So Johnson and some volunteers be- Johnson is working on an alternative that Paige ince 1941, the 17,000-acre Depot has gan installing artificial burrows. Every would place the solar array along the edg- Blankenbuehler S been protected from development and nest site has two or three buried cham- es of the refuge, where no owls nest and agricultural expansion. That’s allowed bers, each made from half of a 55-gallon where it can act as a fire break. He’s also wildlife to thrive, including long-billed barrel with a 10-foot-long entrance tunnel seeking a wildlife-focused group, such as a curlews, loggerhead shrikes, black-throat- of flexible drainage pipe. The owls moved land trust, to take title to the refuge land. ed sparrows, coyotes, red-tailed hawks in, and by 2009, there were nine nesting The Depot handover could happen as ear- and burrowing owls. pairs. Over the next eight years, Johnson ly as spring 2017. Then, in 1969, the Oregon Department installed 183 artificial burrows. In 2016, Johnson also hopes to help restore bal- of Fish and Wildlife decided to relocate 64 nesting pairs raised 182 chicks. “If you ance by relocating nuisance badgers to pronghorn here, hoping to breed animals know what you need to put back into the the refuge from around Oregon. The mus- that could be released in other parts of the system, intensive effort can work and work telids would rein in the exploding popula- state. The herd grew to about 350, then really well,” says Dave Oleyar, senior sci- tion of pocket gophers, which eat native declined, most likely from overgrazing entist for Hawkwatch International, who plants like big sagebrush and bunchgrass- and inbreeding. Wildlife officials, though, encountered similar “housing” issues with es, allowing non-natives such as cheat- blamed coyotes and set out to extermi- tree-cavity-nesting flammulated owls. grass and Russian thistle to invade. And Johnson hopes the Depot’s owls will even- more importantly, they’d once again dig Leigh Calvez is the author of the bestselling book tually spread around Oregon and Wash- homes for burrowing owls. Says Johnson, The Hidden Lives of Owls, published by Sasquatch ington, part of this unique Northwest sub- “I’d like to get out of the burrow business Lawrence Jackson / Books. She lives near Seattle, Washington. population’s historic range. altogether.” The White House

www.hcn.org High Country News 7 moratorium lifted only last year as part of the agency’s shifting attitude. Schlaf- A more open forest mann says the moratorium continued largely because the agency lacked the The Forest Service relaxes restrictions on guided groups staff to do an environmental study. “My sense is it became easier to maintain the By Anna V. Smith moratorium in some people’s minds than to undo it,” Schlafmann says. The rapid growth of Seattle had also raised concerns n late August, Matt Leslie led nine recently announced that it is modernizing about a recreation boom in nearby forests. high schoolers to the top of Sperry Peak and streamlining its recreation permit I To address the collective frustra- in Washington state. Many had never process. The agency says it wants to en- tion, in 2014, industry leaders formed been in the mountains before, much less courage groups to use its land, not restrict the Outdoor Advocacy Working Group, on a backpacking trip. Leslie is a guide access. “There is a clear need to say yes made up of around 40 volunteer groups, for Seattle’s Boys Outdoor Leadership more often, both to stay relevant as a pub- nonprofits and outfitters. The permitting Development & Girls Outdoor Leadership lic agency and to make sure that future process, they found, created a significant Development (BOLD & GOLD), an out- generations stay connected to their public hurdle to public access. In Seattle, BOLD door adventure program run by the YMCA lands,” says Mike Schlafmann, public ser- & GOLD taught kids to rock-climb in that includes kids from underrepresented vices officer at Mount Baker-Snoqualmie Canada instead of Washington; in Mon- backgrounds. But like many such groups, National Forest in Washington. tana, a group couldn’t take children to it’s got a problem: a broken permitting Bitterroot National Forest. “This permit system that often hampers access to ationwide, the Forest Service system doesn’t work well for anyone, in- Participants in nearby national forests. manages 23,000 special use permits N cluding land managers,” says Katherine a co-ed BOLD & That means more time and money is annually for guided trips. A temporary Hollis, conservation and advocacy director GOLD expedition spent to get to places farther from home — permit for 50 to 200 days can cost $150 to look at a map while of the Washington-based Mountaineers places kids are less likely to revisit after the $600, and long-term permits cost more. In backpacking in and a member of the working group. She trip is over. “By not having to drive many, some cases, the permit process can take Olympic National says arranging permits takes up a third many hours, students can see, ‘Wow, this is up to a year or longer, especially if an en- Park. Since it can or more of one Mountaineers employee’s something I can do all on my own,’ ” Leslie vironmental study is required. be difficult to time. “We had concerns about the next obtain permits in says. Instead, the program is forced to use The current system favors casual us- generation of conservationists because of national forests, a patchwork of national parks and state- ers, allowing them access to forest lands these bureaucratic barriers.” Hollis sees the leadership owned Department of Natural Resources without permits. But guided organiza- the Forest Service’s commitment to im- program often visits land where permitting is easier. Sperry tions, whether nonprofit or commercial, proving access as a way of acknowledging national parks or Peak, for example, is an island of DNR land large or small, often have to apply for DNR land where that recreation is as important as other surrounded by U.S. Forest Service land. permits even if their activities don’t have permitting is easier. land uses, like mining and logging. Guided groups like BOLD & GOLD much impact. A 2004 policy change gave The Forest Service In September, agency representatives have long called for better access to nation- rangers more flexibility to waive permits is streamlining its announced plans for a redesigned permit al forests. In response, the Forest Service if a group has nominal impacts, but the process to give these database, online applications and better kinds of groups rule wasn’t reflected in practice. In fact, ranger training for identifying low-impact better access. A nna V. Smith is an editorial fellow at Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National For- activities, a big step forward in a long pro- CtOour esy B LD & GOLD High Country News.  @annavtoriasmith est issued no new permits for 27 years, a cess. Seventeen national forests, all in the West, are testing the new system. That includes Mount Baker-Snoqualmie, where an environmental study on recreation con- cluded last year, opening up more permits. BOLD & GOLD will begin trial permits in summer 2017. Now, if a guided group wants to hike and camp in an area already used for recreation, the Forest Service en- courages district rangers to consider the effects, and waive the special-use permit requirement when possible. Permits will continue to exist, but the agency is taking a more nuanced approach. Although the Forest Service has ear- marked $5 million for the changes, guided groups worry about the agency’s tight budget: Over the past two decades, staff- ing has plunged, and wildfire costs consume 52 percent of the budget while recreation and wilderness funding has dropped 15 percent. All that detracts from permit capacity. Nonetheless, the Forest Service’s recent actions are evidence of its changing attitude toward recreation, says Courtney Aber, national director of BOLD & GOLD. Once more kids get outside, close to home, she says, “they’ll understand why this is a place for them.”

8 High Country News January 23, 2017 While wolves still have names As Pacific Northwest wolf numbers grow, they’ll be managed as a population rather than known as individuals

By EMMA MARRIS

ight is falling in the Wood River managed like black bears, cougars or University ecologist Dan MacNulty calls As darkness falls, John N Valley, a broad, flat expanse of other animals — as largely anonymous “predatory senescence” — older wolves Stephenson, a biologist southern Oregon, just south of Crater populations. In another wolf generation or simply have a harder time chasing down with the U.S. Fish Lake National Park. John Stephenson, a three, an animal that kills livestock in this wild game, and fat, placid cattle make a and Wildlife Service, gray-haired, lantern-jawed U.S. Fish and valley might well be shot. “Part of the deal tempting alternative. So far, the attacks watches over the ranch Wildlife Service biologist, is building a of having wolves back on the landscape is have been few, annoying rather than infu- in southern Oregon where wolves from the campfire on this chilly late October eve- there are going to be some problem ones riating Klamath County ranchers. Rogue Pack have killed ning. He is here to be a human — to move we have to remove,” Stephenson says. “It Butch Wampler is the manager at the four calves. Emma Marris around and make noise and generally is the price of success.” Nicholson Ranch, where the pack killed discourage a nearby wolf pack from com- cattle. He was riding his horse on a Mon- ing out of the dark timbered hills. These R7, whom local environmentalists day morning in October when he came wolves have killed four yearling cattle in O dubbed “Journey,” gained his offi- across several wolves dining on the car- this particular pasture already. And this cial designation in early 2011, when he cass of a 600-pound steer. He suspected isn’t any old wolf pack; it was the first to became the seventh wolf to be captured the wolves had made the kill. “I rode the settle in southern Oregon, and the family and fitted with a radio collar in Oregon. cattle really good on Friday, and there of a legendary lupine wanderer known as That fall, he left his natal pack and took were no sick ones,” he says. The next OR7. off on an epic thousand-mile trek that saw night, the pack struck again. “All they ate The campfire’s flickering amber him cross into California for a time, be- out of that second one was the heart and flames compete with the irregular flash- coming the first wild wolf in the Golden lungs and liver,” Wampler says, clearly ing of anti-predator lights mounted on State since the 1920s. His wanderings irked. “Wolves kill just to kill.” fences. This is Stephenson’s fourth night surprised biologists, who hadn’t realized Eventually, they took two more steers. in this field. In a few days, the cows will how far wolves were prepared to travel The owner of the cattle, DeTar Livestock be rounded up and shipped to California in search of a good territory and a mate. of Dixon, California, was paid $3,660 in for the winter. Once they’re gone, he’ll be And he inspired environmentalists, who compensation from the Klamath County able to more or less relax until the cattle regarded “Journey” as symbolic: the per- Wolf Depredation Committee. And after return in the spring. sonification of wildness reclaiming the the third loss, Stephenson began his vigil. Wolves are expanding across the West, Pacific Northwest. OR7 has since inspired Wampler told Stephenson he understood though they’re still federally endangered two documentaries, a children’s book, and the real reason he was working so hard to in some places. At the edges of their a Twitter account (“Hobbies: wandering, avoid yet another kill: “You are not pro- range, the wolf frontier, the animals are ungulates”). tecting these cattle from the wolves; you more likely to be individually known and Since his famous cross-state trek, are protecting your wolves from these managed as if each one is precious. If one OR7 has settled down in a large terri- cattle.” finds a mate or has pups, it’s announced tory stretching from north of Crater Lake Stephenson acknowledges that the in the local paper and even on Facebook. down to the California border. He’s found fame of this particular wolf figures into And if one begins killing livestock, gov- a mate and had several rounds of pups. the amount of effort he’s putting in. “It ernment officials camp out for days in a The family is known as the Rogue Pack would take an extreme situation for us to cold pasture, hoping to maintain a fragile after the Rogue River-Siskiyou National order a removal of OR7,” Stephenson says. coexistence without further bloodshed — Forest that makes up much of their turf. However, even here on the wolf fron- especially if the wolf is as famous as OR7. OR7’s radio collar has gone dead, but Ste- tier, the fate of a single animal hardly But the era of knowing and manag- phenson has been unable to trap him or matters, given the likely spread of these ing Western wolves as individuals prob- his mate; the wolves are too wily. smart, flexible predators, who know how ably won’t last. If and when gray wolves OR7 is now 7 years old, and he and his to move and take advantage of local re- become well established, they will be family have largely kept to themselves, sources, says Mike Jimenez, a recently hunting elk and staying in the remotest retired wolf biologist. And so he supports Emma Marris writes about wildlife, ecology, parts of the forest. It wasn’t until this early lethal control of livestock-killing conservation and occasionally food from Klamath year that the Rogue Pack bothered live- wolves to encourage tolerance in rural Falls, Oregon. stock, perhaps owing to what Utah State Please see Wolves, page 24

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10 High Country News January 23, 2017 DEAR FRIENDS

¡Órale! Lowrider: Custom Made in New Mexico New faces in town Don J. Usner and Katherine Ware 179 pages, hardcover: $39.95. Generally speaking, we run a including Jim West, a photogra- Museum of New Mexico Press, 2016 pretty lean newsroom at our pher from Detroit and longtime Paonia, Colorado, headquarters. subscriber, who stopped by our A procession of lowriders glides As January 2017 gets under- office “to find some solace” and down the highway, chrome glinting way, however, we’ve got a full explore places like the proposed in the sun and the New Mexico house. Our newest staff mem- Bears Ears National Monument landscape rolling past. The photo, ber, Maya L. Kapoor, just started in Utah. His visit proved a good from 1980, is part of a collection of images by photographers featuring the elaborate cars and their special place in Mexican-American culture. as associate editor. omen: Bears Ears was declared The photographs in ¡Órale! Lowrider, by Don J. Usner and Katherine Maya, who was born in New a national monument the very Ware, celebrate the Impalas, Chevrolets and Fords as personalized works of Mexico and grew up in New next day. art rather than just status symbols: black-and-white portraits of men and Jersey, spent her 20s exploring Alas, a few corrections: In their beloved cars, a bride and groom in a motorcade, a colorful icon of the country through various “Can a video game render a Our Lady Guadalupe airbrushed on a hood. “Each vehicle embodies a story, seasonal field biology jobs. She culture more visible,” (HCN sometimes in a painted mural memorializing a lost loved one or depicting studied biology, getting a bach- 12/12/16), Amy Freeden was a narrative of struggle and redemption,” Usner writes. The project docu- elor’s degree from Williams Col- misidentified; she is the execu- ments the decades-long evolution of styles in New Mexico’s lowriders, a lege and a master’s degree from tive vice president of the Cook unique cultural tradition that is, as Usner puts it, “redolent with memories Arizona State University. While Inlet Tribal Council. of extended family, community and place.” Anna V. Smith at the University of Arizona, In our Dec. 26, 2016 Precision, 2014, left. where she got an MFA in cre- issue, we updated snow geese Eppie clowning with his ’64 Impala, Chimayo, 2012, above. ative writing, Maya co-founded fatalities at the Berkeley Pit DOTTIE Lopez, DOn J. Usner Many Voices, a university club in Butte, Montana; the deaths dedicated to supporting creative came not only because of writing students of color. In cadmium, lead and arsenic, but her free time, Maya L ynn & Beth Kaeding | Bozeman, MT Steve Ralph | Winthrop, WA loves backpacking Kristine R. Kampf | Grand Junction, CO George Rampp | Port Angeles, WA and looks forward to Faith Kearns | Berkeley, CA Patricia Rauscher | Cortez, CO exploring Colorado’s Barbara Kesel | Oakland, CA Andrew H. Rorick | Baker City, OR Western Slope. Maya Joshua Koch | Anchorage, AK Schaffner Press Inc. | Tucson, AZ will report on climate Ellen Lapham | Nevada City, CA Alan G. Schmidt | Silverthorne, CO change, natural Robin Lee Beusan | Boise, ID Kieth E. Severson | Isle, MN resources and other Mike Lenhart | Coos Bay, OR Susan A. Sherman | Anchorage, AK science news. We’re Marsha Lewis & Allison Brody | Albuquerque, NM Bruce Sillers | Issaquah, WA very excited to have Erica Lindemann | Steamboat Springs, CO Wendy Sims | Winthrop, WA her onboard. Sherry Litasi | Hillsboro, NM Gary Sirotiak | Skaneateles, NY As we wrapped up Margaret Livingston | Boulder, CO Shane & Paige Smith | Cheyenne, WY this issue, two under- Paula & Tom Long | Overland Park, KS Kirk Smith | Arvada, CO graduate students, Debra Lutje | The Dalles, OR Gregory C. Snyder | Washington, DC Isabel Lyndon and Scott MacButch | Pocatello, ID Deborah Stucklen | Loveland, CO Patrick Stein, visited Daniel C. May | Fairfax, CA Eric Trimble | Kalispell, MT us for a week to learn more about magazine Dan McCormack | Magnolia, TX Marc Trimmer | Denver, CO production and Joel Mona | Payson, AZ The Turnbull King Family | Andover, NH writing. Isabel and Dorothy Montgomery | Tucson, AZ Stephen Vago | Sterling, VA Patrick acquainted Cash Morgan | Redlands, CA Philip Vogelzang | Seattle, WA themselves with the Molly Watson | Palmer Lake, CO W. Keith Moser | Flagstaff, AZ writing process and Jim & Peggy Muhn | Westminster, CO Ronald Weaver | Medford, OR explored to the ins Tommy Murray | Winthrop, WA Becky Weed | Belgrade, MT and outs of produc- Maya L. Kapoor, our new associate editor, came from warm Tucson, Arizona, to a very Anne Nelson | St. Cloud, MN Jim Welch | Yachats, OR tion. The two came snowy Colorado. Brooke Warren Dave Nelson | Aspen, CO Harry Whitlock | Laramie, WY from Reed College, in Jessica Neuwerth | Rawlins, WY Mack & Loyes Wilkinson | Beaverton, OR Portland, Oregon, the Kiyoshi Nishikawa | Carson City, NV Charles F. Williams & Rosemary J. Smith | alma mater of Kate Schimel, our because of a specific problem Pocatello, ID Jayme Nobles | Clearwater, FL deputy editor-digital. It was a with oxidation of iron sulfide. In Gary A. Nowlan | Boulder, CO Elizabeth & Dan Willis | Eugene, OR pleasure to have them here. that issue’s “The chickenization Chris Nyikos | Carlsbad, NM Kristy Wilson | Accord, NY As the new political season of beef,” a photo caption incor- Mark Ohrenschall | Kenmore, WA Ben Winkes | Conway, WA begins, we’re busy stuffing rectly identified a truck’s con- Whitney Oswald | Holladay, UT Rest West | Oxford, MS envelopes for our annual “Send tents: corn silage, not mulched William Oviatt | Lander, WY Claudia Whitnah | Martinez, CA HCN to Congress” fundraiser. corn. And in Heard Around the Judy Parker | Orford, NH Ed & Jan Whitney | Casper, WY Each year, we ask readers to West, we reported on a dog that Lea Parks | Boulder, CO John & Nancy Wilbrecht | Jackson, WY send subscriptions to all 535 was chained up next to a polar Bruce Parlette | Aspen, CO Jim Parker & Janette Williams | McMinnville, OR members of Congress. That way bear, which was not chained up, Tim Parmly | Fairfax, VA Patricia Williams | Salem, OR they can make better-informed while a messy frozen-food truck Elizabeth Payton | Boulder, CO George R. Wilson | Coeur d’Alene, ID decisions about issues crucial spill was near Bend, Oregon, Dominic B. Perello | San Luis Obispo, CA W.J. Wolff | Elizabeth City, NC to the American West. If they not Burns. We regret the errors. Roger S. Peterson | Santa Fe, NM Leslie Wood & M. Edward Spauling | want to. Visit hcne.ws/send-us- La Grande, OR Barbara Pinney | Seattle, WA to-congress to add your pledge. —Paige Blankenbuehler, Jeff Woodard | Idaho Falls, ID Fay Plummer | Greenwood Village, CO We’ve had some especially for the staff Jim & Debbie Young | Lebanon, NJ Eric Pratt | Las Cruces, NM interesting visitors recently,

www.hcn.org High Country News 11 FOR WHICH IT STANDS

Police use a water cannon to drench opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline during a standoff in freezing temperatures at Backwater Bridge near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, in late November. Officers also used rubber bullets, concussion grenades and tear gas in an attempt to force the crowd out of the area. Facing page, the camp celebrates on Dec. 4, after the Army Corps of Engineers temporarily denied the permit needed for the Dakota Access Pipeline to proceed. Terray Sylvester

Duty and #NoDAPL FEATURE By Jenni Monet n September 2014, a colleague sent tribe had long resisted the multibillion- thing state officials rarely encountered in Wasté Win Young, then the his- dollar fracking industry, even as North their pursuit of an energy agenda: envi- toric preservation officer for North Dakota was becoming one of America’s ronmental debate. The tribe’s resistance Dakota’s Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, leading oil producers, second only to to the pipeline eventually blossomed into Ia news article. It described a proposed Texas. A strong believer in tribal sover- a much larger struggle for Indigenous How local oil pipeline that was headed straight for eignty, the Standing Rock Sioux began rights, environmental justice and racial ancestral lands and water, Young said, banning Bakken-related projects on its equality. But it all started out quietly, as tribal concerns yet no one had told the tribe about it. territory as early as 2007, citing historic great social movements so often do. The $3.8 billion, 1,172-mile-long treaties, the tribe’s right to natural re- grew into an Dakota Access Pipeline, operated by sources and its deep spiritual connection Young, now 38, was the first to draw Energy Transfer Partners, was slated to to the land and water. attention to the pipeline plans. As historic international be the largest pipeline ever to originate The tribe’s distrust of the oil indus- preservation officer, she was responsible in North Dakota, able to transport up try only deepened when the Mandan, for overseeing artifacts and cultural sites movement to 570,000 gallons of crude per day from Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, 200 miles across the reservation’s 3,500 square the booming Bakken oil patch, across up the Missouri River, began to experi- miles. Young emailed Energy Transfer South Dakota and Iowa to a refinery in ence the darker side of the Bakken boom. Partners the day she learned about the Patoka, Illinois. North Dakota welcomed These tribal communities on the Fort pipeline, and on Sept. 30, 2014, two com- the project, which could further boost the Berthold Reservation were among the pany officials, Chuck Frey and Tammy state’s oil production. By April 2014, out- state’s leading oil producers. But the Ibach, visited tribal headquarters in the put had topped 1 million barrels per day, boom also brought an increase in drugs small town of Fort Yates, on the state’s and proponents said transporting the oil and crime: According to the FBI, rape, southern edge. Tribal Chairman Dave by pipeline would be safer than using murder and assaults rose 121 percent Archambault II thanked them for show- trains, which can derail, causing spills or between 2005 and 2011 throughout the ing up — something similar infrastruc- explosive fires. Williston Basin, home to Fort Berthold. ture companies had never bothered to do South of the Bakken, though, the The Standing Rock Sioux’s doubts — but he was adamant: The tribe had no Standing Rock Sioux were increasingly about fracking and oil carried over to the intention of offering support. wary of the state’s energy ambitions. The Dakota Access Pipeline, provoking some- “We recognize our treaty boundaries,

12 High Country News January 23, 2017 FOR WHICH IT STANDS

Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 and 1868, movement, and their determined pres- from as far away as Norway, Ecuador and which encompasses North Dakota, South ence along the banks of the Cannon Ball New Zealand. Dakota, Montana and Wyoming,” Ar- and Missouri rivers helped legitimize the In response, law enforcement efforts chambault explained, according to a re- resistance campaign. “This isn’t just a also intensified, and by late September, cording of the meeting. He was referring Native American issue, this is a human Morton County sheriff’s deputies were to treaties that had been broken by the issue,” Braun said. arriving at prayer demonstrations in U.S. government but remained central to Among the early activists was Tom armored vehicles and riot gear. By mid- the tribe’s policies and decisions. Goldtooth, director of the Indigenous October, security forces were again pepper- The energy company representatives Environmental Network and a member of spraying protesters. In late October, two did not seem to understand. the Navajo Nation. “It’s not ‘if’ there’s go- mass arrests took place just days apart, “As Tammy (Ibach) just mentioned,” ing to be a (pipeline) spill, but ‘when,’ ” he and nearly 250 people, including respected Frey said, “we have avoided the existing said in late August, echoing the view of tribal boundary property, and we actually many fellow protesters. “It’s corporations come within 2,500 feet to your current like Dakota Access and Energy (Trans- tribal boundary.” Frey meant the cur- fer) Partners that are committing an act rent reservation boundary, not the larger of aggression, that are violent against ancestral territory claimed by the Sioux. Mother Earth.” His statement sidestepped the sensitive As summer settled over the prairie, issue of tribal sovereignty, as well as the Goldtooth’s son, Dallas, who is Mde- lingering rancor caused by previous Army wakanton Dakota and Diné, began to Corps of Engineers projects on the Mis- organize the movement online, distribut- souri. The construction of the Oahe Dam ing short videos, live updates and drone and other projects during the Pick-Sloan footage of the growing camps. North program in the 1950s and ’60s had swal- Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple, R, later ac- lowed up Standing Rock’s more fertile knowledged that the state’s efforts to ad- bottomlands, forcing out tribal members dress the movement were “outgunned” by and throwing many into lasting poverty. Standing Rock’s “social media machine.” To make matters worse, the Army The camps continued to grow, from no Corps representative who agreed to more than 20 people in April to nearly attend the September 2014 talks never 2,000 in early September. showed up. “We’ve actually been having a A major turning point came on hard time setting up a meeting with the Sept. 3, after private security guards Corps for this particular project,” Young attacked dozens of protesters with pep- told Ibach and Frey. (The Army Corps per spray and dogs. That Saturday, on maintains that it tried multiple times to Labor Day weekend, Dakota Access crews spiritual elders, were detained by police. discuss the pipeline with the Standing began bulldozing land that the Stand- On Oct. 27, Morton County deputies, as- Rock Sioux.) ing Rock Sioux consider sacred, home sisted by the National Guard and more The Standing Rock Sioux’s stance was to tribal burial sites. A group of women than 200 officers from six neighboring clear from the start. “Our water is our scaled a wire fence, followed by men and states, conducted a military-style sweep single last property that we have for our children. Violence swiftly erupted. Some along Highway 1806. They razed a newly people,” Councilwoman Phyllis Young, guards had attack dogs on leashes, and established camp that sat directly in the Wasté Win Young’s mother, told the several demonstrators were bitten. “The path of the pipeline and used tear gas, rub- company representatives. “Mni Wiconi. dog has blood in its nose and its mouth,” ber bullets and Tasers to push protesters Water is life.” Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman de- back to the Oceti Sakowin Camp. On the clared in a dramatic video that went viral. night of Nov. 20, deputies sprayed water Last spring, supporters began to The ranks of protesters swelled, cannons on dozens of people in sub-freez- arrive and were warmly welcomed by and by October as many as 300 tribal ing temperatures during a protest over the Standing Rock’s leaders. Activists pitched flags flew over the Oceti Sakowin Camp, police barricade at the Backwater Bridge. teepees and tents along the Missouri and named for the Seven Council Fires, the Finally, on Dec. 4, the Army an- joined in prayers to protest the pipeline. bands of the Great Sioux Nation that had nounced that it would not grant an At the time, construction had yet to reach assembled earlier in the summer. The easement to the pipeline without further the river. Protesters, who called them- gathering represented the first time they review and an environmental impact as- selves “water protectors,” described the had reunited since the Battle of Little Big sessment. By then, an estimated 10,000 pipeline as the “black snake,” citing a La- Horn in 1876. Oceti Sakowin grew into a to 14,000 people were living in the camps. kota prophecy that warns of the destruc- sprawling community of encampments, But winter had come as well, and after Jenni Monet is a tion of Mother Earth. defined by tribal affiliations and other the Army’s announcement, Chairman Ar- freelance journalist The first encampment, the Sacred traits including the Red Warrior Camp chambault urged the protesters to return reporting for PBS Stone Camp, was established April 1, and and Two Spirit Camp. home. Many left as blizzards raked the NewsHour, PRI The World, Al Jazeera initially consisted of just two people, Joye Hollywood celebrities, including actor prairie, but some have stayed on, ready if America and Yes! Braun, 47, and her cousin, Wiyaka Eagle- Mark Ruffalo, became involved, as did a necessary to renew their opposition to the Magazine. She is man, 30. Braun hailed from the nearby broader coalition of civil rights activists. pipeline and the system it represents. executive producer Cheyenne River Sioux, Eagleman from The Rev. Jesse Jackson compared the “It’s always been their laws, their and host of the the Rosebud Sioux. Within a month, a issue to Flint, Michigan’s water crisis, political system, their money inter- podcast Still Here and dozen more joined them, including veter- which continues to devastate already ests,” Wasté Win Young told me. “We is a tribal member of ans of the Keystone XL pipeline protests. impoverished African-Americans. The have a duty to our people to protect our the Laguna Pueblo. They became the core of the burgeoning camps included Indigenous delegations resources and our land.”  @jennimonet

www.hcn.org High Country News 13 On Thanksgiving Day, an opponent of the Dakota Access Pipeline watches as police monitor ceremonies and demonstrations near the pipeline route on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Facing page, Navajo Cyrus Norcross, who visited Standing Rock several times this fall, looks at Oak Flat, in Arizona, where he’s considering setting up a Sheep Camp so other Navajos can help the Apache Tribe in their fight against a copper mine. Terray Sylvester, right; Duke Romero photo Courtesy Cyrus Norcross, facing Standing Rock’s Ripple Effects ec. 8 dawned cloudy on the woman dragged on a cigarette near a row countless others who never touched down North Dakota plains. A bliz- of purring slot machines. Two people who in the camps, who had only watched zard two days before brought had fallen in love during the storm — a events unfold through rapid-fire social negative temperatures and 19-year-old from South Dakota’s Chey- media posts and live-streamed videos. windD gusts up to 50 mph, and now the enne River Reservation and a 20-year- Demonstrations of solidarity flared up Lessons from temperature hovered at about 3 degrees. old from Minneapolis — lounged on a from remote Alaska villages to busy Flor- Cars inched past drifts on the highway, blanket in the lobby, having slept there ida cities. As with past social movements, the NoDAPL shuttling people and provisions in and the night before along with hundreds of NoDAPL’s fight helped catalyze and out of sprawling encampments with others. strengthen relationships within and be- movement names like Rosebud, Sacred Stone and The water protectors now faced tween disparate communities, sometimes Oceti Sakowin, where an estimated a choice: Go home, or stay until the across vast distances. As one participant are building 10,000 to 14,000 people had assembled pipeline was definitively halted. Either put it, “The camps in Standing Rock were to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline, or way, for most people here, Standing Rock hotbeds of Indigenous networking.” coalitions “DAPL.” The 1,172-mile project, designed wasn’t over. The protests, which had Standing Rock, in other words, was to carry crude oil from the Bakken fields grown through the fall and early winter, more of a beginning than end. It was and breaking south, was nearly complete, except for had deeply inspired many of the activ- both a potent symbol for this American the section that the self-described “water ists now hunkered down in the casino, moment, and the start of something down barriers protectors” — members of the Stand- people like Christian Johnson, 20, from bigger. NoDAPL participants now hope ing Rock Sioux and their allies — had Red Valley, Arizona, who had recently the movement will raise the national blocked for months. The pipeline would spent a week in the Oceti Sakowin Camp. consciousness on a broad array of Native in Indian tunnel beneath the tribe’s water supply, Johnson, who is Diné, or Navajo, had just American issues, from tribal sovereignty raising the specter of spills, and through come to the hotel to shower and use the to environmental justice to the local Country ancestral grounds. Just four days earlier, internet. Tall but unassuming, and wear- impacts of the extractive industry — is- the Army Corps of Engineers had denied ing a large turquoise necklace, Johnson sues often removed from public discourse and beyond a key easement for the pipeline, giving had once worked with his father driving and overlooked in history books. As cars a minor victory to the Standing Rock oil trucks. “I was pro-oil, because you’re left the Prairie Knights’ parking lot, protesters. out of high school, you want to make taking hitchhikers back to Seattle or Fort Ten miles south, near a tiny com- money,” he told me, as we sat on the floor Collins or Flagstaff, they also carried the munity called Cannon Ball, the Prairie of the casino and drank free coffee from lessons of Standing Rock into a diverse Knights Casino and Resort was still the hotel desk. But when he heard about array of communities across the country. crowded with activists who had sheltered Standing Rock, he said, he quit his job there during the blizzard. A mother of to devote himself to the NoDAPL move- Seen from the air, the Navajo Nation — four boys packed up her belongings, ment. Now he was becoming involved in which spans parts of northwestern New while a Standing Rock Sioux elder talked similar issues at home. Mexico, northeastern Arizona and south- quietly with reporters and an Omaha The protests meanwhile inspired ern Utah — is a red-and-tan expanse of

14 High Country News January 23, 2017 W e talked to protesters at Standing Rock. Here’s what they learned. Now that the cold has set in and the Army Corps has temporarily denied the easement to continue pipeline construction, many protesters at Standing Rock have headed home. On Dec. 9, as the crowds dissipated and some lingered to winterize the camp, photographer Andrew Cullen asked what people had learned during their time there. Many said they experienced transformation, and spoke with hope about taking action on other social justice and environmental justice issues. To view the complete series of images and interviews, see hcn.org/articles/lessons-from-standing-rock Photographs and interviews by Andrew Cullen

Drea Rose 31, Spokane, Washington Member of the Spokane Tribe “Growing up on the reservation, I’m taught a lot of things … but I was never really taught why. Coming here, I was able to learn a lot from the people and the stories. … I was able to learn a lot about my culture and the reasons why we do things. Here, they strongly believe women are sacred, and they were taught the story behind it — that we came from a woman. It’s a beautiful story. There was a curious little girl, who fell from outer space onto a turtle’s back. The woman came first, and the man came from the woman, and that’s why women are sacred. I have girls, so I definitely need to pass that FEATURE By Tay Wiles down to them. … Another thing I’m learning here is that this is only the Standing Rock’s Ripple Effects beginning. It’s a step. As long as we all stay united, we can make that desert plain, broken by canyons, sand- Standing Rock has cooled down. One change and stand up for ourselves. Back home we have the same stone outcroppings, verdant mesas and of the hottest conflicts now centers on issue going on, but we’ve never stood up to them because we don’t rugged mountain ranges. The scars on current and proposed fracking in the think ... that everybody could come together like this. But now that this landscape reveal the long and com- landscape surrounding Chaco Canyon. we’ve done it here, I feel like we can do it everywhere.” plicated relationship between extractive Christian Johnson is one of many who industries and Indian Country — one of have become increasingly involved in the Darren Cross 17, Pine Ridge, South Dakota many reasons why the Standing Rock fight against Piñon, Chaco Canyon and “(Before) I came up here, I had kind of an attitude. I was lazy all the fight holds such strong resonance here. other energy projects, traveling back and time. But ever since I came up here, I’ve been busy the whole time. Companies have scraped Navajo forth between the reservation and Stand- Being up here, I have a lot of responsibilities. It’s me, my dad and earth for coal since the 1960s — funding ing Rock. Johnson’s activism is personal, my little sister. It’s kind of tough, but we’re getting through it. When the tribal government, which has been like that of many Navajos I spoke with: I go back home, I’ll be more mature and responsible. largely pro-extraction, and dividing local His grandfather and five other elders in “About a year ago I started getting more spiritual. I believe in communities over its environmental costs his community, all uranium miners, died something more powerful now. This coming summer I’m going to and economic benefits. Uranium mining from lung cancer. In August, Johnson be Sun Dancing. I’m really excited. We pray a lot. A began here after World War II and ta- and a dozen other young Navajos met couple nights ago we had pered off in the 1980s, leaving radioactive on Facebook, looking for rides to North a chanupa ceremony in our drinking water and cancer in the bodies Dakota and help delivering supplies to tent. We were all there, all of mine workers. Webs of roads in the the camps. They gathered in Shiprock, my brothers were there and San Juan Basin mark almost a century New Mexico, and caravanned from there. we had a couple chanupas of enthusiastic oil and gas drilling. In A supporter in Chino Valley, Arizona, there with us. Then we 2014, a company called Saddle Butte San eventually donated a truck, and students all prayed in a circle. We Juan Midstream proposed a 148-mile- and faculty at Diné College helped fund a smoked the chanupas, long pipeline to transport crude oil. The recent supply run. and we prayed before we Piñon Pipeline would have skirted Chaco Others in Johnson’s community heard smoked, so whenever you smoke that chanupa, that Culture National Historical Park, the about his work, and his former teachers smoke carries on your remains of an ancestral Puebloan society asked him to speak at his old elementary prayers to Tunkachala, that is also part of the Diné spiritual school and high school about Standing and the next morning origin story. So it was that in 2016 Piñon Rock and local environmental issues. “I Tunkachala answered our earned the nickname “New Mexico’s never thought I’d have a next generation prayers. We were low on DAPL.” of kids looking up to me and what I’m wood and some people Opponents scored a victory this doing,” Johnson said, when we spoke at came over with a truckload December when the company withdrew the Prairie Knights Casino. His group of wood, and … donations its application, citing low oil prices. But is informal, but its members are think- of food. ... (I witnessed) the power of prayers.” other fights in Navajo ancestral territory ing about making it official — calling it have increased in intensity even as Sheep Camp after their tent site in North

www.hcn.org High Country News 15 Bryce Peppard 52, Oregon and Idaho “I’ve been experiencing apathy for a while. (Standing Rock) has changed the way I think about our government treating its own citizens and finally realizing that they are using tactics that they were using when people were run off their land to begin with. I thought it was a non-issue, but there’s so many pipelines going through their land, and up until recently they had no say in it, no power, and up until recently they had no voice. I’ve developed more of a resolve to be more active in our community. That’s what I’m coming away with. I’m just going to try to be more aware of what’s going on in the world, and let my voice be known.”

Andre Perez 46, Oahu, Hawaii Member of the Kanaka Maoli tribe “It has allowed me to develop and enhance my skills (as an activist/organizer/trainer), taking it to another level that I can take back home. The training, the analysis, my understanding of what’s important during a direct action of this level, with this kind of high-level aggression. It’s given me an experience of what’s important and how to keep people safe, and strategies and tactics and messaging. This whole camp has taught me about how to hold space in a large way, what anywhere from two to 10,000 people can do, and what the limitations of that are. Like when the vets rolled in, their estimates were 10,000 to 12,000 people, and that was too much. It wasn’t safe, and then the storm rolled in. “I learned about increased organizing on that level. I learned about strategy and tactics against big power, law enforcement and corporations. I learned about community and taking care of one another. This whole experience has been, I wouldn’t even say learning, I would say transformative.”

Isabella Zizi, who is Northern Cheyenne, Arikara and Muskogee Creek, speaks at an Nick DiCenzo environmental justice rally in San Francisco, California, after having reached out to fellow Denver, Colorado activists in environmental groups and has helped organize NoDAPL events with the Indigenous “Community building and rights group Idle No More. Brooke Anderson activism is apparently huge on my personal agenda, and Dakota, which they named for the cabins our Environment (Diné CARE), is field- I never really knew that. It Navajo ranchers use while tending live- ing more Facebook requests from people wasn’t until Standing Rock stock. One member, Cyrus Norcross, 28, who want to get involved, and seeing that something was ignited headed to the southern tip of Arizona’s greater participation at rallies and public in me to come help, and I Tonto National Forest, in early January, meetings. Several members of Johnson’s think that I have realized to join an Apache protest against a pro- group, for example, have started at- from coming here that I posed copper mine there. Norcross is con- tending Bureau of Land Management am an activist, and I would have never known that. sidering setting up a Sheep Camp there; scoping meetings for a new amendment “I see people his friends are establishing one in Texas to the Resource Management Plan for the formulating solutions to help fight the Trans-Pecos Pipeline, greater Chaco Canyon area, which will instead of just complaining and have plans for another at the Grand govern future energy development and about problems. The Canyon to protest uranium mining. other uses on more than a million acres. other day in a meeting … Longtime Navajo activists in Arizona Over 300 people came to the Navajo Na- someone brought up the and New Mexico are feeling the effects of tion Museum in Window Rock, Arizona, danger of children sledding. the NoDAPL-inspired uptick in activ- in early December to give input on that … He was like ‘Can we put up some barriers on the roads? I’m a little ism. Carol Davis, a coordinator with the plan — a stark change from meetings concerned about the roads.’ And the meeting leader said, ‘All right, you’re the leader of the roads department. Take charge on that.’ ” nonprofit Diné Citizens Against Ruining earlier in the year, when attendance was

16 High Country News January 23, 2017 “dismal,” Davis said. The venue was so bella Zizi, a 22-year-old Northern Chey- packed that officials had to stop letting enne, Arikara and Muskogee Creek from people in to comply with fire codes. Richmond, California, with braces and NoDAPL seems to have connected long brown hair. She had gathered people nonprofit groups across the reservation, through local branches of the Indigenous Davis said. In the past, some environ- rights group Idle No More, and the envi- mentalists and social justice activists ronmental groups Friends of the Earth had been hesitant to work together, and Earth Guardians. Since graduating partly because of nuanced differences high school, Zizi has worked in retail, but in local strategies and goals, and partly took up environmental justice causes in because available grants are limited, 2012 after a fire at a Chevron oil refinery forcing groups to compete for their share. filled her hometown with black smoke “At Standing Rock, you saw all kinds of and sent thousands of people to the hos- people from all kinds of nations,” Davis pital with respiratory problems. Before a said. “I think people realized everybody closing prayer, Zizi addressed the small wants to help.” crowd: “I’m just starting into this move- The organization Dooda Fracking, for ment,” she said. “But it’s so important.” example, fights oil and gas development. The Bay Area is one of many major Now, co-founder Kim Howe, 28, said she’s urban centers with strong NoDAPL started working with groups like Diné contingents. The area has a long history CARE and Black Mesa Water Coalition, of progressive activism, but the issues a Flagstaff-based nonprofit that opposes have particular resonance in Oakland’s fossil fuel development and seeks to well-established Native American com- protect water on Navajo land. The seeds munity. Oakland and San Francisco of some of these collaborations existed were sanctioned destinations during a before Standing Rock, but they have 1950s federal relocation program that taken on new meaning and depth since brought Native Americans to cities with then. Sheep Camp members are also more job opportunities than the reserva- planning to work with Dooda Fracking tions. Some of the grassroots networks this winter. The networking has tran- and organizations built by and for Native Dinea Evans 33, Seattle, Washington scended tribal boundaries, Howe said. Americans during that time, and later “The one thing I wasn’t expecting to get from all this was a spiritual “People from other Southwest tribes are during the American Indian Movement awakening. I prayed a lot. I got back in touch with my spiritual roots. reaching out to us (to help protect) Chaco of the ’70s, are still going strong. One “It happened in Seattle at a rally that one of my friends put on. Canyon.” The Albuquerque-based Indig- of those, the nonprofit American Indian She asked me to give a speech in support of Standing Rock. After I enous Action Alliance, a group of young Child Resource Center, provides tutoring, gave the speech, they came in with their drums. I knelt down to give Pueblos that launched in September after nutrition classes and case management some space for the drums, and after they began chanting and singing, I just felt something in my heart, and I began to pray. I hadn’t prayed members returned from Standing Rock, for students and their families in area in a long time. I felt compelled to come out here after that. … spent October encouraging Pueblo Indian schools, which don’t always meet Native “When you look at African-Americans and you look at our communities to attend meetings and get American needs, Manny Lieras, 38, a ancestors and our history of being slaves and not having rights involved, prompting tribal members in program coordinator there, told me. and being mistreated … this hits close to home, because this is turn to reach out to Dooda Fracking. Native youth living in mainstream happening to the Natives. That definitely resonates with me a great Even some of the age-old barriers to white society often lack opportunities to deal, being a black women, to stand up with my Native American organizing on the Navajo Reservation, connect to their heritage and forge identi- brothers and sisters. … Native Americans make up less than 2 such as unreliable access to a radio sig- ties within it, Lieras explained. But over percent of the population, and time and time again they’ve been nal, let alone smartphones, cell service or several months of organizing caravans of mistreated and their culture has not been honored in a place where internet, seem more surmountable than Native youth from the Bay Area to Stand- they’re the original landowners.” they have in the past, activists say. In a ing Rock, Lieras saw several people, es- Veronica Vargas 25, Eagle Butte, South Dakota trip to Nageezi, New Mexico, where an oil pecially young men, develop a new sense Member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe production storage site caught fire in July of self and purpose. “There’s often a lack and forced residents to evacuate the area, of instruction or guidance about what “I overcame looking at different races differently. Growing up, we Dooda Fracking’s Howe noted people’s being a warrior means, but out there, it were only allowed to look at it certain ways, because of the history and our grandparents’ grudges. optimism. “I spoke with some elders and was very clear what the fight was,” said Being here it taught me that we’re all locals,” she said, “and they were like, Lieras, who is part Diné and Comanche. human, we are. We all have feelings. ‘Wow, Standing Rock, that can actually “In our tribal societies, there are certain That color doesn’t matter. happen. And it could happen here for responsibilities put on men that are just “The way my grandpa would tell Chaco Canyon.’ ” not able to be completely lived through me, he would say, ‘(The police) are the society we live in. Out there, a lot of blind, they don’t have a heart.’ But On Dec. 19, the air in San Francisco’s men found their voice.” there’s a lot of people that are here skyscraper-shaded financial district Lieras’ own voice has been amplified for the right reason. We’re all here to was brisk. About 50 people huddled on as NoDAPL’s high profile has increased do one thing. That’s when we start to open our heart up to other people, the sidewalk outside the towering Wells awareness of the local Indigenous to letting them in, to let our barriers Fargo headquarters, holding “Water Is population. After he returned from a trip down, and we start to trust again. … Life,” “NoDAPL” and “Keep It In the to Standing Rock in September, one of “And here, everyone’s so Ground” signs. An American flag was the nation’s leading grassroots climate welcoming, they show you that love mounted on the wall behind them next to groups, 350.org, asked him to speak at a and that compassion. We’re all here an ATM, and a large plaque read “Wells rally in Oakland. “I’d never heard of this for one reason, and it’s a big impact Fargo, since 1852.” Like Standing Rock organization,” Lieras said. “I was one of on us. I have two kids, and my kids supporters have done with Wells Fargo the only Native Americans. It was weird get to see from the real world and and other banks, the demonstrators were and awkward, but amazing to see that from camp, that it is different, that targeting investments in the Dakota Ac- much support.” we’re all here together as one, … My daughter realized that. She said, cess Pipeline, encouraging customers to It’s just one example of the new and ‘Mom, I love it here at camp. Over take their business elsewhere. stronger relationships forged between here it’s welcoming.’ It makes a big The organizer of this event was Isa- Native Americans and non-Natives impact on us.”

www.hcn.org High Country News 17 through the fight at Standing Rock, College sociologist who specializes in of Washington state’s salmon fisheries which has drawn hundreds of tribal na- social movements, race and American in the 1970s, for example, both crit- tions and thousands of non-Natives from Indians. “Often when there have been ics and some white allies miscast the across the country. Dozens of non-Native potential collaborations in the past, a struggle as one for racial equality. But organizations have also become involved, lot of people come in and don’t get what Native activists thought this missed the helping to build a vast network that is the Native people are wanting and point, and in a potentially dangerous and unique when considered in a historical saying.” When tribes were fighting for confusing fashion; the truth was that context, said Erich Steinman, a Pitzer access to their treaty-guaranteed share their fishery rights as First Peoples were

Protesters from several tribes gather outside the standing-room-only meeting held Dec. 2 by the Bureau of Land Management in Window Rock, Arizona, on the proposed expansion of oil and gas drilling near Chaco Canyon. Susan Torres/ New Mexico Wildlife Federation

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18 High Country News January 23, 2017 simply stronger, in a legal sense, than hesitant to seek outside help in fighting the pipeline through. If so, NoDAPL itself those of non-Natives. local battles. That’s why Standing Rock may be remembered simply as a brief A similar dynamic played out dur- is such a big deal, Steinman said. The moment of hopefulness — for the Stand- ing the 1990s, in the fight to protect the upshot? The fight there may ultimately ing Rock Sioux, social justice activists Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in north- lead to broader public understanding of and climate protesters. Hope, though, east Alaska from oil drilling, said Tom tribal issues. “Events can be catalyzing to once planted, tends to grow, to take on a Goldtooth, 63, director of the nonprofit shift not just peoples’ commitments,” he life of its own. At Oceti Sakowin, it was Indigenous Environmental Network, said, “but their understanding.” palpable, at communal meals and in the a longstanding organization that is a daily teamwork it takes to keep such a major player in the NoDAPL movement. When I first arrived in North Dakota sprawling encampment functioning, a “Many environmentalists gravitated to to report on Standing Rock, I visited the feeling that people who stand together the protection of the Porcupine caribou State Capitol, built in 1934, the tallest can overcome injustice and systems that herd more than the recognition of Alaska building in Bismarck. The Art Deco inte- do not serve them, no matter who is in Native rights,” Goldtooth said. “A lot rior has gilded everything — doorframes, power. That hope, now lodged in the of those organizations don’t have the ashtrays, elevator buttons. On a late memories of tens of thousands of people, accountability (to Indigenous frontline afternoon in December, I stood at a win- will be hard to erase. “Getting well in communities) built in.” dow on the 18th floor and looked outside. your mind, body, spirit is what this camp The Indigenous Environmental Tiny people scurried through the streets really is about,” one Standing Rock Sioux Network was one of several groups in the below, and tailpipes puffed a fog of spent elder told me. “People are coming to be early ’90s that wanted an environmen- petroleum into the cold air. The snowy healed.” tal movement focused on biodiversity horizon was the same color as the clouds Dakota Access may yet carry oil and land protection to fight for human in the light gray sky, the landscape a pale south, and the demonstrations it has communities as well — particularly for abstraction that went on forever beyond inspired may disintegrate. But if the people of color or impoverished people the neatly gridded city. Somewhere to the inspiration of a new generation of “protec- impacted by pollution and industry. south, thousands of people hunkered in tors” is any indication of success, maybe Their work ultimately helped the nascent the NoDAPL camps against the coming they’ve already won. On my last day at Associate Editor Tay “environmental justice” movement winter. From where I stood, I couldn’t see the casino, I met a woman who works Wiles writes from Oakland, California. become mainstream. The networks that them. at the restaurant there. She was excep-  have arisen from Standing Rock are an In the days that followed, as I trav- tionally busy that week, as thousands of @taywiles outcome of that work, Goldtooth said. eled through the camps and spoke to the NoDAPL protesters passed through for a This coverage “Even our working relationship took water protectors, I had the sense that hot meal, but she took a few minutes to is supported by some time to develop with Bill McKibben this movement, invisible though it was to speak with me. “Through (NoDAPL), our contributors to the and 350.org. Now, some Native people Bismarck, was coming into sharp relief elders have gained confidence,” she said. High Country News are working there.” here and elsewhere. The Trump adminis- “I hope this thing leaves its fingerprints Enterprise Journalism Given their history, tribes have been tration has indicated that it might push on you, too.” Fund.

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22 High Country News January 23, 2017 What does a Trump administration mean for the West?

This year’s election has reminded us: Our With your help, democracy depends on robust journalism — on articulate reporters who work hard to we’ll tell true stories

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An Expedition Through Bears Ears National Monument, Utah June 9 - 13, 2017 With Ernie Atencio, New Mexico Program Manager for the National Parks Conservation Association. Ernie is a cultural anthropologist, conservationist, writer and frequent contributor to High Country News. For more information, visit: hcn.org/wildroad Call toll-free: 877. 992. 6128

www.hcn.org High Country News 23 Wolves continued from page 9 like Defenders of Wildlife or the Center The tension between managing a pop- for Biological Diversity, which often re- ulation and caring for individual animals residents. “You give wolves a little bit of leases fundraising appeals when a par- can be hard to reconcile. Even Stephen- protection and don’t indiscriminately kill ticular favorite is killed by officials or son, whose job it is to act at the population them, and then take care of the problem poached. Recently, an email blast from level, regards many of the wolves he man- ones, they come back ferociously,” he says. Defenders announced that a locally fa- ages as individuals. “You get attached,” he Robert Klavins, the northeast Or- mous sea otter in Southern California says. “We all do.” egon field coordinator for Oregon Wild, known as “Mr. Enchilada” was killed by OR7 is a celebrity, and no doubt the does not believe that wolves will inevita- a car. The group used the “devastating Fish and Wildlife Service will go the extra bly cover Oregon. The state’s population, loss” to lobby for speed humps to slow mile to enable him to live out his life and around 110 animals in 12 packs, is still down motorists. die a wild wolf’s death, perhaps after get- far too small and thinly spread to assume Kierán Suckling, executive director of ting kicked by an elk or starving to death they are here to stay, he says. “I think it the Center for Biological Diversity, says in a bad winter. But in a future where is pretty premature to start talking about this focus on the individual is rhetorically wolves are a normal, everyday part of the when do we start killing wolves in west- effective, even though his organization is landscape, his great-grandchildren may ern Oregon.” primarily concerned with populations and not warrant such special consideration. Wolves haven’t colonized all of the species-level conservation: “There have Killing wolves should always be the last West’s suitable habitat, including parts been lots of psychological studies show- resort, says Klavins, but more conflicts of Utah, Colorado and Nevada, but they ing that people connect emotionally to will be inevitable as their population in- have expanded faster and more broadly individuals and small groups more than creases. When wolves are truly recovered, than expected. Twenty-one years after large groups. They’ll give hundreds of dol- it will no longer be possible to know each “I think it is the first wolves were moved from West- lars to help one poor child, tens of dollars one individually, he says: “There is a part ern Canada to Yellowstone, there are ap- to help a family, and very little to help a of me that looks forward to the day that pretty premature proximately 1,900 wolves in the Northern struggling nation.” we don’t know every wolf’s story.” to start talking Rockies and Pacific Northwest, plus another 3,610 in the robust Great Lakes pop- about when do ulation and 65,000 in Canada and Alas- we start killing ka. Wolves have already been delisted in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, which wolves in western now have hunting and trapping seasons. Oregon.” They’ve also been delisted in the eastern –Robert Klavins, third of Oregon (without legal hunting or northeast Oregon field trapping), and the state has removed the coordinator for Oregon Wild species from its endangered species list.

hen wolf numbers are very low W — during the early days of rein- troduction, or in small, isolated populations like the Mexican wolf subspecies — genetic diversity is precious and every breeding adult with unique genes can be vital to recovery, says MacNulty. But at a certain point, that’s no longer true. Once wolves have a large enough interconnected population, removing one won’t matter to their conservation status. And thus many Oregon wolves, including OR7 and his pack, are probably, ecologically speaking, expendable. But even if their ecological value isn’t especially high, their “social value” is, MacNulty says. Social value tends to be p A 2014 trail camera higher in new populations at the edge image of OR7, leader of wolves’ range. In Minnesota, where of the Rogue Pack, MacNulty worked for a decade, wolves in the forest between were never eradicated, so they didn’t have Klamath Falls and to be reintroduced. “I don’t recall individu- Medford. U.S. Fish and als having the kind of attention and press Wildlife Service that individuals out West would get,” he t says. “Maybe once you have established At the Nicholson Ranch, Butch populations, these individuals lose their Wampler, left, and charm or notoriety.” Oregon Department The draw of the individual is testified of Fish and Wildlife to by the popularity of wild animals with biologists Tom Collom distinctive characteristics — an unusual and Jon Muir examine gait, a recognizable voice or an easy-to- the carcass of a spot color variation, like that of the griz- yearling they suspect zly cub called “Snowy” in Grand Teton was killed by wolves. National Park. Well-known animals are Courtesy Nicholson Ranch featured in the press releases of groups

24 High Country News January 23, 2017 BOOKS mages I etty G Lorraine Boogich/ Lorraine Big stories from Big Sky Country

Fans of short Western fiction hit the jack- Both writers’ collections include no- children, and Bass probes the bittersweet pot with the publication of two significant vellas about an older woman living alone ache that this can generate, the yearning collections by Montana writers. For A who is drawn out of her shell through for the road not taken. Little While spans the entire distin- an unexpected connection with someone There is an additional layer of guished career of author and activist Rick much younger. In Wink’s “Hindsight,” awareness to Bass’ stories compared to Bass. Dog Run Moon is the first book by Lauren maintains a standoff with the Wink’s, a sense of time’s swift passing, Callan Wink, a young writer with an easy resentful son of her deceased husband the string of consequences that domino grace, good humor and a knack for strik- until a girl turns up at his trailer and she out from one’s actions, and the ephem- ing imagery that prove his work merits begins to cook for them. In “The Lives erality of love, health, contentment and its cover blurbs by Jim Harrison and of Rocks,” one of Bass’ most moving and untarnished nature. This heightens the Thomas McGuane. beautiful stories, Jyl is recovering from intensity of the characters’ emotions and Bass regularly writes on behalf of en- cancer treatment at her cabin in the the reader’s experience of the stories. It’s vironmental causes, especially to benefit forest, and finds she has little energy to right there in the title: For A Little While, For A Little While the Yaak Valley, the remote forested area do anything except whittle boats and set which seems to apply to people’s time on Rick Bass in northwest Montana where he lived them afloat for the neighbor children to earth and their momentary idylls and 480 pages, from 1987 to 2011. Nature, whether de- find, “seeking partly to provide entertain- sorrows. There is also a sense of greater softcover: $18. graded or pristine, is an integral part of ment and even a touch of magic for the stakes — Bass’ stories aren’t just about Back Bay Books, 2017. his fiction, from a dog trainer’s enchanted hardened lives of the Workman children a particular character, but about the im- journey under the frozen surface of a lake living downstream from her — and seek- pact that character’s decisions will have in “The Hermit’s Story,” to the misshapen ing also some contact with the outside on the following generations, including creatures teenagers discover in a poi- world.” children, wildlife and the landscape. As soned Houston river in “Pagans.” Two children befriend Jyl, and she one character muses about the disap- Wink, too, reveals the landscape eagerly anticipates their visits. We know pearance of spotted leopard frogs, “What as key to the psychology of his charac- from other stories that Jyl grew up in other bright phenomena will vanish in ters and a force that helps shape their this forest and has often been content to our lifetimes, becoming one day merely lives. Wink, a Michigan native, lives in live alone in it, but her newfound vulner- memory and story, tale and legacy, and Livingston, Montana, and works as a fly- ability makes her crave human connec- then fragments of story and legacy, and fishing guide on the Yellowstone River. tion. Both novellas suggest that solitude then nothing, only wind?” In Wink’s title story, set in Utah, a provides too much time to ruminate on Some of Wink’s stories begin to offer young man named Sid ruminates about past mistakes, and that it’s healthier to hints of that seasoned perspective, but it’s his ex-girlfriend, “a small woman, pale, so engage in the world and especially with unfair to compare Wink to Bass on this much so that the desert hurt her in ways children, who dwell mostly in the present. score. Bass, after all, is a master, author that Sid would never fully understand.” Many of the characters in Wink’s of numerous well-regarded short stories, Dog Run Moon: Bass’ characters, too, often have collection are young men trying to novels and nonfiction books. But Wink Stories difficulty making love endure. Their comprehend what it means to commit to has written a crackerjack first collection, Callan Wink geographic isolation mirrors their own something: a woman, a job or a way of every bit as fine as Rick Bass’ first, 1989’s 256 pages, interpersonal reserve. In Bass’ gorgeous life. While some of the characters in Bass’ The Watch. Dog Run Moon promises that hardcover: $26. “Fires,” the narrator, who lives in a re- earlier stories share similar struggles, Wink’s unfolding as an artist might prove Dial Press, 2016. mote mountain valley, confesses, “When- most of them have committed to some- just as riveting for fans of Western fiction ever one does move in with me, it feels as thing — they’ve thrown themselves into as Bass’ has been. if I’ve tricked her.” marriages, jobs, lifestyles and raising By Jenny Shank

www.hcn.org High Country News 25 Ess ay | By Michelle García

Standing Rock’s Men at War The standoff asked us to re-examine our myths of the West and its warriors

“They lone inside a teepee one night, I occurred two days earlier, on Dec. 5, opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline, A stoked the embers of a dying fire, when Wes Clark Jr. and a dozen other which had been rerouted from the mostly think we’re my mind searching for a common thread veterans announced themselves as the white city of Bismarck, and now threat- through the moments that had defined “conscience of the nation” before a group ened the water source and sacred sites of dangerous. my time at the Standing Rock camps. of Sioux spiritual leaders. Clark, the the Standing Rock Sioux. With the pipe- Quietly, a man with military service in son and namesake of U.S. Army Gen. line project, American Indian tribes and We’re just his past and American Indian heritage Wesley Clark, the former supreme al- their supporters reckon with forces much settled onto a nearby chair, and then, lied commander of NATO, had donned like those that were behind the creation on horses. as if sensing my thoughts, asked me if a hat and jacket, deep blue with gold of the modern American West — banks, I knew how to beat a warrior. I stared braid, the uniform of George Custer’s corporations, the government and troops We don’t at the fire and shook my head. He said, 7th Cavalry, which fought the Sioux representing their interests — working in “Come to him in peace.” in the 19th century. On bended knee, concert to extract and exploit in the name have With those words, he had captured Clark removed his hat and bowed his of prosperity. the quiet war underway on the plains of head before Leonard Crow Dog, a Lakota With those forces came cultural weapons. North Dakota. It was an unannounced medicine man. And then he begged for messages about men in the West, mes- battle, waged by some of the men who forgiveness for the atrocities committed sages that seemingly confronted Sonny They have had traveled to the camp — warriors — by the U.S. military and the nation, for Ironclad, a 25-year-old member of the publicly and within the spirit, as they the theft of Native American land and Standing Rock Sioux, when he and weapons.” confronted the legacy of the American children, the desecration of sacred sites other young Native American men on frontier battles and genocides that had and the destruction of Native American horseback rode from camp to a nearby —Sonny Ironclad, cast the mold of the American man and languages. bridge, the front line, where law enforce- Standing Rock Sioux charted the course of the nation. The forgiveness ceremony seemed ment constructed a barricade. The police tribal member The most evident sign of such battles fitting within the massive and historic become visibly nervous, he told me.

26 High Country News January 23, 2017 Essay | By Michelle García

t Riders from the Standing Rock, Rosebud and Lower Brule Lakota reservations came together on horseback in August to face off with a police line that had formed between protesters and the entrance to the Dakota Access Pipeline construction site. Daniella Zalcman q Maria Michael, a Lakota elder from San Francisco, left, talks with U.S. Army veteran Tatiana McLee, right, during a forgiveness ceremony at the Prairie Knights Casino and Resort on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in December. The ceremony was held to give veterans an opportunity to atone for centuries of military actions conducted against Native Americans. Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post via Getty Images

“They think we’re dangerous; we’re just forces within the Metropolis — disorder- to support the Standing Rock struggle on horses. We don’t have weapons. They ly ‘tramps,’ immigrant laborers, recalci- by looking within themselves. She asked have weapons.” Ironclad stroked his trant blacks about the will and capacity visitors to do something that American mare and chuckled. of the republic to punish its enemies culture has discouraged since the “Indian In the Western myth, men conquer and vindicate its moral and political wars,” to shift the gaze from the external and exploit. At Standing Rock, men spoke authority.” Custer’s defeat, however, boundaries to the internal, as a true war- of finding family. “Everybody treated us did nothing to diminish the nation’s rior would. “You get to a place and it’s differently off the reservation,” Ironclad intent to impose order on the unruly and unknown,” she said. “You can choose to said, greeting new friends walking by. marginalized. be brave, you can choose the unknown.” The camp had drawn representatives of Standing Rock summoned warriors In Standing Rock, I confronted the 300 American Indian tribes. It had grown who detected that legacy in law enforce- split image of the world I knew and the with the arrival of whites, African-Amer- ment’s use of water cannons and attack icans, Latinos and Asian Americans. “I dogs. “The way they were treating people have found another part of my family I was horrible,” said 33-year-old Issac Se- have never known,” he said. In the spirit gura, as he gazed from a snowy embank- of a Lakota tradition of Hunka, he em- ment not far from where the clashes took braced tribal members from all over the place. Segura and his friend, Eric Flores, world as family. And, he said, after his battle brothers from Iraq, had watched former co-worker, a white man, visited the videos of the clashes back in Chicago; him at the camp, he was no longer just a both men called the images tragic. Flores best friend, he was a brother. organized a team and rounded up supplies, and the men set off for Standing t daybreak, as the sky turned silvery Rock. Ablue, men found a place of prayer in As always, there are cowards among the water ceremony celebrated by wom- men, men who replicate the frontier en. At the ceremonial fire in the center of ideology that produced the pipeline they camp, women distributed water in small traveled to oppose. I found one such man cups, tiny reminders of material life. The at the medic tent, pouring hot tea into crowd then moved through the camp and his thermos. I asked him where I could down to the snow-covered banks of the find toe warmers, which work better than Cannonball River. We pinched off some the foot warmers I packed. He pointed to tobacco and, one by one, approached the the door of a yurt, then, as he prepared iced-over river with our offerings. Before to leave, added: “You were supposed to us, standing shoulder to shoulder, the bring your own.” men lined the rocky, icy stairs, each with “And who are you?” I retorted. “Some- his hands outstretched, giving of himself one who brought his own,” the man said, as support, as part of the prayer. The as he walked away with someone else’s men asked for nothing, not gratitude or tea. In him, I observed his forefathers, one I was taught. In the images of un- “You can even acknowledgment. Some said, “Good men who built their fortunes by seizing armed Sioux men on horseback riding up morning.” Later, I overheard a man ex- the riches of others. to the front line, I was reminded of men I choose to press wonder and joy at supporting wom- From Standing Rock emerges a redefi- have loved and respected, men who mea- en simply by being present. It was not nition of the warrior. Chris Hardeen, a sure their worth by serving their commu- be brave, their physical strength that was valued, 27-year-old Navajo and veteran of the nities and families. In them, the warrior or their help, but their presence — an Marines, joined the military searching becomes life-giver. But in the United you can act of giving by being. From the river, I for the road to becoming a warrior. But States, there is no escaping a shared climbed the snowy bank, returning to the it had been a false start. He had be- frontier mythology that brands non-white choose the camp to the sound of “The Star-Spangled come a “warrior for the government,” he men as natural-born threats. And that Banner” played on a bugle. said. Soon after a deployment, ques- message is embedded in the genetic code unknown.” With Standing Rock comes a re- tions rushed at him, and the absence of of this nation. sponse and another chapter to the 19th purpose became clear. He had set aside Standing Rock represented a chal- —Candi Brings Plenty, century formation of the nation, when himself, his identity, to fulfill a false lenge to the collective belief, my personal an Oglala Lakota the “Indian wars” became symbolic of warrior ideal, and was left with a sense of belief, that the code is inalterable. I had tribal member the United States’ greatness, morally what he described as “longing.” come to understand that the peace my and economically, and of a promised But through prayer and speaking friend in the teepee referred to wasn’t future. In The Fatal Environment: The with elders, he said, he had learned that the absence of violence. It is the jour- Michelle Garciá Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Indus- “it is the true warrior that’s within us ney, the home that Ironclad mentioned, reports from New trialization, Richard Slotkin writes that that’s starting to come out.” His warrior that Hardeen seeks, the one that Brings York, Mexico and Custer’s march into the Great Plains life is now spiritual, blessed. Plenty asks us all to take. When Clark points between. She is was saddled with the pressing political apologized to the Sioux, Crow Dog’s working on a narrative and social needs of the time. Custer’s n the day I prepared to leave, inside response carried the weight and wisdom nonfiction book about “triumph over the savages of the plains Othe enormous Dome at the camp, of this understanding. “Let me say a few the West, Texas, would not only end the Indian wars, it Candi Brings Plenty, an Oglala Lakota words of accepting forgiveness,” he said. masculinity and myth. would point a stern lesson to the other tribal member, urged departing visitors “World. Peace.”  @pistoleraprod

www.hcn.org High Country News 27 U.S. $5 | Canada $6

HEARD AROUND THE WEST | BY Betsy Marston

THE WEST him. Then, 15 minutes later, another bobcat If you can’t find the words to describe exactly walked through the trees toward him, trailed where you are, how will you ever know that you by three offspring. Within moments, the baby are where you want to be? That’s the kind of bobcats had ventured a lot closer: “I looked question that British nature writer Robert Mac- down, and there sat one of the babies right next farlane asks in his books Landmarks, The Wild to me. … I had an old wooden ladder that was Places and The Old Ways. He was shocked when going up to the blind, and they were swinging the Oxford Junior Dictionary decided to delete on there just like they were monkey bars. It was words like willow, acorn and buttercup — while quite an experience.” finding room for things like celebrity, bullet- And the Gardner, Kansas, Police point and voice-mail — because “language defi- Department got a surprise when it examined cit leads to attention deficit.” As Tom Shippey what two mounted trail cameras had recorded put it in the Wall Street Journal: “If you have no in a town park one night. Expecting to glimpse vocabulary for things, you notice them less. So the mountain lion some residents reported you start thinking they’re not important. Then seeing — along with the usual local skunk or you destroy them.” Shippey, who calls Macfar- coyote — police were surprised to find romping lane the great nature writer of this generation, gorillas, a long-necked monster and “a cat in a adds that it’s not only England that’s losing its bow tie.” Some humans had gone cavorting in vocabulary for the natural world. In America, he the dead of night to prank the cops, reports the says, nearly a thousand words have been forgot- Washington Post, but the police responded on ten — words pioneers used, such as “cowbelly, Facebook with evident delight: “Your effort and the fine, soft mud that collects on the edges of sense of humor are greatly appreciated.” slow-moving creeks,” according to the Home Ground Project. Expressive forestry terms COLORADO are also fading away: daddock, for dead wood, For 40 years, a man named billy barr — that’s the spronky, for having many roots, and the perfect way he spells it — has cherished his solitude griggles, for those small apples left on the tree. COLORADO When Frosty the Snowman knocks, throughout the dead-cold winters of Gothic, Peace Wheeler/ELEVEN EXPERIENCE Once we cut ourselves off from the bodily experi- answer with caution. Colorado, an old mining town at 9,485 feet. To ence of being in the world, we literally “lose pass the time, reports the Crested Butte News, touch,” Shippey says. Macfarlane, who calls the Surprisingly, the chief beneficiaries of the re- barr keeps a daily log of both the temperature words he collects “fossil poetry,” aims to help us stored predator-prey relationship turned out to and behavior of snow, and he’s found that notice more and wonder more. He does mention be us humans, reports the journal Conservation the trend is grim: “We’re getting permanent one Arizona man who hasn’t lost his word-place Letters: Fewer deer on the roads meant fewer snowpack later, and we get to bare ground connection: An Apache rancher who recites deer-car collisions. The researchers speculate sooner.” Barr shared his journal with climate place names while stringing barbed wire. And that if mountain lions returned to the rural scientists at the Rocky Mountain Biological lab, why does he do that? Macfarlane inquired. “The Eastern U.S., they would eliminate so many which is based in Gothic during the summer, cowboy explained, ‘I ride that way in my mind.’ ” deer from the road that over the next 30 years, and now there’s a short film from Day’s Edge “That would translate into 21,400 averted in- Productions about the long-bearded loner THE WEST juries, 155 fewer human deaths and more than and his decades of valuable data. The Snow Mountain lions eat ungulates to survive, and $2 billion in savings — a pretty good return for Guardian has been a surprise hit at festivals during a big cat’s average six-year lifespan, it letting nature take its course.” Coexistence does and online. will likely consume about 259 white-tailed deer. require vigilance, however, and has its costs, That’s what two biologists, Sophie Gilbert of including “yes, the infrequent attack.” the University of Idaho and Laura Prugh of the Bow hunter Wendell Van Beek met some WEB EXTRA For more from Heard around the West, see University of Washington, found after studying friendly smaller cats on the first day of hunting hcn.org. what happened in western South Dakota in the season in Iowa, reports KMEG-TV. From his Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and 1990s, when mountain lions were restored after well-hidden spot in a tree stand, he watched a often shared in this column. Write [email protected] or tag hunters had wiped them out a century earlier. bobcat stalk a squirrel scampering just below photos #heardaroundthewest on Instagram.

High Extremes set the boundary of existence: Country the biggest, the oldest, the fastest. We were upset News “ For people who care about the West. because that boundary retracted slightly when High Country News covers the important issues and stories that are unique to the American West with a Prometheus was cut. magazine, a weekly column service, books and a website, hcn.org. For editorial comments or questions, write Richard LeBlond, in his essay “Why a scientist cut down ‘the oldest living tree’, ” from Writers” on the Range, hcn.org/wotr High Country News, P.O. Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428 or [email protected], or call 970-527-4898.

28 High Country News January 23, 2017