Paul Sasso
September 14 at 11:30pm ·
Standing Rock Sioux Dakota Access Pipeline Protest
Main Camp 9/9/2016 - Chris and I arrived with no tent and no real idea what to expect. The camp was massive, with tents stretching far into the distance, and people on foot, on horseback, and in cars making their way in and around. Soon, we were moving food into the kitchen tent and unloading supplies that were coming in by the pickup truck load. A tent came in one load. As we were passing through the general supply tent, after stacking a load of water bottles on the other side of a muddy car path, the woman running the tent said, "Oh wait, here's your tent, just return it here when you leave."
We found a tent circle not far from the main fire circle, kitchen and supply tents we were just at. It had some good flat spots to set up our new tent, and the perfect spot for the Bern Machine: between two flagpoles flying upside down U.S. flags.
Brian, who we talked to before bringing our tent and stuff over, helped set up the tent and brought us a tarp, which he strung to the tent, when we discovered it had no fly and just a screen top. Later, as the sun set, Brian made us some cowboy coffee and I shared chocolate with his three children and wife, and mother and sister-in-law. They came here two weeks ago, from Nebraska, and we're ready to stay "...as long as it takes."
On Brian's suggestion, Chris and I took a walk around the perimeter of camp. There were lots of tepees with bare poles stretching up and out above the point where they were lashed together and covered tightly with white canvas. We visited two horses corralled in a twenty five foot circle of skinny ruff hewn posts and poles. The camp went right to the edge of the Missouri River, now lit by a half moon.
Chris spotted the Clean Energy truck at the southeast edge of camp. It has two sixteen panel solar arrays that together he figured were good for 6.4 kWh. At that rate it would take ten hours to charge my car. Luckily the Prairie Knights Casino, only eight miles south of main camp, had fifty amp nema 14-50 RV hookups that were perfect for the Bern Machine. The Grand River Casino, fifty-nine miles south of the Prairie Knights also had these hookups, and the women at the front desk let us charge for free when they saw the car and heard we were headed up to the pipeline protest.
We had no real idea how we were going to charge on this last leg before reaching the #NoDAPL happening. On our phones, we found two other RV parks near Cannon Ball, but they were on the other side of the Missouri with no bridge in fifty miles, in one case, and well north of camp, in the other. Finally Chris found these, and after numerous conversations with various staff we were almost halfway sure they would work. Turns out they were perfect.
We made our way to the dinner line snaking around camp center where a fire was burning in the middle of a square filled with people listening to speakers on topics as lofty as indigenous rights and the necessity of activism to the improvement and continuation of life, and mundane as dinner closing time and finding a volunteer to drive someone to the next camp north.
We ate standing at a wooden cable spool, turned on its side, with members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. One told us how the tribe planned to switch to wind power, but when the utility heard about it they lowered the rates to undercut the transition. Since then they have raised them back up. He was also very interested in the car, so he came to check it out when we headed back to our tent.
As we settled in to sleep horses were whinnying, drum circles were drumming, and every once in a while a war cry would go up at one end of camp and quickly rise to a crescendo that engulfed the whole camp. I participated in a couple of these, much to Chris's chagrin.
It went down to forty degrees that night so I ended up sleeping in the back of the car with the heat on. I imagined if you made some cushions to fit back there it would be pretty comfortable. As it was, I didn't get much sleep. The super dark, brilliantly star lit sky was a consolation though.
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