The talents of videographer Greg Peterson and singer/songwriter Drew Nelson combine to recreate the magic of the Eagle Rock Stand.
Thanks to both of you for this great contribution!
Watch it on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ces63iissE
Contact Drew Nelson: http://www.drewnelson.net/
Contact Greg Peterson: http://www.youtube.com/user/YOOPERNEWSMAN
More Eagle Rock Stand information at http://standfortheland.com
Two campers arrested, camp destroyed
By Greg Peterson, Today correspondent
Story Published: May 27, 2010
BIG BAY, Mich. – The defenders of sacred Eagle Rock sat in a circle and wept as they were surrounded by dozens of heavily armed state and local police officers who raided the Eagle Rock encampment the morning of May 27 arresting two campers at the request of Kennecott Eagle Minerals, who wasted no time destroying the month-old camp to make way for their nickel and copper mine.
Witnesses say there were about six people at Eagle Rock when police moved in including four campers who had spent the night and two supporters who arrived with a warning the raid was imminent. Armed with high-powered rifles, Michigan State Police and mine security could be seen atop Eagle Rock scanning the vast Yellow Dog Plains with binoculars apparently looking for trespassers.
Two handcuffed campers, who refused to leave when ordered by police, were taken away by sheriff’s deputies and driven nearly one hour to the Marquette County Jail and were released on bond. Arrested were Keweenaw Bay Indian Community members Chris Chosa, 28, and Charlotte Loonsfoot, 37, both of Baraga, Mich.
Loonsfoot was one of three women who set up the encampment April 23 protesting the arrest three days earlier of environmentalist Cynthia Pryor and hoping to protect Eagle Rock from the Eagle Project nickel and copper mine. Despite federal treaties that allow Ojibwa to hunt, fish and gather on the Yellow Dog Plains, the state of Michigan leased the land to Kennecott to open a sulfide mine. The mine portal is planned near the front of Eagle Rock and the tunnel will travel underneath the rock.
“Today, we got a message in camp that police were on their way,” said non-Native camper Catherine Parker of the warning from two members of the Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve who arrived shortly before police. “Charlotte and Chris had no intention of leaving voluntarily.”
Parker said the Eagle Rock defenders wept for the land as they sat in a circle.
“There were a lot of tears and passionate remarks because the people have come to care a lot about each other out here,” said Parker of Marquette, Mich. “We have all been working together, Native Americans and whites to protect something that is tremendously important to us.”
After police arrived, “we stayed as long as we could, we kept asking to stay with our friends (Chosa and Loonsfoot),” said Parker, wiping away a tear. “We sat down with them repeatedly, we were pushed verbally numerous times by law enforcement.”
“It’s breaking my heart,” said a crying Parker as she witnessed heavy equipment roaring up the entrance to Eagle Rock. “This mine is not going to perform (safely) as they say it will. What is going to happen if the mine collapses into the Trout Salmon River?”
Police from several agencies “literally surrounded us in a big circle,” said Kalvin Hartwig, a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa who spent the night of May 26 at Eagle Rock but was not arrested after agreeing to leave the property with his car.
When police arrived, “three of us and two visitors were down by the sacred fire and another one of our campers (Charlotte Loonsfoot) was up on the hill fasting,” Hartwig said. “I think this whole situation is pretty sad.
“The water and this land is at-risk. These people (Kennecott) are here illegally about to destroy it.”
According to the Save The Wild UP Web site, about 20 police cars were sent and warned to expect a riot that never occurred. Many supporters and the media rushed to the scene after hearing the Powell Township emergency personnel dispatched with instructions to stage at the main entrance to the mine including an ambulance and fire trucks. No injuries were reported.
Atop a pole at the entrance to the camp, a lone eagle feather fluttered in the dusty wind as heavy equipment moved in. Mine officials doused the grandfather fire, uprooted the Eagle Rock Community Garden, removed two flags from atop Eagle Rock and bulldozed the camp.
Deputies blocked the dusty, remote, seasonal Triple A Road at the mine entrance but allowed the media and campers to walk the three-quarters of a mile to the former entrance to the camp that was blocked by heavy machinery as mine employees erected a metal cyclone fence. The media was not allowed to see the remains of the encampment.
“They are putting up a fence and they are wrecking our garden we planted,” said Gabriel Caplett, who has posted daily updates about the campers activities on the Stand for the Land Blog and has written countless stories about the fight to stop the mine since it was announced in 2004. “They are putting out the sacred fire” that has burned since the first night.
There was no word on what happened to the tents and a large cache of food and other supplies donated by supporters. About 10 campers spent the night of May 25 at Eagle Rock, but several left to prepare for activities planned at the rock for Memorial Day weekend.
Two non-Native campers, not present for the raid, broke into tears while walking to Eagle Rock.
“It’s heartbreaking, it’s really disconcerting to feel the rights of the corporations have been put above and beyond the rights of the people,” said Amy Conover of Marquette, Mich. When politicians “get into power they don’t act on behalf of the people, they act on behalf of the money.”
A Detroit native attending nursing school in Marquette said she “can’t understand how hardened the hearts have become of the people who are doing this.”
“To not feel how wrong it actually is – is a very scary thing,” said Laura Nagle. “The police officer said this is a ‘bummer’ this was happening, it is not a bummer, it is a catastrophe, a tragedy and a misfortune for us all. This can still be stopped.”
May 24, 2010
On Sunday one of the campers “counted coup” on a Kennecott worker putting up a fence around Eagle Rock. Kennecott informed the Michigan State Police, who are now investigating it.
According to one of the spiritual advisors at Eagle Rock, “Coup is a hundreds-of-years old tradition of touching your enemy without hurting them. It brings shame to the enemy, Kennecott, by getting that close to them.”
According to Gabriel Caplett, a camper at the Eagle Rock settlement, “Kennecott seems to have a habit of blowing things out of proportion. We’ve seen this when they wasted taxpayer resources getting a citizen arrested for sitting on a stump with her dog. While campers at Eagle Rock have had to listen to Kennecott supporters drive by at night yelling racial slurs, swerving at us while we walk on the road, throwing beer cans and, in one incident reported to the State Police, firing shots, Kennecott gets the State Police investigating a camper who tapped a construction worker on the butt with a jackpine twig. This is kind of ironic coming from a company with one of the worst human rights and worker rights records around the world.”
The fence would prevent the Eagle Rock community from accessing their water sources, community garden and sacred medicines. The community asked Kennecott staff to not put the fence up for these reasons but have been ignored.
Settlers at Eagle Rock are planning a meeting Wednesday evening, May 26th at 6 pm, to discuss this situation and plans to finish planting their community garden. The public is welcome to attend.
For more questions contact us at standfortheland@gmail.com and read updates of Eagle Rock activities at http://standfortheland.com/
We, the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers
Ask you to join us:
MAY 18, 2010
CONSCIOUS PARTICIPATION IN HEALING OUR PLANETARY WATERS
OUR MOTHER EARTH NEEDS YOUR HELP!
Along with many peoples all around the globe, and many water prayers this spring, we are calling for a MASSIVE GLOBAL EFFORT.
Our main intention for this healing is to return the waters to their original pure crystalline blueprint, and to add to their abundance for the nourishment of ALL living things on the planet.
Pray in your local waterways, at the rivers or lakes or streams. Or pray with a bowl of water in the middle of the cities.
“We are Water Babies.
Do not to forget to say thank you every day for the water you drink,
the water you bathe in.
Without our Mother water we would not survive.”
Grandmother Agnes Baker Pilgrim, Takelma Siletz, Oregon
The specific ceremonies being conducted on May 18, 2010:
Grandmothers will be holding Water Prayers in the following places:
African Rainforest, Gabon – Grandmother Bernadette Rebienot
Great Lakes, USA- Grandmother Rita Blumenstein
Mountains of Oaxaca, Huautla de Jimenez – Grandmother Julieta Casimiro
Desert of the American Southwest- Grandmother Mona Polacca
France – Grandmother Flordemayo
Black Hills of North America- Beatrice and Rita Long Visitor Holy Dance
Plains of North America, Montana-Grandmother Margaret Behan
Hood River, Oregon- Agnes Baker Pilgrim
Nepalese Himalayas- Aama Bombo
Brazilian Amazon-Grandmothers Maria Alice Freire and Clara Shinobu Iura
Tibetan Ceremonies in Canada- Tsering Dolma Gyaltong
Mahia, Aotearoa, New Zealand – Ambassador Pauline Tangiora
At the same time, people will be praying at
Nine specific bodies of water around the planet using crystalline energy
· Lake Tahoe, California
· Lake Titicaca, Peru
· Lake MacKay Australia
· Lake Chad, Africa
· Lake Bikkal, Russia
· Lake Kissyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan
· Lake Geneva, Switzerland
· Lake Superior, Minnesota
· Colorado River Complex (Healing and Purification Ceremonies for this vital USA waterway)
“Water reflects the human soul. If you say, ‘thank you’ to water, it will be reflected in the form of beautiful crystals overflowing with gratitude in return.” Masuru Emoto, The Secret Life of Water
For more information:
www.goldeneagleceremonies.com
Forward email
Center for Sacred Studies | P.O. Box 745 | Sonora | CA | 95370
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 10, 2010
Teaching to be Held on Sacred Sites and Treaty Rights
CONTACT: standfortheland@gmail.com
A teaching on treaty rights and sacred sites will be held on Saturday, May 15 at 11 a.m. at Eagle Rock (migi zii wa sin), in Michigamme Township. The teaching is open to the public.
Eagle Rock (migi zii wa sin) has been assessed as a sacred place by the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community’s Tribal Historic Preservation Office and is eligible for listing on the National Historic Register as a traditional cultural property.
Tribal members and treaty rights speakers will discuss the importance of preserving Native American sacred places and explain First Amendment rights to religious freedom. An overview of the Treaty of 1842, in which the United States government ceded the area to the Ojibwa, will be also given. The public and mine supporters are encouraged to attend.
According to one speaker, Jessica Koski, a member of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, “the event at Eagle Rock this Saturday is a very important educational opportunity. Our struggle for the land and Eagle Rock is one of many. Native Americans and indigenous peoples throughout the world face similar struggles to protect their homelands, sacred places and cultures.”
“The Constitution of the United States of America embraces the concept of liberty, freedom and justice for all, but Native Americans have been repeatedly denied this widespread democratic belief,” says Koski.
“Our stand at Eagle Rock is an important one,” says Koski. “This is a time of global environmental destruction and also a time of cultural revitalization for our people. We need to protect our last remaining sacred places and assert our rights and values for the land, water, plants and wildlife. Our desire and right to continue our cultural traditions depends upon the protection of our land bases and natural resources. Asserting our Treaty Rights will continue to be an extremely important strategy and will challenge the privileges afforded multinational corporations and the state.”
Please contact standfortheland@gmail.com for any questions or comments or to schedule an interview.
MQT CO. Court House
Over 100 citizens gathered in downtown Marquette yesterday in support of clean water, the environment and activist Cynthia Pryor. Signs reading “Honk! for Lake Superior” and “Keep it Fresh” were held by participants as well as “Hey Kennecott – No Trespassing!” The group walked from Washington Street to the court house on Baraga where they filled the front steps leading up to the main entrance.
At the pre-trial conference yesterday for Cynthia Pryor, County Prosecutor Dave Payant made an offer to accept a guilty plea and a delay of sentence, giving Pryor credit for her jail time and wiping her record clean. Pryor’s attorney Kevin Koch is reviewing that offer, however a jury trial is scheduled for Tuesday, June 15, 8:00 am in Courtroom 215 at the Marquette County Courthouse before Judge Roger Kangas.
For video coverage and photos go to http://www.standfortheland.com
For local media coverage TV-6: http://www.uppermichiganssource.com/news/story.aspx?id=453744
Mining Journal http://www.miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/543888.html?nav=5006
PHOTO’s by Marjorie O’Brien
by Gabriel Caplett
Native American activists were setting up a tent camp at Eagle Rock Saturday, expecting to stay indefinitely peacefully protesting the Kennecott Eagle Minerals Company nickel and copper mine on the Yellow Dog Plains.
“I’m here because this is a sacred spot to our people,” said Charlotte Loonsfoot, 37, a Keweenaw Bay Indian Community member from Baraga who organized the stand at the rock. “They’re going to drill underneath that rock. I’ve seen the spot, it’s like feet from the rock and it’s huge – the hole is huge.”
Loonsfoot and Chalsea Smith, 20, another KBIC member from Baraga, arrived Friday as the sun was setting, driving a small car packed with provisions up a dusty Marquette County Road AAA to Eagle Rock.
“We’re going to try to sit here and protect it for as long as possible until maybe we can do something like stop them,” Smith said, referring to Kennecott. “They don’t care about the land or anything that happens. They just want the money. As long as they get the money, who cares? ‘Cuz they don’t live here. They won’t be living here all the time. So they’ll just pack up and leave and go to the next project because they get paid. Money drives people.”
Kennecott officials said they were open to talks with the KBIC.
“The invitation for a cooperative relationship for discussion of issues and working together to address both parties’ interests – that is an open invitation that we hope the tribe will accept,” Deb Muchmore, a Kennecott spokeswoman in Lansing , said Saturday. “We’re looking for solutions.”
Kennecott recently sent a letter to the KBIC informing them construction at the mine site was to begin and stating they wanted to talk with tribal officials about access to Eagle Rock. According to Muchmore, the primary goal for Kennecott is to ensure safety for tribal members while at the site.
Red-lettered signs saying “No Trespassing” had been put up by Kennecott this week after anti-mine activist Cynthia Pryor of Big Bay was arrested Tuesday for trespassing. Pryor, who was freed from jail Thursday on a personal recognizance bond, allegedly stood in the path of a bulldozer, hoping to stop its work. Pryor is scheduled to appear in Marquette County District Court May 6.
Loonsfoot and Smith had been to the site the day after Pryor was arrested.
“We were here before and there was no signs here,” Loonsfoot said.
The bulldozer was preparing the site for erecting a fence and Kennecott beginning to construct surface facilities for the mine this summer. Kennecott is leasing 120 acres from the state. Long swaths had been cleared through the jack pine and stumps.
Loonsfoot and Smith slept in their car near the base of Eagle Rock Friday night. They climbed the tree-covered outcropping Saturday morning to pray. Loonsfoot leading the ceremony, Smith learning the traditional ways of her elders.
Many more people were expected to gather at the site over the weekend. Loonsfoot said she sent e-mail invitations to all tribal members and the tribal council. She also posted word of the gathering on her Facebook page.
“Everybody that I know knows that I’m coming out here,” Loonsfoot said.
Smith said she knew of others who were packing up food or other items and were en route to the rock, which is located within 10 miles southwest of Big Bay.
Loonsfoot said those coming to the site plan to camp and hold ceremonies. A sacred fire is expected to be lit and a tribal medicine man is set to visit the gathering Sunday from Minnesota, offering advice.
“Something will happen,” Loonsfoot said. “I trust the creator’s going to help us because we feel like we’re doing the right thing.”
Kennecott is apparently not planning to try to prevent the gathering.
“They have an interest in expressing their viewpoint on the project,” Muchmore said, “And we’re not going to interfere with that.”
National and Upper Peninsula members of the American Indian Movement in Republic, Trout Creek, Baraga and other places were also invited.
“Most of the big ones are in Arizona and word is out to them and hopefully they’ll be coming up,” Loonsfoot said. “We want people to come and help us if they believe in this and are strong with it.”
In her invitation, Loonsfoot told her fellow Native Americans, “The time is now. We have to go protect what is right and true to our people and our future.”
In addition to tribal rights to visit the site, those Indians gathering are also concerned about potential damage to the environment from the mine, including the Salmon Trout River.
Loonsfoot sighed deeply and turned away from the winds gusting into her face as the sun sank Friday.
“That’s such a beautiful spot and they’re blocking it from us to go and do our fasts, our spiritual ceremonies and everything else that we do up there,” Loonsfoot said. “And I don’t believe that they should be doing that to us because we are connected to the earth. The whole water thing, you know. Women are protectors of the water – and this is our main reason why we’re here.”
Read more http://standfortheland.com
Please act now and sign a petition to the EPA, DNRE and many others to support Cynthia’s actions and help to protect our right to recreate on public lands.
Donate to our legal fund to support Cynthia in court and to support anyone else who finds themselves in a similar situation in days to come.
Recently the DNRE announced a public comment period for leasing over 4000 acres of mineral rights to Kennecott for further exploration. The exploration would take place in Southern Marquette County, Northern Dickinson County, and Southern Houghton County.
Tom Hoane
FMD DNRE
P.O. Box 30452
Lansing, MI
48909-7952
To help prepare yourself to attend the MDEQ’s public hearing for Kennecott’s proposed 22-mile haul ‘highway’ on Wednesday, February 10 at the Westwood High School, 7:00 pm, Please Read the Permit Analysis written by Cynthia Pryor.