Growing anti-Dakota Access Pipeline camp digs in amid blizzard, eviction threats

Dakota Access Pipeline protesters dig in
(Image credit: CNN/YouTube)

The Army Corps of Engineers is urging the protesters to leave by Dec. 5, North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple (R) has issued an "emergency evacuation" order, and it's snowing heavily in Cannon Ball, but the encampment to protest and block completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline just keeps getting bigger. Dallas Goldtooth, an organizer with Indigenous Environmental Network, estimates that 5,000 people are in the camp, spearheaded by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

Many of the new arrivals are white environmental activists — tribal leaders and fellow protesters have had to ask some of them to stop treating the protest like Burning Man or a hippie festival — but the protesters say they plan to stay put, regardless of blizzard or evacuation threat. "We have lived for generations in this setting," Standing Rock Sioux spokeswoman Phyllis Young said Monday night, referring to the federal land the encampment is on. "That is our camp.... This is Lakota territory. This is treaty territory, and no one else has jurisdiction there."

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.