For the past seven years, the Anishinaabe people have been facing the largest tar sands pipeline project in North America. We still are. In these dying moments of the fossil fuel industry, Water Protectors stand, prepared for yet another battle for the water, wild rice and future of all. We face Enbridge, the largest pipeline company in North America, and the third largest corporation in Canada. We face it unafraid and eyes wide open, for indeed we see the future.

The Anishinaabe speak of this time as the time of the Seventh Fire — we must choose between two paths, one well worn and scorched, the other green.

Under a hail of water cannons, the name “Water Protector” was immortalized in the battle to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016. The rights of humans, and the rights of Nature, were trampled by the corporate machine of the pipeline company known as Energy Transfer Partners and $38 million worth of militarization. That’s what was paid out in the name of “policing and cleanup”by the state of North Dakota to brutalize Water Protectors who came from a dozen states and cities to protest against Energy Transfer Partners and the Dakota Access Pipeline.