A few days ago I was in Duluth, Minnesota sitting in the broiling sun, listening to a day’s worth of live music at the Water is Life festival. Headlined by rock groups Bon Iver and Hippo Campus, the concert was a fundraiser for Honor the Earth, a non-profit co-founded by longtime activist Winona LaDuke, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe1. The fest’s theme was “Stop Line 3.” Line 3 being the oil pipeline that the Canadian multinational energy transportation company Enbridge is building (or replacing as Enbridge claims) to move Canadian tar sands crude oil from Alberta, Canada, to Superior, Wisconsin. As the day wore on somewhere along the way chants of “Stop Line 3” morphed into “F**k Line 3.” And once that chant was out of the bag, there was no way this exuberant crowd was going back to “stop.”
Water is Life. Something we won’t truly understand until water no longer flows from the spigot. From Honor the Earth’s website: “Our Seven Generations and Seventh Fire prophesies tell us we are in the time when we have a choice between two paths. One path is well worn, scorched and leads to our destruction. The other path is new, green and leads to mino-bimaadiziwin (the good life). We must choose to walk the new path.”
Readmission to the music fest wasn’t allowed so I mostly sat in a folding chair for the eight hours I was there. That was fine. It would have been too hot anyway to wander around outside the gates of the concert venue. And inside the gates, it was too sweltering to feel inspired to move about the unshaded grounds much. LaDuke commented often that it’s “not supposed to be this way” in Duluth—hot, dry, parched.
Freed from the urge to wander around due to the oppressive heat, made me, I suppose, a better listener and observer. I watched teepees being erected, noted the day-long wandering of young cheerful volunteers passing out fliers with contact information to call senators and Joe Biden to implore them to shut down Line 3 operations; I marveled at how young children, despite the heat, ran proudly around the grounds parading large billowing windsock carps through crowds. I took a brief stroll over to peruse vendors’ wares: food, beer, jewelry, t-shirts, artwork. The vibe was light and festive on the grounds. People had shown up to enjoy a concert with a cause. In contrast, the vibe was heavy on stage.
The designers of this shade-free venue didn’t consider how hot it can become in the Anthropocene.
Throughout the day, LaDuke spoke into the mic to tell pieces of the Line 3 story: no environmental impact study had ever been completed; the people you see on stage are the Water Protectors who have been on the “front lines” of the Line 3 battle every step of the way; the Water Protectors have faced horrible consequences—rubber bullets, harsh arrests, pepper spray and tear gas, challenging living conditions—from persisting on the front lines; treaty rights are being violated; it is not a matter of if but when spills will happen; and much more. Throughout the day others on stage spoke directly to the audience: it’s now time to get bold and brave; it’s time to do something and don’t make it too little; it’s time to come to the frontlines with us and protest now. It’s time. Juxtaposed against the daylong call for an awakening to the growing nightmare of the Anthropocene was a small unidentified plane circling above with a “Go Line 3” trailing banner. The circling plane evoked a singular comment from the stage: “We are not guided by hate, but by love.”
Mostly ignored by the crowd, organizers, and performers.
LaDuke and I were born in the same year. When we were in our twenties, LaDuke co-founded the Indigenous Women’s Network. I was working in a doctor’s office. The year LaDuke co-founded Honor the Earth—in 1993 with Amy Ray and Emily Saliers of the folk rock group Indigo Girls—my first child was born and I was mostly oblivious to the seriousness of the day’s environmental issues. LaDuke went on to run for Vice President on the Green Party ticket with Ralph Nader in both 1996 and 2000. She has never slowed down.
I often think about what drives someone to become and remain an activist. Martin Luther King surely knew he would not lead a long and comfortable life given the issues he chose to take on. Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years yet somehow endured to become South Africa’s first elected black president. Buddha had his comfortable life, yet…. Thunberg could have just been an average teen. Gandhi could have remained a lawyer in South Africa. Goodall could have just kept doing research. Russian activist and opposition leader Aleksei Navalny knew what his prospects were when he stepped foot back into Russia. LaDuke has a degree from Harvard; surely she had several paths she could have taken. Somehow these people all chose to claim their power and dedicate it to a greater cause. Despite the odds. The unpredictable outcomes. The pain this path would cause.
And that is what I was witnessing. Water Protectors claiming power; impassioned and imploring the audience to claim theirs. Do something. And don’t make it too small. One woman, Everlasting Wind, spoke into the microphone and told the crowd: “It’s time to step out of your comfort zone.” Activists must all know that claimed power only grows with the support of people. Lots of people. I hear the words again: do something and don’t make it too small.
Having lived most my life in snowy Minnesota, I had always wrongly assumed “white earth” meant “snow covered.” But the name comes from the color of clay found in the area.
Thanks for the inside look at the festival! Will be at the state capital tomorrow. Hope to see you!
Brilliant, my friend!