[drumming]
[native chanting]
FEMALE NARRATOR: This is a
story of the Bad River people.
One that starts,
and inevitably ends,
with Mashkiiziibiing,
the Bad River Reservation.
And Lake Superior herself.
This place in
Northern Wisconsin
has been their home
for thousands of years.
And they are still here,
fueled by the strength
and resilience
of their Ojibwe ancestors,
which course
through their veins.
A people who've had to fight
for and defend their land.
and their water,
for generations.
These battles have
many chapters.
MALE NARRATOR: The newest one
is over an aging pipeline
that runs through
the Reservation.
A pipeline that is now
at risk of rupture.
where a river, the Bad River,
is changing her course.
FEMALE NARRATOR: But this
is not just a story
about that pipeline.
It's a story about resistance,
and the relentless
cycle of standing up
in the face of adversity.
It's also about
the scars that they bear.
MALE NARRATOR:
The latest revealing itself
one fateful day,
when a helicopter
inspecting that pipeline,
fell out of the sky.
This crash, which occurred in a
remote part of the Reservation,
would reveal an
inconceivable discovery:
an exposed pipeline.
It seems improbable that
a pipe from a pipeline company
would be hanging in mid-air.
MALE NARRATOR: This pipeline
is owned by Enbridge,
a Canadian-based energy giant.
And I was like, "What the hell?"
We discovered it by chance,
and it just blew our
mind when we seen it.
When it's exposed
then it actually
increases the risk of
a oil spill occurring.
That's a ticking time b*mb.
It's not if,
it's when a spill happens.
If it gets in the Bad River,
you know,
then it's gonna be taken right
out into Lake Superior too.
FEMALE NARRATOR: Lake Superior,
which is downstream
of the Bad River,
is the largest
freshwater system by area
in the world.
MIKE WIGGINS: It is the
grandmother of the Great Lakes.
It is the freshwater
stronghold of America.
It's, I would say, a freshwater
stronghold of Planet Earth.
ELDRED CORBIE: And what we have,
with our water being so pure,
we gotta protect,
to die for it if we have to.
Live from the shell
of a turtle about to snap
Quail tails, broke spells,
jump hurdles
Where we at
Wish me well, on the journey
I might burn, I might splat
Pop said you're gonna
learn how to earn a stripes
Sticking to your pathways
Pitter-patter with the wind
As across the grass strains
Revel in the river
for a minute
Downstream with the fence
No means to an end
Brown green colors
got it at the mother flooded
In front line
give a whoop!
That's the sound
of the cavalry
I don't keep it sweet foul
mouth no ounce of a cavity
Just 'cause you're mad with
yourself, don't get mad at me
JOE ROSE:
We are Lake Superior Ojibwe,
that's, uh,
Monadu Ojibwe Gichigame...
the spirit of the
Big Lake out there.
And that gives us our identity.
And that tells us who we are.
This land was prophesized
to our people
that we would come to a place
where food grows on water.
WIGGINS: Our people have
been here for millennia.
The land and water
essentially carry the stories
of how our people
interacted with this place.
And it's
unbelievably beautiful.
I live in paradise,
When I tell people and I go,
"I got 12 miles of lake shore."
And they're like,
"Wow, you must be rich".
And it's like,
absolutely I'm rich.
We are a rich people,
not in a monetary sense.
Our knowledge is rich.
Our culture is rich.
Our strength.
Our resilience.
I was always taught
to be proud of that.
FEMALE NARRATOR:
This resilience,
forged over generations,
will be tested by this
pipeline and its owner.
But to fully understand
what's at stake
for the Bad River
people of today
is to understand the
Bad River people of yesterday,
the Lake Superior Chippewa
or Ojibwe
who fought back,
time and time again,
against the wholesale taking
of their land and way of life.
This is a story of defiance.
MALE NARRATOR: And it begins
with early pioneers
and a reality that
is far different
than Hollywood's version
of how America was won.
MARTIN SENECA: There was a
constant stream of immigrants
that were coming
into this country,
trying to get hold of land.
Go west, young man,
and get yourself some land.
Well, where are we
gonna get the land?
And as they moved westward,
they ran into problems
with the Indians.
You have violence,
conflict, genocide.
And we're just in the way.
MALE NARRATOR: John Wayne
movies and American westerns
served up a different
narrative,
with heroic cowboys and
settlers
defending little houses
on the prairie
from marauding and
quote-unquote "savage Indians."
Nazgo, nazgo!
[screams]
MALE NARRATOR: And of course,
the cavalry
always came to the rescue,
bugles blaring,
when in fact, they were
invading Indian Country
and taking their land.
One little, two little,
three little Indians...
We didn't silently disappear.
You can't blame it
all on smallpox.
Four little, five little,
six little Indians.
You can't blame it
on anything
other than the intent
to take over,
dispossess, eradicate and
replace an entire population.
Why don't you finish the job?
The disappearing of indigenous
people is fundamental
because if you're gonna
claim the land as your own
you've gotta get rid
of the other group of people
who claim it's their land.
That's what
settler colonialism is.
We had had a
removal order
signed against us
by Zachary Taylor.
MALE NARRATOR:
This removal order was part of
a federal policy in the 1800s
to force Native Americans
off their land, westward,
but the order violated
existing treaties
with the Lake Superior Ojibwe,
who had already granted
the use of 32.5 million acres
to the federal government.
FEMALE NARRATOR: Pushing back
against this land-h*
policy of dispossession,
legendary Lake Superior
Ojibwe leader, Chief Buffalo,
and other tribal chiefs,
head to Washington D.C.,
to negotiate with the
newly elected president,
Millard Fillmore,
for the cancellation
of this removal order.
Fillmore agrees
that for another
13 million acres of land,
the Lake Superior Ojibwe
can retain their homeland
with extended hunting
and fishing rights,
and they sign
the Treaty of 1854.
Chief Buffalo's trip was
one of the most important
acts of resistance
and the Ojibwe have
been resisting ever since.
There is this deep,
deep sense
of protecting this land.
No matter what laws were passed,
that part stayed with us.
There's always a threat.
There's always
some kind of threat.
FEMALE NARRATOR: Threats to
Bad River land and people,
would only get worse
after the Treaty of 1854.
MALE NARRATOR:
The federal government's
Bureau of Indian Affairs,
otherwise known as the BIA,
would soon break up Bad River
and other Native lands
into small private lots,
called allotments, a policy
reaffirmed by the Dawes Act.
KEVIN BRUYNEEL: The idea was
to allot a certain portion
of the land to Indian heads of
households in tribal nations.
They had been
"allotting" reservations,
chopping them up into pieces.
KEVIN BRUYNEEL: The rest of the
land that is not distributed
is now up for sale.
Those parcels were bought
by lumber companies.
They should have
never been sold.
They should have
stayed in our hands.
All of the extra land
that is not allotted out
would now be free
for white settlement.
We have the dominant
society that,
when they were unable
to exterminate us,
then they thought the next
thing they wanna do
is to assimilate us.
MALE NARRATOR: Assimilation,
a policy overseen by the BIA,
was an effort to forcibly
integrate native peoples
into American culture,
leading to
unthinkable atrocities.
When we were growing up as kids,
there was a black car
that used to ride around,
a big black car.
And they were all shiny
and they'd drive
real slow down the road.
We know they're coming
for somebody, kids.
For, uh...
Well, take 'em away.
We see that coming, we'd run.
We scattered but we knew,
the kids knew
who was being targeted.
They'd basically just
grab kids and take 'em
and take 'em off to
these boarding schools.
FEMALE NARRATOR: Government
run boarding schools,
conceived to quote-unquote
"civilize" indigenous children,
began operating in the 1860s.
Several Bad River children
were rounded up
and sent hundreds
of miles away,
to institutions like
the Carlisle School.
This was a school that was
modeled after prison systems.
So, children as young as four
were stolen from their families.
They were taken far away,
um, to the east coast to
go to boarding school.
"k*ll the Indian, save the man",
was the motto.
My grandfather went to Carlisle
and endured a lot of abuse,
physical abuse,
um, mental abuse.
My father went
to the boarding school.
I remember, um...
But he didn't talk
too much about it.
It was all of a sudden,
"you're an Indian,"
"you're an Indian,"
"you're an Indian,"
"you're not an Indian."
We're gonna cut your hair.
We can't let you
speak your language.
Your cultural elements are
gonna be disbanded,
and we're-- then you
become a shell.
That piece of,
pulling our children
and separating them from
their parents
has traumatic repercussions
several generations
into the future.
The conditions of the
boarding schools,
according to these formal
reports, was just atrocious.
And testament to that
are these graveyards.
SCOTT MANNING STEVENS: There's
been all this handwringing
and surprise about the
discovery of cemeteries
at these boarding schools.
No native person is
surprised by any of this news.
You take your kid to
a prep school, you don't say,
"Could I see the cemetery
while we're here?"
You know?
It's just not part of the tour.
But for Native American
boarding schools,
it was a genocidal project.
If it didn't mean to
k*ll them physically
it meant to k*ll them
spiritually, psychologically,
and in any other way.
ANTON TREUER: Pretty soon they
were enrolling
20,000 Native kids a year
and they could not keep up.
So, they subcontracted
the work to churches.
FEMALE NARRATOR: Although many
Bad River children
were sent far away,
others attended
the Catholic school
located on the
Bad River Reservation.
BEN CONNORS, SR.: I was in
college and interviewing my aunt
about the St. Mary's school that
was here on the reservation.
Her first response was,
"a tragedy for Indian people".
That's exactly how she explained
St. Mary's school.
We administered St. Mary's
from 1883 until 1969.
We saw ourselves as bringing
Christ to un-Christianized.
The nuns, some of them
were pretty mean.
We couldn't laugh,
we couldn't talk.
If a child was speaking
the language, you know,
they would be beaten terribly.
Our congregation, as well
as other congregations,
were involved in a system
of white supremacy.
It was r*cist.
The nuns took our
language away from us.
They called us "heathens"
when we talked that way.
The whole idea was,
"your culture is primitive."
They were trying to force
that assimilation
into Indian people, making them
something that they weren't.
I was an altar boy
when I was in grade school.
But at the same time, uh,
my mother was taking us,
uh, to ceremonies,
back in the woods.
SONNY SMART: Priests and
the nuns, they'd come out there
and they would tell 'em,
"It's devil worship
going on there."
JOE ROSE: They'd tell us that
we were living in a state
of, uh, mortal sin
because we had
attended these pagan rites.
Which we were.
We have come to the awareness,
in the past couple of years,
of our complicity in
assimilist policies
with cultural genocide
as its objective.
SONNY SMART: At St. Mary's
I talked Ojibwe
and my friend John said,
"Don't be so Indionish.
Talk English,
don't talk Indian".
I was using some of those words
and he just said,
"Shh, shh. Be quiet.
Don't say anything."
And just that quick,
Sister Cornita,
she had a hold of me
by my ear...
and we went flying up
to the front of the class.
And she slapped me so hard,
you know,
she left her imprints on
my, my face,
you know, how hard she hit me.
Oh, everybody's got stories.
It's just, ugh...
My brother came home from
school...and he was going,
"ow, ow,"
and my grandmother came in
and said,
"What's wrong with you?"
There was welts across
his fingers caused from,
uh, a ruler, not turned
flat side,
but on its edge
hitting his hands.
She said, "Who did this to you?
Was it the nuns?"
And she started hollering
for my grandfather
and speaking to him in
Ojibwe really loud.
My dad said,
"What happened to you?"
And then I said, "Uh, well,
Sister Cornita slapped me".
He was mad, you know, and,
uh, whoa, so, he just took off.
EDITH LEOSO: We pull up and
she pounds on the door.
It was, you know,
boom, boom, boom.
SONNY SMART: And she's like,
"How dare you come
into my office?"
EDITH LEOSO: And she said,
"Do you see this boy here?
Look at his hands."
SONNY SMART: I seen my dad
fight before,
and he used to box in
the army too,
but I seen him shift his
weight and I thought,
"Oh, he's gonna get her now,
I thought,
she's gonna get smacked."
And so, I thought, "good."
EDITH LEOSO:
My grandmother, she says,
"You did that to my children,
you did that to me,
you're not gonna do it
to my grandchildren."
So, he just told her, he said,
"If you ever touch him again,
I'll be back here."
And he said, uh, "I'll make
sure you never do that again."
"If you ever do this
again to my grandson,
I'll be back and
I'll kick your a*s."
And I was like, "Ooh.
Grandma's going to go
toe-to-toe with them."
MALE NARRATOR: In addition
to cultural assimilation,
the 1940s and 1950s
unleash another wave
of challenges to
Native sovereignty.
And for Bad River,
this will include the beginning
of their pipeline problem.
FILM NARRATOR: For three
decades, oil companies
have been drilling with only
limited success,
searching, searching, searching.
Then, in February of 1947,
20 miles south of Edmonton,
near the little town
of Leduc, Alberta...
Imperial Leduc Number 1
struck oil.
With the last join welded,
oil began to flow
and a new chapter opened
in the history of the field.
Production increased and money,
which would've gone
to buy American oil,
was kept in Canada.
MALE NARRATOR:
A Canadian company,
later known as Enbridge,
constructs an oil pipeline
that will move oil from
western to eastern Canada.
The cheapest and easiest
route for this pipeline
was to dip down to the United
States and the Great Lakes
before heading
back to Canada.
In 1953, Line 5 is
installed on the Reservation,
courtesy of the Bureau
of Indian Affairs,
without the consent
of the Bad River Band.
The line is 12 miles long,
which includes about
3 miles of tribal land and
6 miles of allotted parcels,
owned by different
Bad River members.
The BIA signs a pipeline
easement agreement
allowing the company
to operate
on this Bad River land
for 20 years.
All for a payment of
less than 3800 dollars.
The Bureau of Indian affairs
negotiated lease arrangements,
and outright gifts in some
cases, to, uh, big business.
The Bureau of
Indian Affairs
signed that contract
with Enbridge.
The tribal council
did not do that.
Many times, pipelines
cross Indian land
because it's the easiest
way to go.
You could convince
federal officials
to just give you a rubber stamp
to do those things.
Indian nations are in a
constant state of siege.
FEMALE NARRATOR: The siege
was about to get worse,
and not just for Bad River.
MALE NARRATOR: In 1953,
Congress began efforts
to terminate tribal status,
to get rid of Indian
tribes altogether,
in an effort to solve what they
called the "Indian Problem."
The Indian Problem is:
they're still here.
What are we going to do
with these people now?
ANTON TREUER: We have not
folded Native Americans
into American civilization.
It's going too slow.
MALE NARRATOR: House Resolution
108 is passed in 1953,
terminating tribal status.
You know, this was all
painted in the guise of,
"this is a great
opportunity for you,
we're freeing you
from the reservation,"
when everyone knew it was
a means
of getting rid of Native status.
The termination was hotly
contested by Indian nations.
Without the federal system,
without their recognition of
our treaty requirements,
we will disappear.
MALE NARRATOR: In addition
to termination legislation,
the Indian Relocation Act
is passed in 1956.
RUNNINGHORSE LIVINGSTON:
Relocation was a pretty clever
idea to assimilate
Native people.
It was meant to remove them
to these urban areas
and give them a
skill or a trade.
We'll move them off
the reservation
and then we can close
the reservations.
The two laws that go together:
termination and relocation.
Sounds bad, is bad.
You have to factor in who
is benefiting
materially from the displacement
of indigenous peoples.
There was a lot of
economic ventures
that wanted to access
to tribal land.
When I think about large groups
of native peoples moving away,
like my grandfather, and
an influx of corporations
coming into the reservation
to build infrastructure
to make money, an example
is oil pipelines.
SONNY SMART: The Bureau set
up these big,
large centers for relocation.
Big cities like
Minneapolis, Chicago,
Seattle, Los Angeles,
New York.
My mom, she was, uh,
relocated down to Milwaukee
with my grandmother.
They came, and they, they're
talking to my mom and dad,
and I remember they had
a big, like a folder,
and had all these colored
pictures of lakes and parks.
You know, they were
sold a dream:
that you could relocate
to the city, you know,
there's money, there's jobs,
there's opportunity.
FILM NARRATOR: The first new
arrivals are housed at once.
For they must be comfortable
while preparing for
employment or training.
Others discuss their
housing needs
and help them find a
convenient apartment.
When a new arrival makes
a preliminary choice,
arrangements are made.
They offered me to go to, uh,
Minneapolis for relocation,
which I found out it was
just, uh, another way
to assimilate people into
the dominant culture.
They said, "Well,
we'll find you a job."
SONNY SMART: A lot of
people that left Bad River,
including my family,
moved to Milwaukee,
Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver.
But while you're there
you start picking up
the dominant value system.
MARTIN SENECA: Sometimes people
get a one-way ticket.
By the time
you get down to the city,
you're on your own.
They couldn't get jobs.
All of a sudden,
they're struggling.
There are a lot of issues
with people who get displaced.
When I was little my
parents left for Milwaukee,
they left me with
my grandmother,
and they came to get me,
and I didn't even know
who they were.
So, what would this be,
these relocation policies?
It's "divide and conquer"
or, we've already seen,
it's "conquer and divide".
My uncle was homeless,
had issues with alcohol.
I think the issues stem
from being removed
and not having, like,
that sense of home.
FILM NARRATOR: When the family
members have selected
the apartment they want,
friendly bureau staff
helps them settle.
Much is to be
done on moving day.
I lived on Skid Row for a year.
I was, I was drunk
for a whole year.
And I am not proud of it,
but I'm not ashamed of it
because I know, I know
what it was, how it was.
A good chunk of my friends
that I grew up with,
they're no longer here.
They died by homicide,
shootings,
cirrhosis of the liver,
car accidents.
Almost all of them are gone.
My dad, you know,
drinking later on,
that's kind of what did him in.
You know, it's for me,
that what happened to me,
but... also...
that what my
father had to go through.
When we got to
Milwaukee for relocation,
I was getting jumped,
you know,
there was different things
that happened to me.
But the racism, discrimination,
and, you know it,
it was all built up.
The anger, you know,
that was in me.
f*ck you, punk.
You know?
Start a fight, you know.
And my grandpa said, "You can't
fight all of the white people.
"You know, there's
just too many of them.
The lines gonna be
never ending."
I went to the BIA, and I said,
"Hey, I got a job at home."
They told me, he said, "No."
He said, "It doesn't
work that way."
Says, "Relocation is to get you
off the reservation."
So, I told him, "Well, F you."
So I said, "I'll make
my own way home."
And that's what I did.
Pull up in a limo
with the g*ng
Bandanna strapped like
victory the game
Put him in the past tense
Mask with the glass tent
Can't see me, can't be me
You trash but you average
Gave me the ick
The rabies legit
Great dane craving
to get out the cage
Tasting the flesh
A mighty fine revolution
that can unfold quick
'Cause the sun never sets
on a stolen percent
FEMALE NARRATOR:
Meanwhile, for those
who stayed in urban areas,
police brutality
was a constant threat.
Natives were getting
picked up by the police
and that's when all the
police brutality started.
EDITH LEOSO: The oppression,
the racism, just hit a pinnacle.
There was a prophecy that said,
"When the eagle lands
on the moon,
that will be a time of change
for Indian people."
And everybody thought, "Well,
that's never gonna happen.
The Eagle can't fly as
high as the moon."
Until...
Three two one, zero, liftoff.
We have a liftoff.
You're a go
for landing, over?
Down, 2-20 feet.
The Eagle has landed
And everybody went, "What?"
That was the sign
that we need to stand up
for ourselves despite everything
that might happen to us.
Suddenly, things like
red power in the 1960s,
the American Indian Movement,
start to emerge from indigenous
people working together.
This was a very unintentional
product of relocation.
The American Indian movement
was first an urban reaction
to discrimination,
whether it was by the police
who would just round up Indians,
uh, whenever, they felt like it
and throw 'em in the
trunks of their car
and then let them out later.
My uncle Clyde had stories
of police brutality
that were insane to me.
I couldn't even,
I-I couldn't even imagine.
Like, he, uh, he was shot.
FEMALE NARRATOR: Runninghorse's
uncle, Clyde Bellecourt,
along with his aunt,
Peggy Bellecourt,
and his grandmother
Florence Holmes,
both from Bad River,
become early members of
the American Indian Movement,
also called AIM.
RUNNINGHORSE LIVINGSTON:
AIM would not have been
what AIM was without
people like my grandmother.
The impact that women
had during that movement,
even though it's not
as well documented,
uh, was, was huge.
FEMALE NARRATOR:
Florence Holmes,
Peggy and Clyde Bellecourt,
and Runninghorse's mother,
Katie,
all participate in
the Occupation of Alcatraz.
American Indians have
secured the Island of Alcatraz.
What motivated us to do this
is there are Indians
across North America today
that are taking a strong stance
to gain back the lands
that they've lost.
There was a,
there was a takeover of
the coast guard
station in Milwaukee.
So, I was a part of that.
FEMALE NARRATOR:
Florence, Peggy, Clyde
and Runninghorse's
mother, Katie,
caravanned to DC
to occupy the BIA.
A group of American Indians
seized control
of several offices of the
Bureau of Indian Affairs
in Washington today.
They were there to protest
what they regard
as the Government's past
injustices toward Indians.
There was a group of
'em that went in
and it kind of escalated
to the fact
that they were taking
over the building.
The security was unable
to really deal with 'em,
'cause this was all
a new phenomenon
as far as Indian people
were concerned.
And people go, "Wait, what the
hell is going on over there?
What's-- what's all these
Native people doing?"
Indians across the country
are washing their hands
of this hostile and
primitive government.
Those militant Indians
who took over
the Bureau of
Indian Affairs...
AIM was actually pretty radical,
even for a lot of Native people.
It brought our issues to
the forefront of the news
and made people aware
that, actually,
that there are
still natives out there.
There were wrongs that
had to be righted
and I don't think the
general population
was even remotely
aware of that before.
Those activists from
the seventies
created a whole
generation of fighters.
FEMALE NARRATOR:
Back on the Reservation,
the 1970s would find
Bad River members
resisting other
forms of policing.
There used to be
a game warden here
that kind of plagued
the reservation.
It was, like, a big
cat and mouse game
they played with
the Game Warden...
I even remember his name.
I don't want to say it.
-Kyle Smith.
-Kyle Smith.
DAVID O'CONNOR: My grandfather
told my dad that he needed
to get some fish
for the family.
And so, my dad went out
gill nettin' on Lake Superior.
And my dad said that, he said
that day was a perfect day.
And all of a sudden,
the game warden came up,
they asked him what
he was doing.
And after that,
he was taken and arrested.
FEMALE NARRATOR: Arrested for
fishing out of season,
David's father files suit
against the State of Wisconsin.
He asserts that his rights
under that the Treaty of 1854
to fish year-round
were violated
and in 1972, the Wisconsin
Supreme Court agrees.
We had retained treaty rights
to hunt, fish, and gather
even though they were
unable to exercise them.
My father won his case.
I always saw him as the
strongest man in the world.
Always still do and, uh...
MALE NARRATOR: The legal
victory of Thomas Connors,
which upheld long-standing
treaty rights to hunt and fish,
as well as that of
the Tribble Brothers
from the Lac Courte Oreilles
Band who were arrested
for ice-fishing
off-reservation,
all spark a backlash.
launching what would become
known as the "Walleye Wars."
Sports fishermen really
resented Native people
because of these quote-unquote
"special rights"
that Native people
had to hunt and gather,
uh, in ceded territory.
We weren't given anything.
You didn't give a sh*t.
We gave you's the land.
We found out that one
of the tribes
was gonna be spearing
at, at Butternut Lake.
And the decision was made
to go there with them.
FEMALE NARRATOR: Bad River
members head out
to protect native fishermen
who are being threatened
by sports fisherman
and anti-treaty groups.
My dad was telling me,
he remembers, like,
the caravan of tribal members
going there.
We packed like
sardines in a car
and we rode out
to Butternut Lake.
ESIE LEOSO-CORBINE:
When we got there,
there was this massive crowd
of protestors there...
and it was loud.
[shouting]
And it was terrifying.
JOE ROSE: There was a huge
law enforcement presence,
they all had riot gear on.
All kinds of derogatory
remarks being made.
Go home, you red slime bag.
Come on!
They spit on us,
they would throw cans at us.
And there's the signs,
"Spear an Indian,"
you know, "Save a Walleye."
It was pure racism.
I had never experienced it
at that level before then.
They looked at me like I was
a disease, I was disgustin',
and I never felt
that before.
ED LEOSO: The worst thing
I ever saw was pulling up
to one of the boat landings,
and a guy got out of his truck
and he was drunk and got
his little five or six-year-old
kid outta the car and
start pointing at us.
Telling him we're bad people,
all we did was live on welfare,
"couldn't get a job," "lazy."
...the welfare check?
Go home!
-Welfare f*ck!
-Go home!
You hear g*nshots.
You don't know where its
coming from or aimed at.
[drumming, chanting]
There was probably 250,
300 people
on the landing trying to block
us from getting onto the lake.
Uh, it was...
it was bad.
I thought native people
were gonna get k*lled.
[drumming, chanting]
ESIE LEOSO-CORBINE:
Joe said that
we needed to bring the drum.
I was one of the people
holding the drum.
It's the heartbeat
of our nation.
When we started singing our
songs, we just felt protected.
And it was almost like this
invisible dome came over us.
And I knew that
we're gonna be okay.
We were there for the
right purpose and that, uh...
Well, spirits would
take care of us.
And I was like, "You have
no clue about who we are.
"You don't understand
our culture,
our religions
and our, our beliefs."
A lot of people are not
aware of how many fish
that the tribal
hatcheries reproduce
to put back into,
uh, the lake systems.
Our practices are made
to sustain the fish population.
ED LEOSO: We catch the fish, get
enough eggs, fill the hatchery.
JUNIE BUTLER: The hatchery
is a restocking program for,
not only the people
from the reservation,
but it for the whole area,
the whole Lake Superior area.
We make sure our eggs are
well taken care of which, um,
Junie does, r-real good.
Right now, we're at
20 million eggs,
and out of that, we've raised
probably three quarters
of a million fingerlings
that go back into the,
into the system.
That's an awful lot of,
awful lot of fish
for the future.
It never used to be like this.
It never used to be calm.
Our ancestors had enough
foresight, Chief Buffalo,
had to stand up for us to live
right here today at this moment.
MALE NARRATOR: In the 1990s,
Enbridge's right to operate
across Bad River
land expires again.
But before extending the
pipeline easement agreements,
the BIA, for the first time,
asks the Bad River Band
for its input.
At the time, our
tribe was in a financial crisis.
MALE NARRATOR:
For 800 thousand dollars,
the Band allows Enbridge
to operate
for 50 years on
3 miles of tribal land.
But for the allotted
parcels owned
by individual Band members,
now about
3 miles in length,
the BIA extension is shorter,
only 20 years,
its usual timeframe.
This means that Enbridge
must remove the pipeline
from those individual
parcels in 2013.
Which Enbridge agrees to.
FEMALE NARRATOR:
The 1990s also bring a new
and different threat
to Bad River.
The Opioid Epidemic,
which was raging
all throughout rural America.
We know that the more trauma
you've had in your past,
in your ancestors' past,
what we actually see
is that generations
have higher rates
of substance use.
MIIGIS GONZALEZ: These U.S.
policies, that were put in place
to k*ll the Indian within us,
how could that have,
not have affected
our wellbeing and our
perception of ourselves?
We weren't given the opportunity
to break the cycle
cause it was always,
you know,
just us living, like,
in survival all the time.
Everyone in the community is
affected by drugs
and drug abuse and
alcohol abuse.
When I think about what
we've lost in Bad River,
because of fentanyl and heroin,
and... it staggers my mind.
I went through several years of,
uh, kind of a dark
period in my life.
That hopelessness and despair
took me to the dark
places in, in this world.
There was a point in time in my
life where I did get in trouble.
It was almost
like I was being...
felt ashamed to be
who I was.
I didn't know where I fit in.
And my mothers' non-native so,
I didn't belong with the whites,
and I didn't belong
with the Indians.
I also felt very lost.
I lost my way for a long time.
And then when I did
get in trouble, I realized,
man, I haven't been
involved in my culture.
[chanting]
I haven't been
involved in my powwows.
I haven't been involved
in my ceremonies.
MICHELLE JOHNSON-JENNINGS:
Those who engage in ceremony
have lower risk
for substance use.
MIIGIS GONZALEZ:
You find your belongingness
and you find
your connectedness.
MICHELLE JOHNSON-JENNINGS:
What we know is that love
can interrupt that trauma.
It's all those thousands
of ancestors behind them
and all those future ones
that will be,
that love you in that moment.
All of those things that we do
have been taught to
do by our ancestors,
actually revolve around love.
ESIE LEOSO-CORBINE: As I got
older, I found the ceremonies.
I became actively
involved with my culture.
I look back at that
and think that,
"what would it been like if
I would've grew up with it?
What would it been like?"
I would not have been even
thinking the thought
of being ashamed of who I was.
There's been this
huge resurgence
of indigenous communities
going back to what
we already knew,
using our way of life to
come back to who we are.
PATTY LEOW:
Our people didn't survive
because of generational trauma.
We survived because
of generational joy,
and innovation,
and ingenuity.
ESIE LEOSO-CORBINE:
As much as they tried
to strip away our identity,
and all that trauma
that came with it,
they weren't successful.
Because we still have people
that speak the language.
We're asking for...
[speaks Ojibwe]
Her spirit name.
Say her name.
[speaks Ojibwe]
And that, uh, name, uh,
comes from, uh,
just before it starts to rain,
and there's a yellow cloud
that comes
and a spirit that comes there.
[speaks in Ojibwe]
MALE NARRATOR: Fast forward
to 2013, which is when
the Enbridge easements on
the allotted parcels expire.
The company submits
a handwritten renewal request
to the BIA, just a few months
before the expiration date,
but the BIA won't agree to
an extension
without the consent of the
Band,
which by 2013, had acquired
interests in about 2.3 miles
of the allotted land along
the pipeline corridor.
PHILOMENA KEBEC: Our tribe
doesn't own all of the land
within our reservation.
There's been a concerted
effort over many years
to buy back every single
little postage stamp of land
within the
Bad River Reservation.
MALE NARRATOR: Enbridge now
submits a request to the Band
for permission to
continue operating.
But the Band cannot
immediately respond
because it's waging a battle
on yet another front.
This time against an
open pit mining operation
in the Penokee Mountains
which threatens the
Bad River headwaters.
PATTY LOEW: When the Gogebic
Taconite mine proposal surfaced,
people understood: this
is mountaintop removal.
This is not your small-scale
mining where grandpa's
going to work with a little
pickax
and a, a lunch bucket.
This is blowing up a mountain
and creating something
that looks like a moonscape
where nothing can grow.
We were immediately
thrown into battle.
And so, I just started
volunteering my time.
I offered to drive to Madison.
You know, Bad River tribal
members said,
"Hell no, we're not gonna
let that happen."
This has become a government of,
by, and for the corporations
at the expense of all of us
and our environment.
And, you know, we went
and testified in Madison.
As a mother, grandmother,
a auntie, a sister,
genocide is alive and
well in Wisconsin.
We've gotta keep up
the good battle.
-Not gonna happen.
-Not gonna happen!
We're here, we've always
been here
and we're not going anywhere.
My name is Edith Leoso.
My name is Eldred Corbine,
uh, Vice Chairman of
the Bad River Tribe.
And I graduated from
Northern college.
And, uh, somewhere there I'm
educated and now I'm civilized.
Ah, we heard testimony
from geologists
and, the last, uh, joint
finance committee hearing,
that talked of hundreds
of millions of gallons of
sulfuric acid
potentially leaking.
We ask for strength and wisdom
and courage
as we take on one
of the most
powerful forces
on the globe.
Well, people from
local communities
and local tribes have come
out to demonstrate today.
I was talking to my daughter
this morning
and she said, "Why are you
going out there, Mom?"
And I said, "Baby, I'm going
out there so
you can drink water
when you are 25."
I'm afraid that this mine,
I totally oppose it.
And I'm gonna say this on
behalf of my future,
my future relatives
that aren't here yet.
The fact of the matter is,
this is gonna
prove catastrophic
for our homeland.
Perhaps there's been a
violation of our treaty.
If they start out there,
there gonna be
one hell of a fight.
It's not gonna happen.
[cheering]
We were walking into
the Senate chambers
and there's legislators, and one
of 'em to turn me and said,
"What, you don't trust
the government?"
And I looked and
I started laughin'
and I looked back and said,
"Oh", I says, "you're
f*cking serious."
I said, "If you were Indian,
would you trust the government?"
If you look at the way that
Bad River has conducted itself,
it is strong and
you know, we're bad.
We're just bad.
So, we fit our name.
Ultimately, we did win,
so to speak, you know,
the company backed off.
But one of our advisors
said, "it's not over,"
you know, "what we have,
they'll always want.
They've done it since
they got here."
BILL ROUNDWIND:
Whatever we have,
they're gonna try and get it.
My grandmother, she said,
"Pretty soon they're gonna want
us to all hang up in the air
cause they want
everything underneath us."
They just won't stop
until they have it all.
FEMALE NARRATOR: On the heels
of the mining battle,
the Band now
informs Enbridge
that a full
environmental review
is required before any pipeline
extension can be considered.
But then Mother Nature
steps in,
which changes everything.
[thunder]
In 2016, a 500-Year
Flood event
completely overwhelms
the Bad River Reservation,
which washes out roads
and bridges,
including access
to many areas
where the Enbridge
pipeline is buried.
I think I have PTSD
from that flood.
When it's happening
in front of you,
you can't, you can't
react fast enough.
And even if you do react
fast enough, you can't stop it.
The roads were cut off.
That was it.
If that pipe would've ruptured
in the middle of that flood,
nobody could've done anything.
NAOMI TILLISON:
The Bad River surrounding area
was inundated with water,
including what we're
referring to as a meander.
A meander would be
where the river takes a turn.
The river doesn't wanna do
that turn anymore;
It wants to go straight through.
NAOMI TILLISON: The Meander
is where Line 5
intersects the Bad River.
In the 50s, when they
put Line 5 there,
it was like 310 feet from
the river to the pipe.
When I was there
in the fall time,
it was 28 feet from the
water's edge to the pipe.
And every year that we
have a high-water event,
you have water that is
scrubbing the topsoil off,
as well as cutting the bank out.
Mother Nature is in
the business, right now,
of making sure that
that pipeline gets removed
and she's encroaching on
Line 5 at the meander.
NAOMI TILLISON: And so, at some
point, if nothing's done,
that oil pipeline is gonna
be exposed to river forces
that it wasn't originally
designed for.
RIYAZ KANJI: When it does, the
soils will all get carved away
and what you will have is
the pipeline hanging in the air
with the full weight
of the oil in it,
where the pipeline can't support
the weight of that oil
anymore and could rupture.
When the meander
reaches the pipeline,
it's gonna be another Kalamazoo.
You know, a Kalamazoo-style
rupture at the meander
in Bad River would be
apocalyptic, uh, for us.
Kalamazoo River was,
in an instant,
transformed into a sea of oil.
887,000 gallons of
oil have spilled...
A spill in Michigan is
getting a lot of attention...
Pouring at least 800,000
gallons of crude
into the waterway surrounding
this--
Would soon become the single
most expensive on-shore
oil spill in U.S. history."
This accident was a result
of multiple mistakes
and missteps by Enbridge.
A hefty fine is
coming for Enbridge.
Enbridge will have
to pay roughly
$62 million dollars
in penalties.
The company responsible
for the 2010 oil spill
into the Kalamazoo River
is paying another
$170 million dollars.
It could have been prevented.
Community members were
very, uh, very concerned
about something similar
potentially happening here.
ANNIE MADAY: Enbridge had
started coming on the rez
and they were like,
"Oh, we have these anomalies."
I mean yeah, we have
a couple of "anomalies",
and it's, it's such
a great English word.
An anomaly is
like, say for instance,
if there's a dent in a pipe.
MIKE WIGGINS: It's like a point
of, uh, potential failure.
I was on some of those digs.
Six, seven maybe,
where they dug up the pipe,
and then covered it back up.
But then they come back
the next year.
So, once that started happening,
we started really
looking into it.
And that, that's really,
when we started
asking those questions:
How good is your pipe?
What are they actually doing
on our reservation?
What have they done?
We went through a process
of working with Enbridge
trying to come to some
kind of agreement.
One of the issues that came
up was that if there was a leak
in the pipeline and
it got to the waterways,
there's no way they could
respond to it effectively.
We asked them for additional
safety measures.
And then that's when we
started getting the responses
and getting
the vague responses.
None of it was
ever shared with us.
Or, or how they're gonna access,
where they're gonna plan
on recovering
or trying to pull
that oil back out.
We started hosting
community listening sessions
and information sessions.
Community members came
and talked about
how they didn't feel safe
with that pipeline.
It was, it was, um--
They didn't want it.
People, uh, for the most part,
from what I remember
were really upset about it.
Do we know the condition of it?
Do we have any access to data?
Line 5 especially,
was so old.
The pipe exists as, uh,
an anomaly itself
that does not belong
in this place.
And, if left alone,
our land and water will eject
and reject and get
rid of that pipe.
If it breaks, you know,
it's gonna pour
right into Lake Superior,
you know...
and that's bad.
If that water was contaminated,
that seven generation
little bit that I left
for great, great grandchildren,
um, wouldn't be there.
The otters and beavers
need that water.
The bears need it.
Our wild rice needs it.
BRAD BIGBOY: I want my children
and our future children
to be able to experience
what I did.
And have the resources
that we have now.
There's just a lot of things
putting that at risk,
and that scares me.
I'm afraid for my
great-grandchildren.
My father, when we were
talking about all the dams
and the pipelines,
he used to say like,
you know, like
"They took our land.
"They gave us this little piece.
"Why do they have to
go through that land?
"They took all the rest.
"Why do they still have
to try to take more
out of that little chunk?"
We passed a resolution
which essentially requested
for the decommissioning
of Line 5
through the Bad River
reservation.
We said, "Your lease
expired on this
and we're not going
to renew it."
It was time that we stood up
and said, "Enough's enough."
You know, "we want 'em out."
I was really proud that,
that we didn't give in.
I did a little air dance.
They're standing up
for themselves and saying,
"We are a sovereign nation,
and this is not good for us."
It's a David and Goliath
type of situation, right?
"Little Bad River" and, and big,
you know, "big-money Enbridge".
Enbridge should be outta here.
You gotta stop it.
Nah, there ain't no
amount of money
that's gonna replace
the watershed,
replace the quality
of Lake Superior.
It'll just be gone.
MALE NARRATOR:
The Band files suit in 2019,
seeking to eject Enbridge
from the Reservation,
not only for trespassing,
but because of the risk
of a pipeline rupture
at the meander.
MIKE FERNANDEZ:
When the lawsuit was filed,
we did everything to try
and have a conversation.
We also listened to the tribe
and in listening to the tribe,
we said, you know,
"We need to think about
what the alternatives are."
Business agreements come
and go every single day.
Our business agreement
ended with Enbridge,
and their response was,
"You will not end
this business agreement."
It's just like a
landlord-tenant thing, you know?
Landlord says, "That's it,"
you know,
"we're, we're not
redoing your lease."
You gotta leave.
We have a corporation that wants
the land for their own profit.
They are saying,
"You cannot be
the last authority
of denial for us."
This is the corporation
telling the tribe,
"I would like to
see your manager."
It's outrageous that Enbridge
continued to pump.
You have a vital resource
and, effectively,
you have a tribal
community saying,
"We want to shut all
of that down,"
and, "we don't care about
the millions of people
"that are dependent on
"540,000 barrels of oil
that are going through that
pipeline on a daily basis."
My little tribe is
standing up and saying,
"We're protecting the water,
not just for us,
we're protecting water
for the planet."
Not all of our decisions
are based off of
what's presented itself
from an Enbridge-lens,
but it's more of a deeper,
more thoughtful,
future-based decision
as a sovereign
about what we'd
like to have here
for our people in the future.
We have the right to say,
"Look it, the leases expired.
"Stop the flow, dig up the pipe,
remediate the soil,"
and, you know,
"don't let the doors hit you,
you're behind on your way out."
None of our old tribal councils
gave away our sovereignty.
None of 'em said, "From this
moment on, our tribe will exist
"and serve at
the pleasure of
the Enbridge pipe maintenance
and operation."
And yet, here we
are, years later,
and the company won't move.
This is our land.
Enbridge needs to leave.
FEMALE NARRATOR: Shortly after
the lawsuit is filed,
the Bad River Department
of Natural Resources heads out
to investigate a remote
part of the Reservation,
to survey the site
where the Enbridge helicopter
had crashed.
We couldn't see anything
at first because Enbridge
had not maintained that section
of the pipeline corridor.
It wasn't until we walked around
and circled back to the south,
when we could clearly see
an over 40-foot stretch
of Line 5 exposed.
-I was in shock.
-I was sickened.
We panicked and we started
trying to contact Enbridge
and looked for an
emergency response.
MALE NARRATOR: Although
Enbridge did not respond
for several hours,
the Company later
arranges a repair
of the exposed pipeline located
at what's called Slope 18.
A repair that didn't go to
plan.
I was a natural resource aid
and they needed somebody to
go out
with, uh, Enbridge
contractors to Slope 18.
They did their fix and it,
and it just puzzled me, right?
I don't think they realized
that they were building on clay.
And it doesn't
take, a scientist,
when you put water on clay,
it's just gonna erode.
We know our land.
We know our property.
Enbridge,
they messed it up twice.
KRIS ARBUCKLE: I brought some
engineers in there,
one of Enbridge's
main contractors,
and when we got there,
one of the tall guys,
he just looked at it
and he's like, "Wow."
He kind of had this
disgusted, looked at his guy,
his other partner and says
I said, "What's up?"
And, "Oh, n-nothing,
you know, nothing."
And he tells his partner,
he goes, "Who made this?"
He was standing there,
and he just kinda, like,
"Wow, this, this can fail
in three or four ways."
It's still not a fully
functioning remediation.
MALE NARRATOR: Enbridge now
proposes a third set
of repairs to Slope 18,
as well as major projects
to address
the pipeline problem
at the meander,
which the Band rejects.
The Band itself and
the experts have said,
"Well if they couldn't do that,
how are they gonna do
this without mishap?"
So, so what's happening is
Bad River itself is saying,
"Okay, we're gonna
assume the risk."
INTERVIEWER:
Well, I understand--
'C-Cause we can't
get to the pipe.
If we can't get to the pipe, how
can we establish that it's safe?
INTERVIEWER:
You can shut it down.
No, we can't.
The situation with Enbridge
has been very stressful.
They've thrown everything at us,
I think thinking they
could crush the Band.
They subpoenaed
environmental groups
in Michigan and Wisconsin
trying to find out
if the Band was in some kind
of conspiracy with them.
And subpoenas, you know,
trying to get at people's
personal cell phones.
MALE NARRATOR:
The judge denies
this cellphone
subpoena request,
calling it part of
a "scorched earth policy."
It's hard to fight
a oil company
that has a lot
more money and resources,
then you do.
I saw the Enbridge
situation get divisive
when Enbridge started to
solicit tribal members for jobs.
They started holding
meetings in Ashland
and tribal members
went to those
just to see what we could learn.
I did attend a couple of,
uh, Enbridge's meetings.
STEPHANIE JULIAN: It becomes
apparent right away
that it's not
that you're gonna learn,
it's that they're
gonna take that opportunity
to change your mind.
And what better way to do it
than entice 'em with money?
They're trying to win the
heart and minds
of tribal members through that,
that short-term offering of,
of, uh, labor, work.
When money comes up,
it always divides everybody.
They're floating money around
in people's faces
and, you know,
people that need money.
You have good people
making hard decisions.
I will never, ever
blame a person
for going out and
earning a living.
The whole Enbridge thing
really is a tough thing.
We got this, "I want it gone.
I want it outta here".
And then you have people,
"No, I wanna work."
I was mixed, I guess.
How can you say,
"No," to a company
that's gonna give you
30, 40, 50 bucks an hour?
Jesus!
Such disadvantage
we're in all the time.
It's just,
it's always a struggle.
I am an allotted owner
of the parcel
that the pipeline runs through.
Initially, Enbridge offered me
$2,000 to sign
a consent form in perpetuity,
but I just put on there,
"F you. Get the f*ck out".
FEMALE NARRATOR: Disagreements
over Enbridge spill
onto Bad River's
social media pages,
where even an Enbridge
consultant weighs in.
He posts that because of
the positive impact
Enbridge had after Kalamazoo,
people tell him they need
"another release."
As in another oil spill.
MALE NARRATOR:
A second Enbridge employee,
according to her deposition,
admitted to privately meeting
with Bad River members,
telling them that the
Kalamazoo River
is cleaner now than
before the oil spill.
This same employee,
who characterized her meetings
with Band members
as "gathering intelligence,"
also discussed upcoming
tribal elections with them,
admitting that her
Enbridge Colleagues preferred
that Bad River Chairman
Mike Wiggins be replaced.
We haven't done anything
to undermine him
politically or otherwise.
All we have done is tried
to share information
around the need
to do certain things.
I don't think community members
know what to believe,
'cause they hear from
tribal leadership
and then they got
that propaganda
on the other side coming in.
The tribe has experienced
this for hundreds of years.
The timber companies came
here before,
and this is just a new company
coming here using old tactics:
"We're bringing you guys jobs,
we're bringing you guys money."
"Here's the mighty green
dollar
and take it and
it'll all be good."
But then what are you losing?
ANNIE MADAY:
When there's a spill
and there's no water to drink,
can you drink your
dollars that you get?
I don't think so.
We love our land more
than we love the money.
That's what I said.
AURORA CONLEY: When you see
money as more of a commodity
and a necessity
than your own water,
rice, and land, then
they did k*ll you.
They k*lled that part of
you that's connected to it.
They k*lled that part of
your mind
that remembers what your
grandpa had to do,
what his grandfather had to do.
It's in my blood memory
that this land
is the most important thing
that there is,
because everything else
can be gone.
MALE NARRATOR: Enbridge offers
the Band $30 million dollars
to settle the lawsuit in 2020.
But the deal hinges
on a reroute of Line 5,
which the Company
will move
just outside of
the reservation,
but still within
the Bad River watershed,
crossing waterways
and a glacial aquifer.
The reroute is
a for-profit path
that is essentially awful.
In a draft environmental
impact statement,
there is 139 areas
where they're gonna blast.
And they're saying to the tribe,
"See, it's just gonna be worse.
Take our money and accept
the bad, or take the worse."
STEFANIE TSOSIE: We've already
seen Enbridge's record
when it comes to construction.
One piece of that is what
happened in Line 3 in Minnesota,
where the construction
of this pipeline
actually ended up piercing
three groundwater aquifers.
Enbridge Energy violated
a series of regulations
and requirements related to
its Line 3 pipeline construction
project in Northern Minnesota,
the violations included...
Another problem with the reroute
is the impact this could have
on trafficking of
Native girls and women.
There's a
community-known phenomena
of women facing violence,
being close to natural resource
extraction locations,
mines and oil pipelines.
What we've seen in other
areas when Enbridge
has engaged in construction,
there's been an uptick of
violence against native women.
MALE NARRATOR: Adding to
the Band's concerns
about a reroute,
the State of Wisconsin
announces
the investigation of a
Line 5 oil spill in 2022,
less than a mile away
from the Reservation.
We're seeing Enbridge
dig up contaminated soil;
this is what
we're concerned about.
MALE NARRATOR: Enbridge reports
that a single tablespoon
of oil is discovered.
FEMALE NARRATOR: Alarmed
by this news,
Joe Bates, a Bad River member,
flies his drone to
investigate the situation.
ELDRED CORBINE: They've gotta be
some, serious investigation done
on just what happened and
to what extent it happened
and not rely on Enbridge
for your information.
That's an old pipeline there.
How many more are out there?
You know, how many
more leaks are there
that nobody knows about?
Why do they have
to disrupt our land
when they took all of our land
and gave us this little piece?
So, why should they pollute it?
The people that, you know,
are responsible
for putting us at risk,
they don't share
any of the burden of risk.
They just benefit from their
oil coming across our lands.
The environmental injustice
where Bad River
is assuming all the risk for
crude oil, is patently unfair.
MALE NARRATOR:
On October 22nd of 2022,
Case Number 19cv602WMC,
the Bad River Band of
the Lake Superior Tribe
of the Chippewa Indians
versus Enbridge Energy Company
is called for trial.
[chanting]
Judge Conley, who's presiding,
will decide whether the
pipeline should be removed.
The company's in trespass
so, there was this sense of,
"Of course we can do this."
But then you get into it,
and you realize:
trying to shut down a pipeline,
that's a major endeavor.
DEB TUTOR: These big companies
do what they want
and they get away
what they want.
And, no matter what
we do we're probably
not going to be able to
stop them or change things.
GREGORY GAGNON:
They are so powerful,
that they can just
prolong a case in court.
And wait till, uh,
Bad River runs outta money.
They've got billions
and billions of dollars
that they can use
for litigation lawyers
and we're just a
little bitty small tribe.
FEMALE NARRATOR:
Opening statements begin.
The Band's lawyer explains
that the pipeline
located at the meander is at
imminent risk of rupture.
Only the judge is not
convinced.
MALE NARRATOR:
But when an Enbridge attorney
argues there's no imminent
danger at the meander,
Judge Conley jumps in,
pointing out that
the Enbridge lawyer has
just contradicted
his own expert's statement
that a major flood
could result in
a catastrophic failure.
That meander, it just,
it scares me.
Enbridge's put together,
you know,
really a slap-dash group
of projects
to try to stop erosion
at the meander.
MALE NARRATOR:
However, the judge,
who's ruled that Enbridge
is in a state of trespass,
still pushes the Band
to allow Enbridge
to proceed with these projects,
which could include
thousands of helicopter trips
or the construction
of a 130-foot bridge.
The Band has two huge concerns.
One is just the
environmental destruction
associated with this,
and why would you allow that
for a company that is
already in trespass
to continue operation
of their pipelines?
You're talking about
real infrastructure.
You don't just press a button
and it magically disappears.
We're in a fight against
this foreign corporation.
And the fact that this
oil company
has taken over our land
and put us at daily threat
of evisceration
is an extremely
stressful situation.
MALE NARRATOR:
Judge Conley then moves quickly
into the next phase of trial:
the impact of
a pipeline shutdown.
The judge clearly has
concerns
about the economic effects
of shutting down the pipeline.
MALE NARRATOR: He tells the
parties that he's not inclined
to order an immediate
shut down of the pipeline,
because he's worried about
roiling the energy markets,
including markets in Canada
where most of the
Line 5 oil is destined.
He does, however, reserve the
right to shut down Line 5
in the future, noting
Enbridge's state of trespass
and its delay in
moving off the Reservation.
They've cost us millions
battling us in court,
trying to stay right in
the heart of the reservation.
MALE NARRATOR: This effort
to remain on the reservation
is confirmed by an
Enbridge employee,
who admits in court that
the company had developed
a strategy to preserve
about $600 million dollars
a year of cash flow
related to the line.
Enbridge doesn't care about us.
Enbridge cares about
their bottom line.
Enbridge cares about
keeping that pipeline,
keeping that product moving.
MALE NARRATOR:
On the final day of trial,
Enbridge lawyers argue that
the pipeline should continue
operating while
the Company tries to pursue
a reroute of Line 5.
FEMALE NARRATOR:
The Band's lawyer disagrees,
speaking to the injustice of
a continuing
trespass by Enbridge,
and the violation of the
Band's sovereign rights.
As a sovereign, we made
a simple choice of,
"Hey, you know, the business
contract ended.
We'd like to part ways."
There's this history for
this tribe of fighting so hard
to protect a place
and its way of life.
And it just feels like one
of these epic battles.
You got a reservation of
a few thousand people
taking on one of the more
powerful companies in Canada.
FEMALE NARRATOR:
This battle with Enbridge
is just the newest chapter
of a very old story.
MIKE WIGGINS:
As people who are temporary,
we have a responsibility
to think about our decisions
in real-time, through the lens
of that seventh generation
that's still out there, yet
to arrive from the stars.
Our responsibility is
to try to take care
of this place and
send it forward.
Our elders tell us that
as human beings
we'll go through
the four hills of life.
Might say that
Caroline lake has
that amniotic globe
of fluid, right?
And it spills over
in the baby Bad River.
In its youth, it's, you know,
it's the small creek meandering.
By the time it hits the
Copper Falls complex up there
like a rambunctious youngster
it's just roaring and rushing
and clamoring around
and clanking everything,
and like a little bull
in a China shop.
It's starting to pick up speed
and it's starting
to pick up some vitality.
As it gets to the reservation,
all of a sudden,
those river bottoms open up,
where the meander is,
and you see that mature adult,
that's just rolling through.
And then eventually
it even loses its hair,
and that's where
those trees fall away.
As we make this last turn,
that fourth hill of life,
I always think about our
journey off this planet.
It's a transition into
something different
and other, and, uh, incredible.
SONNY SMART: When a time comes
for me to leave this world...
this is where I'll be.
To my great, great, great,
great grandchildren.
This is great, great,
great, great, great grandpa
and I want to talk to you about
who we are as a people.
We have responsibilities
towards you,
the seventh generation.
Hold on to your language.
Listen to the teachings
of your ancestors.
And pass them on
to your children.
Take care of your elders.
Tap into the strength
and the resilience
of this community.
Be strong.
Protect what we have here.
-Our water resources.
-Protect the earth.
Protect the rice.
Stay close to the land.
Love the land.
Not just today, but every day.
Respect Mother Earth.
Respect your
native American land.
Look at your great, great,
great grandchildren
from when you're gone and what
you wanna leave for them.
If you use it all up, there's
gonna be nothing for them.
Speak your mind even
though it's scary sometimes.
Don't stop fighting.
And never give up.
Don't let anybody
get in your way.
Stand up for what's right.
Fight for seven generations.
Make sure you know who you are.
Remember where you came from.
You come from a, a very strong
and resilient people.
Don't forget who you are.
You are strong and incredible.
Believe in yourself.
Be honest with people.
Be strong, be smart.
Get an education.
And do the best you can.
Best day to hunt in the
calendar year is November 7th.
No matter what you do
clear that day right now.
I hope what we left for you
is everything that we had.
And they have passed
that on to you.
We hope, uh, we make
the right decisions here today.
I hope we made you proud.
We love you very much.
I haven't even met you,
but I love you and
I'm thinking about you.
I think love is the answer.
I love you and I'm thinking
about you today.
As your ancestors, we're right
by your side every single day.
I'll always be there.
You have strong ancestors
and I'll always be with you.
We're still here and
we always will be here.
Miigwech.
[speaking Ojibwe]
I would just ask them,
you know
I'm talk to you in,
in Ojibwe language,
and I would hope that
as I'm talking to you,
you understand, you know,
what I'm saying to you
and ask, just, the spirits
to watch over you.
But mainly, you know,
that you listen
and you're understanding
me in, in the language
of my grandfather,
of his grandfather,
and his grandfather
and his grandfather.
and his grandfather...
Live from the shell
of a turtle
About to snap
Quail tails, broke spells,
jump hurdles, where we at
Wish me well, on the journey
I might burn, I might splat
Pop said you're gonna
learn how to earn a stripes
Sticking to your pathways
Pitter-patter with the wind
As across the grass strains
Revel in the river
for a minute
Downstream with the fence
No means to an end
Brown green colors
got it at the mother flooded
In front line
give a whoop!
That's the sound
of the cavalry
I don't keep it sweet foul
mouth no ounce of a cavity
Just 'cause you're mad with
yourself, don't get mad at me
[chanting]
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Bad River (2024)
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