P.A. residents trek to Standing Rock

Essuance has been fighting to protect water for decades. She started defending the resource when she was eight years old after she saw someone she knew throwing garbage into a British Columbia river.

“I said ‘look, you don’t realize how beautiful the water is, you can’t throw your garbage in there,’” Essuance said.

From that moment on, she said she’s been fighting to defend water across Canada. Recently, she said she’s done work with the Prince Albert Grand Council, writing up a tip sheet about how to save water during the Prince Albert oil spill. Essuance said being around like-minded people in North Dakota was a powerful experience.

“It brought tears to my eyes. The strength that was around us and the strength you feel inside. You feel like you’re validated and this really is an important issue to people. People really can come together, put our differences aside and work (towards) protecting our water,” she said.

When she heard of the gathering, Essuance made plans to attend with her husband. When she found out her husband’s passport was expired, she reached out to Beverly Boe, another water advocate from Prince Albert.

“I had 18 hours to plan this (trip). I just looked at my son and said ‘I have the opportunity to go down to the sacred stones, what are your thoughts?’ and he said ‘you have to go; it’s for the water,’” Boe said.

Boe and Essuance have worked together on many projects after the oil spill in the North Saskatchewan River. Essuance said they were asked to share the story of Prince Albert, as an example of how oil in the water can have a drastic impact on a city.

“They’re fighting what we’re dealing with. We took a tour through the community, in Cannonball, that water supply is minutes away from the preschool, the school, the headstart,” Boe said. “The community is right there, so when that pipeline breaks – because we know it’s when it breaks, not if it breaks – they’re going to be immediately impacted.”

According to Boe the biggest difference between Prince Albert and Standing Rock is the amount of preparation communities have. In Prince Albert, there was a one-day warning whereas Standing Rock and Cannonball would only have minutes to respond to a leak or spill.

Boe said as human beings, we must end our ‘addiction’ to plastics and other oil-based products.

“I’m going through all (my stuff) and thinking about all the things I use that requires oil and how I can decrease it. The bottom line I came to is we live in a world where we are constantly dealing with addictions. Our biggest addiction in the whole wide world is oil,” Boe said. “It’s created by governments that are investing in oil, and that are force feeding it to us because the only we can get stuff now is through oil. I’m learning every day how I can make this different.”

Boe said if the opportunity arises, she will consider going back down to North Dakota. She said on her first day, she knew she didn’t want to leave the camp. Essuance is taking time to focus on her studies at the First Nations University of Canada, but is considering going back down to Standing Rock in the spring of 2017.

According to Boe, the most powerful way people can contribute and show support for the people of Standing Rock is through prayer and peaceful action.

“It’s the prayers that give everyone strength. It’s the prayers that are going to stop this. It’s the peaceful action,” Boe said. “Peaceful action is what needs to be taken across Turtle Island, and there’s things popping up all over the place.”

Essuance said people who want to support the cause can become vocal about our own water issues in Saskatchewan such as the boil water advisories around the Prince Albert area brought about after the Husky oil spill.

“What is happening in North Dakota has already happened here, as there are at least 35 rivers that have pipelines that run underneath them,” Essuance said. “We can pressure our government to be more responsible with oil and water by having another party oversee the operations of the pipelines, instead of them being self-regulating. We can demand safe pipelines and better monitoring.”

Both advocates came to the same conclusions about how important water is.

“This begins with the very idea that water is sacred, water is life. Our ancestors have taken care of our water for 200,000 years and in the span of 100 years, many rivers, lakes and oceans have been contaminated by oil,” Essuance said.

Bryan.Eneas@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @BryanEneas

by Bryan Eneas

P.A. residents trek to Standing Rock

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