This commentary is by Grace Palmer of Burlington, who’s affiliated with Sunrise Montpelier, a local chapter of the national climate organization,
New to activism on the frontlines? So am I. But in this critical moment for climate, our contributions matter.
St. Paul, Minnesota, is pretty far from Vermont. It’s 1,300 miles from Burlington, to be exact, which breaks down to two long days in the car if that’s how you choose to travel. The Midwestern state, home to innumerable waterways, wild rice beds, and the heart of Anishinaabe territory, has also been the scene of intensifying direct actions to shut down Canadian natural gas distributor Enbridge’s Line 3, a tar sands oil pipeline that was under reconstruction in Minnesota for the better part of 2020. On Sept. 29, 2021, the pipeline was declared “substantially completed.”
I and three fellow Vermonters made the drive out to Minnesota at the end of this summer. We planned to support a week-ong action at the Capitol, a strategic response to intensified brutalization of water protectors by Enbridge-funded local police and a means of applying pressure to a key stakeholder, Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz.
And so, two days after packing up our car at the Montpelier park and ride, we found ourselves in the Twin Cities — hopeful, uncertain, and eager to get to work.
My trip out to Minnesota was one of many firsts: first cross-country road trip, first time seeing the Midwest, first pipeline protest, first time entering an arrestable position. So, I write this not as an expert, not as a hardened organizer, but as someone maybe like you — someone who cares (a lot), who knows what’s on the line (a lot), and who is still finding their place in this work.
•••••
At the center of the Capitol action was a group of Indigenous grandmothers and relatives who, for five days, held space for ongoing ceremony and prayer. Likewise, Indigenous sovereignty formed the ideological center of the gathering, aptly named Treaties Not Tar Sands.
The opposition to Line 3 is not hard to understand; it directly threatens the waterways and lifeways of the Annishinabe people — rights guaranteed in treaties agreed upon by the Annishinaabe and the U.S. Supreme Court. To ban the pipeline is to honor federal law.
I arrived in Minnesota with a lot of energy and some expectations. For example: I expected the days to be long, hard and busy. I hoped that our presence would garner enough media attention to break the apathy of state and national leaders. Looking back, I think I expected to feel like I had accomplished something.
Fast-forward to Tuesday afternoon, when I found myself eating lunch on the Capitol lawn with my travel buddies, some new acquaintances, and the grandmothers. In preparation for Wednesday’s rally, we had spent Monday setting up tipis, positioning their doors to open toward the Capitol building. There was minimal setup left to do that afternoon, and it was raining, so following initial prayer and a talking circle, we all just sat.
When we — the mostly white volunteers — started to fidget, one of the grandmothers spoke up. Her words have stayed with me. “Even if it looks like nothing is happening,” she said to us, “something is happening.”
Over the course of the week, things did indeed happen. Over a thousand people showed up on Wednesday, and many of them joined a group of water protectors for the final stretch of their 250-mile journey on foot, from the headwaters of the Mississippi River to St. Paul.
That same night, we held space for prayer that stretched into the early hours of the morning.
On Friday afternoon, in an ostentatious show of militarism, Minnesota state troopers surrounded elders still in ceremony in the last tipi standing. Why? Because the event permits had expired.
•••••
When I returned home, I did not particularly feel that I had accomplished much. And yet I hear differently now, some months later, the wisdom that the grandmother offered us that day.
We show up for each other not to leave feeling individually accomplished. We show up for each other because it is the right thing to do; because it is the work of our time to build a culture of solidarity and accountability; and because, most importantly, we are each other’s strength.
Although oil is now flowing through Line 3, the resistance lives on in so many ways. A chorus of voices continues to ring out from the front lines of the climate movement. If you listen, you will hear what they say: You are needed, now more than ever.
No, we didn’t get Gov. Walz to pull the permits. No, our actions didn’t break the relative media silence. But a lot of people came together because they knew what was on the line, and that’s worth something.
Even when it looks like nothing is happening, when we show up for each other, something is happening.
