Some of the people most affected by the massive oil sands project in Alberta are coming to Montana to help organize protests against an Imperial Oil/ExxonMobil plan that would send massive trucks through that state on their way to those oil sands.

As Marty Cobenais, an activist for the Indigenous Environmental Network tells Missoulian (Mont.) reporter Kim Briggeman here, it’s like war.

“You know the old military strategy of cutting off the supply chain?” says Cobenais:

He’s one of three people who’ll be in Missoula on Wednesday evening to present the ugly side of bitumen mining in Alberta as the “big rig” flap in western Montana shifts to a higher gear and a broader realm.

A free screening of the 75-minute documentary “H2Oil” is set for 6 p.m. at the Roxy Theater to kick off what organizers have titled “A Walk Through the Tar Sands.”

It’ll be, according to the group, “a night of firsthand accounts regarding the most destructive industrial project on the face of the planet.” Presentations will follow the film by Cobenais, of Minnesota; George Poitras, former chief of the Mikisew Cree First Nation, which is downstream from the oil fields in Alberta; and Simon Reece, a youth from Fort McMurray, Alberta, with the Fort McKay First Nation.

Other events include Saturday’s presentation on the Flathead Indian Reservation by the Grammy Award-winning Indigo Girls. They’ll be part of a panel discussion, moderated by Native American activist Winona LaDuke, that will focus on Native environmental issues. And, Eriel Deranger, who is Athabasca Chipewyan from northern Alberta, will talk about the impact of the tar sands.

The discussion, “Environmental Justice in Montana: Protecting the Land for Future Generations” starts at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at the Johnny Arlee/Victor Charlo Theatre at the Salish Kootenai College.

The focus on Montana comes because “Montana is considering collaborating to some degree in terms of tar sands production here … whether it’s heavy-truck hauling in Montana or pipelines that are running through their traditional lands that are coming from the tar sands,” says George Poitras.

Poitras is a former chief of the Mikisew Cree, the largest of five First Nations directly affected by tar/oil sands mining, and is traveling the world talking about the vast mining project and its effect on his people, who he says suffer unusually high rates of cancer.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Alberta oil sands, Alberta tar sands, Athabasca Chipewyan, buffalo post, ExxonMobil, Flathead Indian Reservation, Fort McKay First Nation, Gwen Florio, Imperial Oil, indigenous, Indigenous Environmental Network, Indigo Girls, Mikisew Cree First Nation, Montana big rigs, Native American news, Salish Kootenai College, Winona LaDuke

Alaskan town rethinks booze sales in wake of crime wave
Bethel, Alaska, has set another vote on alcohol sales for Jan. 19. Last year, Bethel lifted a decades-old booze ban, but authorities in surrounding Alaska Native villages have complained of skyrocketing crime ever since, according to the Anchorage Daily News.

Winona LaDuke faces misdemeanor traffic charges
Ojibwe activist Winona LaDuke, who has twice run for vice president, faces misdemeanor charges for driving without an insurance card, according to the Wadena (Minn.) Pioneer Journal. The Harvard-educated economist and the founding director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project ran twice as presidential candidate Ralph Nader’s running mate.

Mi’kmaq community holds annual forgiveness ceremony
Residents of the First Nation of Membetou, in Nova Scotia, held their annual ceremony of forgiveness, known as Mawmijisultimk, started decades ago by Ben Christmas, the first chief of Membertou. This year, the ceremony had special significance, as it kicked off the 400th anniversary of Grand Chief Henri Membertou’s baptism, according to the Chronicle Herald of Novia Scotia.

Brutal winter threatens Peru’s indigenous Quechua people
We’ve been blogging a lot about the effect of this severe weather on the Oglala Lakota people who live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Down at the other end of the hemisphere, the Quechua-speaking people in Peru’s Huancavelica region, also are suffering from a cold winter, so cold that their children are dying, according to this report by the United Kingdom’s Guardian newspaper. The people, who live in Andean villages as high as 13,000 feet above sea level, are suffering from bronchitis and pneumonia, and weather forecasters say the worst is yet to come. So many people have died, says the Guardian, that there is talk of a national crisis.

Eight arrested during First Nations Olympic torch protest
First Nations protesters blocked the Trans-Canada Highway, briefly delaying the Olympic Torch relay in Ontario yesterday. They object to what they say is the environmental damage caused by the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, scheduled to start next month, and also the displacement of homeless people in Vancouver, according to this Canadian Press report.

Gwen Florio

Tags: 2010 Vancouver Olympics, Alaska, Alcohol regulations, Bethel, First Nations, Huancavelica, Mawmijisultimk, Membertou, Mi'kmaq, Olympic torch relay, Peru, Quechua, Ralph Nader, White Earth Land Recovery Project, Winona LaDuke

The Associated Press just moved this report on tribes buying back their lands. In order to compile it, the AP had to submit a Freedom of Information Act to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The documents that reporter Timberly Ross received showed tribes have bought back nearly a million acres of their own land. This is the kind of reporting we like. Here’s the story in full:

By Timberly Ross of the Associated Press
OMAHA, Neb. – Native American tribes tired of waiting for the U.S. government to honor centuries-old treaties are buying back land where their ancestors lived and putting it in federal trust.

Native Americans say the purchases will help protect their culture and way of life by preserving burial grounds and areas where sacred rituals are held. They also provide land for farming, timber and other efforts to make the tribes self-sustaining.

Tribes put more than 840,000 acres — or roughly the equivalent of the state of Rhode Island — into trust from 1998 to 2007, according to information The Associated Press obtained from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs under the Freedom of Information Act.

Those buying back land include the Winnebago, who have put more than 700 acres in eastern Nebraska in federal trust in the past five years, and the Pawnee, who have 1,600 acres of trust land in Oklahoma. Land held in federal trust is exempt from local and state laws and taxes, but subject to most federal laws.

Three tribes have bought land around Bear Butte in South Dakota’s Black Hills to keep it from developers eager to cater to the bikers who roar into Sturgis every year for a raucous road rally. About 17 tribes from the Dakotas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana and Oklahoma still use the mountain for religious ceremonies.

Emily White Hat, a member of South Dakota’s Rosebud Sioux, said the struggle to protect the land is about “preservation of our culture, our way of life and our traditions.”

“All of it is connected,” White Hat said. “With your land, you have that relationship to the culture.”

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Tags: buffalo post, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Citizens Equal Rights Alliance, Land buyback, Native American news, Oneida, Pawnee, Rosebud Sioux, treaty rights, White Earth Land Recovery Project, Winnebago, Winona LaDuke