Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) activists regret that, after participating in the Tar Sands Healing Walk over the last two years, we will dearly miss being with First Nations friends, hosts, and allies during the fifth and final Athabasca region Healing Walk and encampment. Even after fighting tar sands megaloads farther and harder than ever before, across the four-state Northwest over the last year of this four-year battle, no round-trip rides in carpools arose for the three-year-long originator and organizer of the Tar Sands Solidarity Journey to the Healing Walk, while recruiting new participants to bring or join vehicles to and from Fort McMurray, Alberta, and the Boise and Moscow areas of Idaho. We will miss much appreciated Healing Walk opportunities to seek healing for the lands, waters, air, wildlife, and people impacted by tar sands mining, to network with the greater tar sands resistance community, and to re-inspire regional interest and activism. WIRT will also miss: 1) Seeing the completed Kearl Oil Sands project, one-fifth constructed of modules we monitored and protested across three states in 2011-12, after unsuccessfully trying to find the site last year 2) Observing whatever tar sands transports we may encounter in Alberta, on the reverse megaload route, like these noticed at Hanna last summer: https://facebook/photo.php?fbid=490530281031321&set=pcb.490530451031304&type=1&theater 3) Discussing at workshops or among the Healing Walk crowd anti-tar sands efforts across the continent and WIRT and allies’ heroic three-state megaload blockades and opposition during 2013-14, along with Nez Perce and Highway 12 resistance 4) Experiencing and/or assisting stronger actions that may emerge, as this Healing Walk marks the last such event in its present location: vancouver.mediacoop.ca/fr/video/shut-down-tar-sands-highway/18211 But we are deeply grateful that Nez Perce and Idaho activist involvement in this event has blossomed from three to ten attendees in four carpools over three years, with or without our participation beyond intensive planning and publicizing. And we also understand that our regional work against tar sands and fossil fuels requires our attention and efforts more than this mass action. Joy and gratitude for Montana indigenous comrades overtook our sorrow and angst over missing the Healing Walk, when Indian Peoples Action coordinated a solidarity event on Saturday, June 28 (https://facebook/events/1418334658449727/). At least three WIRT activists will protest Calumet’s Montana Refining Company tar sands refinery in Great Falls, the destination of looming Idaho megaloads, on the same day as the Healing Walk. We will also accomplish some nearby scouting and protesting of Montana megaload manufacturing plants and routes this weekend. In the spirit of community healing, we would like Healing Walk participants – but especially the First Nations elders, activists, and people near tar sands operations – to know that we have been working diligently to stop construction of Alberta mines and processing facilities. Please see the section entitled “Idaho Megaload Resistance Prevails?” in the latest WIRT newsletter (wildidahorisingtide.org/2014/06/21/wirt-newsletter-retreating-highway-95-megaloads-montana-manufactur%e2%80%8bers-idaho-resistance-prevails/), summarizing 2013-14 allied Northwest tar sands resistance, but especially this outline, “Northwest Protests of Omega Morgan-Hauled Tar Sands Megaloads” (wildidahorisingtide.org/2014/01/25/northwest-protests-of-omega-morgan-hauled-tar-sands-megaloads/), which hopefully conveys a sense of how incessantly your remote and rural Idaho and Northwest neighbors have struggled against expansion of Alberta tar sands projects. May Mother Earth and all of her children be healed by prayers around Turtle Island this weekend, as we together share our stories and fill the world and our concerned Healing Walk spirits with peace, respect, love, goodness, and especially healing. We carry the Earth, you, and all of our relations in our hearts and thoughts always…Thanks for everything that you do! ~Helen Yost and Wild Idaho Rising Tide activists
Posted on: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 05:45:27 +0000
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