Protestors Briefly Stop Line 3 Construction On Mississippi River

Early this morning, a group of indigenous water protectors from the Ginew Collective, raised a tipi and blocked a bridge near the Mississippi River on 230^th Street, just outside of Lake Itasca, halting work at a construction site for the recently permitted line 3 pipeline. The protest reportedly started at around 8:30 and was over by 11:30.

While the tipi blockade prevented bulldozers and street paving machines from laying down new asphalt over the Mississippi, a local Anishinaabe woman held a water ceremony on the bank of the river offering medicine, prayers and songs. The action took place just miles from 3000 year old Dakota village sites near Lake LaSalle where Clearwater county road 230 crosses the headwaters of the Mississippi River.

Ginew is a grassroots, frontlines effort led by indigenous women to protect Anishinaabe territory from the destruction of Enbridge’s Line 3 tar sands project.