Last Stand: ‘Water Protectors’ Return To Standing Rock As Drilling Set To Begin
By Sam Levin for The Guardian - Clarence Rowland returned to Standing Rock in the dark of night. The 26-year-old Oglala Sioux tribe member arrived to his solar-powered hut at 1.30am on Wednesday, knowing that within several hours, Dakota Access pipeline workers could start drilling. “I came back to stand for our people,” Rowland said, as he prepared a large stew inside his family’s wooden hut. Around him, young children took shelter from sub-zero temperatures outside. Rowland – who arrived at Standing Rock last August, but went home in January – is one of a number of Native Americans who rushed back this week to the camps in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, to fight the $3.7bn pipeline.