August 3-5: Remember the Water Kalispel Pow Wow & Paddle

From 9 am on Thursday, August 3, until Saturday, August 5, descendants of the original inhabitants of remote, north Idaho, the Kalispel people, will paddle 51 miles in traditional canoes and camp twice, between City Beach Park in Sandpoint, Idaho, and the Kalispel Pow Wow Grounds north of Usk, Washington. Nathan Piengkham and other organizers of the event called Remember the Water invite regional, canoe families, water protectors, and supporters to join them in part or all of their amazing journey on Lake Pend Oreille and the Pend Oreille River, emphasizing respect for water throughout their aboriginal homeland.  They ask for help with extra food, canoes, and kayaks, brought to the Thursday morning send-off and later camps.

Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) activists have been eagerly awaiting this event, grateful, encouraged, and elated that Kalispel and other tribal families are reviving traditional canoes and accompanying ceremonies that restore and show inspiring interactions with sacred lake and river waters. Potential participants can reserve and rent kayaks and paddle boards at two downtown Sandpoint businesses, and converge with any type of manual watercraft at “Sand Place,” the Kalispel name for current City Beach Park, the site of some of the largest, Northwest gatherings and festivals of Natives until the 1930s.  Or plan to meet at one of the various camping spots and/or paddle on shorter sections of the trip.  See the following links and the Kalispel facebook page, for event flyers, route maps, updates, and further information about event schedules and locations, subject to change.

Remember the Water Kalispel Pow Wow 51-Mile Paddle, July 19, 2017 Ivy Sparrow Robin

Remember the Water Pow Wow & 51-Mile Paddle, July 25, 2017 Nathan Piengkham

Sandpoint City Beach Park to Kalispel Pow Wow Grounds Route, July 19, 2017 Helen Yost

August 3-6: Base Camp: Shut Down the Fossil Fuel Empire

Although local, urgent campaigns and solidarity with indigenous activists always hold greatest, WIRT priority, we are sharing news of this Northwest, fossil fuels-fighting, action camp to request Idaho representation and information transfer, after numerous disappointments in low, regional, workshop and Break Free PNW participation and trainers denial of mutual support to upstream Cascadia comrades, including the recent Earth First! Road Show cancellation two days in advance. Nonetheless, we consider Idahoans’ attendance of Base Camp crucial to effective coordination of region-wide protests and local resident proficiency in resistance skills.  Please let us know soon if you can carpool to the Washington location of this convergence, and check out the Skill Share and Tactics pages of its website, for information on how to safely stall and blockade trains.

“Climate, lands, and water protectors among us have stopped tar sands trucks, halted Arctic drilling equipment, shut down coal export docks, turned off pipelines, blockaded oil trains, and converged en mass on refineries. We have consistently defended against fossil fuel expansion, but how, now, do we shut down the existing machinery of death?…Come camp with us. Let’s spend time together in the forest.  Let’s develop a vision and share skills.  Let’s hear each other’s stories from Standing Rock and insights from local battles.  Let’s mourn the losses we are suffering, build campfires, make blockade art, strategize, and rage against death.” (excerpts)

Base Camp: Shut Down the Fossil Fuel Empire, June 2017 Northwest comrades

#NODAPL: How to Block Trains, 2016 MTL Counter-Info via subMedia

August 5: #No2ndBridge Outreach at Long Bridge Swim

To expand knowledge and raise resistance to the proposed, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, second rail bridge across Lake Pend Oreille, WIRT and allied activists are gathering at 8 am on Saturday, August 5, at Dog Beach Park south of Sandpoint, Idaho, to distribute #No2ndBridge fact sheets and Third Panhandle Paddle & Action Camp flyers, at the Long Bridge Swim. Without consensus on a regular day and time to involve the entire #No2ndBridge group in ongoing, tactical sessions, and with pile load test site monitoring and campaign organizing left to a few, subsequently disheartened activists, we will also likely engage in an informal, #No2ndBridge meeting, besides issue outreach on Saturday morning.  For the pertinent, third annual Panhandle Paddle on August 25 to 27, we are locally planning a #No2ndBridge panel discussion on Friday evening, August 25, a daylong, direct action training session on Saturday, August 26, and a kayaktivist flotilla around the current rail bridge on Sunday, August 27, stirring further #No2ndBridge and coal and oil train resistance.

The Long Bridge Swim in Sandpoint, Idaho