Haida Nation Sends Funds, Protesters to North Dakota Pipeline Site

The Council of the Haida Nation is providing financial and demonstrative support to the protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) in southern North Dakota, according to a CBC News report. The Indigenous group from Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, has sent "several thousand dollars" for the Sioux Nation's legal defense fund and supporters to the protest camps near the Standing Rock reservation.

Erica Ryan-Gagne, a Haida business owner, is among the protesters on the front lines. She drove 30 hours from Skidegate, B.C., with her two young children to join the demonstrations. Ryan-Gagne stated that the fight against the Dakota Access pipeline is connected to oil industry conflicts in British Columbia, such as those involving LNG plants and the Enbridge Northern Gateway project. "It's all connected. It's all big oil," she said.

The $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline, being built by Energy Transfer Partners with a $1.5 billion investment from Enbridge, is designed to transport light sweet crude oil from North Dakota's Bakken formation to Illinois. Its route passes near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, which has sparked the ongoing protest.

Ryan-Gagne described bringing traditional songs, prayers, and practical supplies—including jars of fish, dried medicine, cedar, and batteries—to the protest camp, which she characterizes as a peaceful act of solidarity. "This is what I'm teaching my children," she said. "You don't talk about it. You do it."

The protest has seen volatile confrontations, with reports of vandalized equipment, the use of pepper spray and dogs by security personnel, and the deployment of the National Guard. The involvement of an international Indigenous group like the Haida Nation underscores the high-profile and widening scope of opposition to Bakken oil export infrastructure.

For Bakken operators and midstream companies, the continued protest activity represents a persistent source of operational and public relations risk for a key pipeline project intended to provide a more efficient outlet for Bakken crude. The project's ability to secure social license and maintain its construction schedule remains under scrutiny.