Mary Pember: Tribal activists find armed guards at mining site

Rob Ganson didn’t realize he was living in a war zone. On July 6, he was making his usual Saturday walk to one of the Gogegic Taconite drilling sites in the Penokee Hills. He hikes up there each week to photograph and document activities by the mining company, which has eight drilling sites in the area.

Ojibwe mining opponents have built a Harvest Camp to protest plans by Gogebic Taconite to dig a giant open pit iron ore mine adjacent to the Bad River Reservation in northern Wisconsin. Local tribes, environmentalists and concerned citizens say that the mine will pollute water in the Bad River watershed, home to several rivers that drain into Lake Superior. This pollution, they say, will damage fish, wildlife and wild rice and contribute to decline in quality of life in the region. Harvest camp occupants and supporters are making regular trips to the various exploratory drilling sites in the Penokee Hills in order to document work that GTAC is doing.

Ganson and his friends had walked about three-quarters of a mile from the Penokee Harvest Camp site to take a look at the most recent site where GTAC is conducting exploratory drilling. “We were just a group of middle-aged folks—we weren’t engaged in any activism. We just wanted to see where GTAC was drilling,” he recalls.