End-of-Semester Project Status

1. Overarching Structure: MMIWG2S Story Library1 We created this website as the landing page and an overarching structure of a constantly growing collection of interactive Story Maps to uplift voices and ignite healing. We hope to collect stories of indigenous survivors, MMIW Family members, water protectors, and acts of healing and justice from around the Great Lakes to connect our story, issues, and solutions to the land.

It includes three sections that complement each other to tell the whole story of resistance: 1. MMIW Stories: the individual personal stories that the MMIW Family members would like to share with the public. 2. Protect Land and Protect People: the advocacy for decommissioning the projects that infringe on sovereignty like Enbridge Line 5 and the strategies to increase the volume and visibility of the issues, to resist the current obstacles, and to prevent the MMIW2S issues from happening. 3. About Us: Lulu and Sophia’s story of participating in the projects, lessons learned from the experience, and thoughts on how outsiders can join the group and help.

Below you can see the landing page of the MMIWG2S Story Map Library and the beginning of the collection.

1 MMIW2S Story Library: https://arcg.is/1inuna

2. Comment on Draft Environmental Impact Statement2

2 How to Comment on a DEIS: https://arcg.is/4Cmqr

The first stage of the collaboration with Waking Women’s Healing Institute was a written comment to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Enbridge Line 5 Relocation Project. The proposed re-route would route the oil line around the watershed of the bad river reservation, risking massive damage to the entire area, violating land rights and endangering people, wildlife, food resources, and land. There were 10 hours of verbal comments presented by citizens at a virtual public hearing on February 2, which we listened to and organized into a set of main concerns. We also conducted a technical analysis of the DEIS and identified several areas of inadequacy which aligned with the concerns of the stakeholders who spoke at the hearing. We wrote up a set of comments which highlighted the deficiencies of the DEIS augmented with quotes from the testimonies. We shared this analysis with Kristin and the Wisconsin MMIW Taskforce, who used our comments to help inform their feedback to the Wisconsin DNR. The process of performing a technical analysis of the DEIS was new for both of us and gave us insight into the strategies for efficiently targeting the weaknesses of a document such as this. Although the assignment of analyzing a 350-page document is daunting, it is not necessary to closely read the entire thing, but rather it is more effective to identify the assumptions and choices made in the analysis and highlight the information that is excluded by those choices. The choices to examine can be separated into these 6 main categories:

1. Which alternatives are included 2. Scope of area of impact 3. Scope of timeline of impact 4. Indices of impact 5. Weighting of submeasures of each index 6. Measures for mitigation

By highlighting any deficiencies in these choices, we can argue that the DEIS cannot possibly be considered complete until they address these omissions, and thus they must rewrite a more complete draft of the EIS.

3. Earth Day Story Map to resist the Line 5 project

As another aspect of our work to resist the Line 5 project, we published a

story map on Earth Day that honors the land and shares images and stories of its

connections to wildlife, people, culture, and history. The story map is titled “Protect

Land, Water, and People; Stop Line 5. ” and is publicly available at the link below. 3 The

materials for the story map came from crowdsourced contributions of photos,

videos, art, and stories, tagged with a location they were associated with. We set up

a channel for the public to continue sending in materials, and we intend to continue

adding contributions in addition to incorporating more of the powerful testimonies

from the public hearing. Below we include some visuals from the storymap,

including the landing page, some exposition of the issue at hand and guidance on

resistance, and the map itself.

3 Protect Land, Water, and People; Stop Line 5 https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/274f97a1df7b4d5da715c7a9a038b666

4. Story map4: The life of Nangonhs Ba Massey and her family ’s journey

The first individual story we have worked on is that of Nangonhs Ba Massey, who was an artist, water protector, musician, friend, daughter, sister, and mother. Nangonhs was born in 1999 in Petoskey, Michigan, a member of the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians. In 2020, Nangonhs was 21 years old, and had a 2-year-old son, Miigwan Ezra Sprague, who was her entire world. She was a devoted, caring mother, independently taking care of her son and moving into her first apartment with him in October 2020. She was excited and looking forward to this new stage in her life, and planned on attending college. On November 16, 2020, less than 2 months after moving into her new apartment, Nangonhs was fatally stabbed in the doorway of her own home while her son slept. The attacker was Kaden Gilbert, a non-indigenous woman. Because the attacker was not a tribal member, the incident was excluded from the jurisdiction of tribal law enforcement, instead being handled by the Mount Pleasant Police Department, who severely mishandled the crime. The crime scene was never roped off, Nangonh’s son was left at the crime scene, Nangonhs (and not her attacker) was the only one who received a toxicology screening, and Nangonh was brought to the hospital as a Jane Doe even after being identified by multiple bystanders. Her injuries were not taken as seriously as they should have been, and she passed away that night with her mother at her side. The last 2 years have been a difficult and emotional journey for her family, including her mother Melissa Pamp, who fought continuously for justice for her daughter, through countless barriers and delays, and kept showing up with the support of her community. We are in discussions with Melissa to document her daughter’s life and her journey through the search for justice, healing and beyond, and will follow her continuing work to uplift young indigineous mothers like Nangonhs and other MMIW families. Below you can see some of the imagery that has gone into the story map.

4 Nangonhs Ba Massey Story Map: https://arcg.is/0S4uj5