Five years ago today, indigenous people and their allies gather at the Straits of Mackinac — where Lake Michigan flows into Lake Huron, part of a water system containing 20% of the world's fresh water, sacred Anishinaabe homeland since time immemorial — to honor water and to protest an oil pipeline running beneath the Straits, carrying over 20 million gallons of oil daily. Anishinaabe in Wisconsin have successfully forced a reroute of the pipeline's unlawful crossing through their lands, and Michigan tribes are likewise seeking to protect their fishing territory in the Great Lakes.

Today, tribal nations, environmentalists, and even local conservatives oppose a federal emergency declaration aimed at preventing any shut down of the pipeline. Many of the issues remain before the courts.