Our Relationship to PipeStone: Culture, Ceremony, and Protection
On August 20th, 2026, Indigenous Protector Movement (IPM) was live at the Minneapolis American Indian Center where a panel discussion was held to talk about culture,ceremony, and protection to Pipestone, MN.
With the permit for the pipeline being rescinded in December of 2022, Magellan Pipeline Co. is looking to reroute the pipeline through Pipestone, MN which is geologically proven to be the only place in the world where you can harvest this material which is called “Catlinite” and is used to create traditional ceremony pipes for indigenous tribes across the nation.
Speakers:
Opening Rachel Dionne-Thunder, (Indigenous Protector Movement)
“We wanted that stone to be present today as our relative. In the western world, it is talked about as a material. As Indigenous people it is not a material that can be harvested and profited from. It is one of our relatives.”
Gabrielle Strong (Vice President, NDN Collective)
“This was our Garden of Eden. This place that we’re connected to, we were placed here as Dakota people. We did not come here from someplace else. This was an old and ancient familiar place to us, our people, to our grandparents. We are grounded here. Our grandparents are buried here. The blood of our people are part of this place, this land, this makoce that we love.”
Iktomi Waste Winyan (Braveheart Society)
“The Chinupa, when you have one you're not supposed to lie. You’re supposed to walk a path that's hard to walk but it can be done. So walking that talk I think is one of the most important things we can do to protect that stone.”
Nick Tilsen (CEO, NDN Collective)
“This is a spiritual battle that is an assault on something that we have fought that's connected to our identity, that’s connected to our very survival as people. It’s an assault on the matriarchal and spiritual energy going all the way back to the White Buffalo Calf Woman who brought this to our people, so we have a responsibility.”
Fred Desjarlait (Red Lake Nation)
“This stone is so powerful and so important it has many, many stories. Those stories are going to instill who you are. It’s going to cut your path. It’s going to help you, your family and your nation.”
Our goal is to bring more awareness to this situation and the possible reroute of an oil pipeline across Pipestone County.
