CANNON BALL, N.D. – It's weeks before his Facebook friends would begin to show their support through check-ins at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation when Jon Wheelock is checking in for real among the thousands of people protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
On a dreary Monday evening in mid-October, Wheelock and seven friends — including fellow musicians Cory Chisel and Adriel Denae — walk near the banks of the Missouri River and look out over a prairie colored with tents, tipisand pillars of smoke. They’d traveled more than 1,000 miles over five days and, for the final stop of their long journey, make a show of support for those dedicating their days to protect the most sacred of natural resources — fresh water — from the possible harm associated with the 1,172-mile pipeline designed to move crude oil across four states.
The purpose of the Standing Rock visit isn’t to hunker down for the coming winter, but instead to drop off supplies for those already doing so. A chainsaw, three splitting mauls, three splitting wedges, three snow shovels and a 4,000-watt generator, all purchased the day before, have been handed over to help the camp prepare for what could be a brutal four-month stretch.
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After a brief search through the Oceti Sakowin Camp, adorned with a seemingly endless number of Native American tribal flags and signs painted with slogans like “WATER IS LIFE” and “#NODAPL,” the group eventually gets a face-to-face meeting with Mark Tilsen, a Lakota Sioux in a leadership role they’d connected with on Facebook. His long hair draped over a poofy orange parka, he welcomes and introduces himself to each member of the party one by one.
All of the handshakes are the same, minus one —Wheelock, a member of the Oneida Nation, gets a different greeting. In lieu of a common handshake, there’s a deeper reach toward the elbow, a pull-in like a hug and an exchange of a verbal all-tribes greeting.
What’d they say?
That stays between Natives.
Like that quick meet-and-greet on the grounds where representatives from tribes across the country have gathered to stand together for one cause, the experience on the five-day excursion to two reservations on the Great Plains was, for Wheelock, very different than that of his white friends.
“It was the best thing I’ve ever done for my soul,” Wheelock said days later, still fighting off a cold he picked up while in the Dakotas. “That was just a mind-flip for me. You can read about it as much as you want but until you get your eyes on it and see it, it’s such a change.
“I tell people in general it was the best thing I’ve ever done. That doesn’t mean it was the happiest thing I’ve ever done, but it was the best thing I’ve ever done.”
Wheelock, the 36-year-old Kaukauna musician and leader of the band J-Council, is three-quarters Native American. Just a few weeks removed from an unforgettable trip to Hollywood to play with some heavy hitters in the music industry, he went on a journey of a different sort. This one’s not for his music career. This one’s just for him.
The “life-changing” trip has been a long time coming. Wheelock’s been interested in his heritage for as long as he can remember. While a student at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, he took Native history courses and has always had a passion to learn about the past, present and future of his people.
That’s part of why getting to set foot on the Standing Rock reservation, the place that’s become the center not just for rising tension over months of protests but for growing unity among tribes — even some who haven’t always seen eye-to-eye — carried huge significance. It’s about much more than snapping a few photos and checking it off the bucket list.
“There were things settled between tribes just a few months ago, where all problems were put aside to fix this one problem,” he said. “That’s a great thing not only Natives should do, but I think all people should be doing that same thing. I’m drawn to that. Let’s make this right.”
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Standing Rock was the final stop before heading back to Wisconsin on a road trip that also included a three-night stay at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
The idea of the group, which also included Appleton artist Chad Brady and J-Council members Sam Farrell and Alex Drossart, heading to these sites was an evolving one but stems from the friendship Chisel forged with two Fox Valley movie producers, Avi Bar-Lev and Jody Marriott Bar-Lev. Their 2012 film “West of Thunder” was filmed at Pine Ridge and they, along with Chisel and his pack of Refuge artists, started planning for the excursion more than two years ago.
Having Wheelock involved became a convenient coincidence for all involved and it only became more obvious as he began writing and recording music as the first artist in residence at The Refuge. It didn’t take songs like “We Gotta Move” and “Ghost Dance” for Chisel to figure out his pal with the “NATIVE PRIDE” tattoos would jump at the opportunity to come along.
It’s a fitting end to a year of surprises for Wheelock, who last fall was writing his own songs for the first time. Since then, he’s been taken under Chisel’s wing and recorded a debut EP with J-Council. Sure, he’s been playing music for the vast majority of his life, but his career has taken a dramatic turn over the past 12 months.
A five-week span this fall might best encapsulate what a ride he’s been on.In mid-September, Wheelock flew to Los Angeles to play a two-night tribute to Tom Petty in Hollywood called Petty Fest. Along with Chisel and Denae, he performed on a bill that included Norah Jones, Jakob Dylan, Kristen Wiig and members of Cage the Elephant, Incubus and The Strokes. The shows got coverage from Rolling Stone and J-Council earned a mention from Billboard.
Those shows, put together by an organization called Best Fest, raised money for the Chisel-driven nonprofit The Refuge Foundation for the Arts and part of the idea behind packing up a rental RV and heading to North and South Dakota for nearly a week was to put a spiritual cap on Wheelock’s residency.
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Now a bit more than a month removed from his Los Angeles debut and he’s singing J-Council songs on a dusty beach on the Pine Ridge reservation, lit only by the moon and a bonfire. Instead of a sold-out theater he’s performing to a small group of friends, some ancient-looking cottonwood trees and a few dozen cows grazing nearby.
It’s the only performance of the trip and the stakes are hard to compare. Here, he’s among friends —there’s Chisel, Denae, Farrell, Drossart, Brady and maybe 15 others. Four Pine Ridge residents, taking a break from the drumming and singing that minutes earlier must have been audible for miles across the flat earth, sit back in their chairs, taking it in.
It’s far from the first time Wheelock’s played music on a reservation, though mostly it’s been casinos with Blues Talk,the family band he’s been a part of for most of his life. But this is his first time at historic Pine Ridge. A reservation of the Oglala Lakota Sioux Tribe, it’s home to about 35,000 people. Nearly half the population, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, lives below the poverty line. In the 2010 Census, the unemployment rate was estimated at about 70 percent, though locals might tell you it’s higher. It’s also home to the site of the infamous Wounded Knee massacre.
He runs through “We Gotta Move,” a song he wrote last year about a family forced out of their homeland. At its climax, Wheelock is belting out “Mother!” and “Father!” at full force. The Black Hills at his back and endless plains in front of him, it’s hard to imagine a more fitting venue.
Back at his rented cabin later that night, after hours with his buddies passing guitars around the fire and taking turns leading singalongs of Beatles, Dylan and Neil Young tunes, Wheelock’s mind still is five hours to the north.
“What we did tonight was so beautiful,” he said, “and at the same time people were getting arrested at Standing Rock”
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A short walk up a hill on a dusty two-track path from a parking lot where struggling Natives sell hand-made jewelry is the Wounded Knee massacre memorial. The tightly-packed cemetery with an ominous concrete gate is the final resting place for some of the 300 people murdered by American soldiers in 1890.
Bodies of those killed in the massacre are there — some of which were piled in a mass grave — as well as direct descendants of the victims. Some have died in the last 25 years.
Wheelock walks through the gate and immediately distances himself from the rest of his group. Like plenty of other experiences over the course of the trip, this experience weighs differently on the man with Indian blood.
“It was weird, I think crossing the road and knowing where they put the people and knowing behind me is where it happened. It right away started to feel like this weird family loss to me,” Wheelock said hours later. “I couldn’t shake it. It was just weird, I didn’t expect to have that.
“I paid my respect and took the full walk around. That was between me and their families as much as anything. I think that really got to me, too. Paying my respect was hard.”
There was barely a word spoken until he was back down the hill, his black Wild Adriatic baseball cap back on his head. Chisel and his bandmates just let him be. They understood.
“My mind has been so much on Standing Rock, that in any dead moment we’ve had, any moment between conversations, I was always thinking about Standing Rock,” he said that night, reflecting on the afternoon visit to Wounded Knee. “That 45 minutes we were there was just one emotion, one feeling. It was so strange, so surreal. It was the first time that I didn’t have Standing Rock on my mind.”
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Beyond that point, it was clear from the time the RV pulled out of The Refuge lot to five days later when it rolled back in, Wheelock’s thoughts were with the people who in a few weeks will be trying to survive sub-zero temperatures in a tipi or tent.
Before getting there, he thought about what the scene would be like — how many people would be there, what the mood would be like, how hostile things might get. After walking along the muddy road lined with flags of tribes from around the country, his Oneida Nation included, those thoughts turned to when he’d be able to return and what he could do to help.
The chunks of time spent on the road in the RV —14 hours to Pine Ridge, another five to Standing Rock — were full of conversations and updates about the DAPL protests. At the center of the conflict is the $3.7 billion pipeline project that, when finished and operating, will move crude oil from North Dakota through South Dakota and Iowa and into southern Illinois.
In the big picture, though, it represents to those working to stop another instance of big profits for outsiders coming at the expense of the land and its caretakers.
Needless to say, the experience in the Dakotas stands in stark contrast to Wheelock’s time in Los Angeles. There’s not a lot glamour or star power to speak of (though actress Shailene Woodley was arrested at Standing Rock days before).
The ride away from Cannon Ball, through Bismark, on to Fargo and then eventually back home was full of conversations about coming back in late November or early December. Wheelock, Chisel and Denae brainstormed ideas of putting on a benefit concert at The Refuge to drum up funding for whatever the water protectors might need. With Tilsen as their direct line, they’d be able to find out first-hand what was needed, whether it be more firewood, winter jackets, canned food or otherwise.
An idea that seems to have a future was turning the annual Celebration of Native People event, which launched last year and featured the first-ever J-Council performance, into a fundraiser for their return to the DAPL protest site.
Of course, those plans all could change depending on what happens on those wide open prairies near the Missouri River. On the day The Refuge crew arrived, there was talk from Tilsen of both a “small action” and “medium action” that took place hours earlier, where a group of protesters attempted to block a bridge in nearby Bismark. The day had since settled, with most of the bundled-up folks focused on preparing, serving or eating meals, splitting wood and starting evening fires.
Tensions since have only seemed to rise, with the Associated Press reporting more than 140 arrests over the Halloween weekend. Videos clips surface almost daily of scenes from the protests: police officers in riot gear, tire fires, pepper spray. And though the encampment prides itself on being unarmed, a Colorado woman was charged last week with attempted murder after firing three shots in the direction of law enforcement.
Regardless of what happens, Wheelock will continue to stand with his 5 million-plus brothers and sisters around the country. Native pride is more than just a tattoo, after all.
“I truly, truly believe what’s going on at Standing Rock is going to be in history books,” Wheelock said. “I’d love to tell everybody as long as I live that I was there when that was going on, and have the end result be we changed it and it didn’t happen.
“But we don’t know how that’s going to go. We don’t know the end of that story yet.”
Shane Nyman: 920-996-7239, snyman@postcrescent.com or on Twitter @shanenyman
STAND WITH STANDING ROCK
J-Council will perform at 9 p.m. Friday at Ambassador, 117 S. Appleton St., Appleton, to support supplies for midwives at the DAPL protest site. Admission is a $20 donation. For more information, find the event page on Facebook.
