FARGO - The hundreds of people singing prayers at a construction site for the Dakota Access oil pipeline this past weekend and the conviction they showed was awe-inspiring to John Strand.
"It was a moving experience to see this expression of deep faith and expression of authentic belief," Strand, a city commissioner and member of the city's Native American Commission, said Wednesday, Sept. 7.
Few local elected officials from the area have visited the protesters' campsite, Sacred Stone Camp, on the north end of the Standing Rock reservation.
But Strand said his interest in the matter is personal, having grown up with American Indian friends and neighbors, and as an appointed member of the Native American Commission. He went to the camp Saturday and Sunday with several other Native American Commission members to present their resolution of support, which referenced the belief of many Indians that the pipeline would pollute the Missouri River and disturb sacred burial grounds.
While there have been accusations of violence by protesters, and Strand recognized that might have happened, he said his experience at Sacred Stone was entirely peaceful.
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Not everyone embraced Strand's visit. On his Facebook page, Strand said, "a prominent local leader guffawed today when I told him I went to Standing Rock Sunday. 'Why did you go there?' he asked, laughing. 'Because I had to see for myself,' I replied. 'I just had to. And I'm glad I did because now I know.'"
At least one of his colleagues on the City Commission said he was fine with Strand visiting the contentious protest, which has drawn significant national attention.
"I think it's great that he went there," commissioner Dave Piepkorn said.
City leaders want to be at different events as part of their job, he said, and he's supportive of that as long as they don't act as if they represent the city as a whole.
Strand, who was elected to City Commission in June, has been a member of the Native American Commission for two years. Growing up in Crystal, N.D., he said he saw how his Indian friends were treated differently by the rest of society and it seemed they even had different legal protection.
"So I have that in my background, I have that sense of empathy for anybody who doesn't have a fair shake," he said.
He said he isn't necessarily opposed to oil pipelines, which he believes are safer than oil trains and more effective at getting North Dakota oil to market. "My concerns are more with the respect for the culture and the peoples and for maintaining and growing trust with the native peoples that don't have a really good reason to trust our culture."
The pipeline has ignited Indian protest like few issues have in recent memory. The Native American Commission in its resolution noted that it "joins the now 500 tribes and hundreds of cities in declaring our friendship and support to our North Dakota relatives."
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Strand said he was told the tribes represented at Sacred Stone was the largest such gathering since Little Big Horn, the Montana site where some 8,000 Indians gathered on the eve of the famous battle that destroyed Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer's cavalry force.
Today's Indians are heeding call to join in peaceful protest from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which has also sued the federal government to halt the project. The tribe argues that the pipeline going under the Missouri River would endanger its water supply and would also go through burial grounds.
Strand said it was Clinton Alexander, the Ojibwe chairman of the Native American Commission, who presented the resolution to the Standing Rock tribe. When he was asked to talk, Strand said he simply said he was honored to be there and would carry a message back to Fargo of the peaceful, prayerful protest he had witnessed.
But he said he doesn't expect to ask the City Commission to issue a resolution, leaving that task to Alexander or the Native American Commission's other officers.
