Water protectors: the HELP campaign to save the Penokees

Drawn from firsthand, independent reporting, this book presents the story of how a coalition of tribal citizens, environmentalists, and neighbors, known as the Harvest Education Learning Project founded the HELP Camp and occupied treaty protected lands in the Penokee Hills of northern Wisconsin during the coldest winter of the past century, 2013-2014,. Their act of civil disobedience successfully halted a multinational mineral corporation’s plan for mountaintop removal mining in the Lake Superior watershed, a project that would have caused catastrophic environmental damage to Lake Superior and dire cultural consequences for the adjacent Indigenous communities. In the years since, the HELP camp’s work has continued to serve as a powerful inspiration in the region for grassroots activism and community resistance to environmental, economic and cultural exploitation.