Oren Lyons is a faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan, Onondaga Council of Chiefs, Haudenosaunee (Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy) and a longtime international indigenous rights and sovereignty activist. Lyons came to North Dakota’s wintry plains to support the camps near Cannon Ball of people who came together in peaceful protest and prayer to protect the waters of the Missouri River, Lake Oahe and their treaty lands from the 1,172-mile-long Dakota Access Pipeline.

Sitting in a suite at the Prairie Nights Hotel and Casino, a site where hundreds found themselves stranded by blizzard conditions, Lyons spoke of his experience witnessing the gathering of hundreds of Indian nations, voicing his thoughts on the issue of water, spirituality and connection to the land as people.

“It’s important to be peaceful,” he said. “The opposition, of course, has not been peaceful at all. They’re trying to provoke a fight, basically, because once a fight starts all the issues are just lost in the fight itself. So they’ve been very, very provocative, but they have not been able to stabilize the people that are here.”

The values of the country are largely “skewed,” he explained, with many people not concerned with the root of all life, water, and the futures of their children and of the global community.

The actions practiced by the militarized police and security forces unleashed on the peaceful water protectors have many historical connections, a precedent that is accepted as a way to treat a race of people.

“The last time I saw people with water cannons was in Auschwitz—was in German concentration camps—where they sprayed people with water in the winter,” Lyons said. “This is supposed to be America, the land of the free, and that’s an assault on a human being.”

Time is a fundamental factor to survival, said Lyons. With climate change continuing to run off the rails, the worst thing that could happen would be to build another pipeline and release more carbon into the atmosphere.

“There is no alternative to water—none—and that’s the key issue here,” he emphasized.

With North Dakota winters in full force and climate change a constant threat, Lyons finds the dedication and mission of the thousands who joined the water protector camps a sign of hope.

“It’s not over!" he says in the video, directed by Tracy Rector for Longhouse Media. View the full interview below.