As most people are enjoying Thanksgiving dinner, some Charleston residents will be camping on the wind-swept plains of North Dakota as part of the ongoing protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
A handful of West Virginians are going to be spending the holiday protesting the construction of the $3.7 billion pipeline near the Standing Rock Reservation, which covers parts of North Dakota and South Dakota.
Karan Ireland, a Charleston City Council member, is one of the Mountain State residents that is forgoing the parades, football and feasts of Thanksgiving in order to take part in the highly-publicized protest that has stretched on for months.
She is being joined by Debra Hamilton, an attorney in Charleston, who turned down the chance to spend the holiday in New York with her family watching the West Virginia University band march in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
In September, a federal judge ruled that the pipeline, which would run under the Missouri River just north of the reservation, could be constructed, but the U.S. Department of Justice stepped in to put the project on hold until aspects of the Energy Transfer project could be reviewed.
Since then, struggles between pipeline protesters and law enforcement officials equipped with body armor, pepper spray and armored vehicles have caught the attention of the country. Earlier this week as temperatures dropped below freezing, law enforcement officials used water hoses to spray protesters that were trying to clear a highway that has been blocked by police. Several people were taken to the hospital to be treated for hypothermia.
Ireland and Hamilton both said they recognized how uncomfortable and possibly dangerous it could be to spend several days camping in the elements with the other Native American protesters and environmental activists that are opposing the project. But they think it is worth it.
"With the militarized police, it became a bit scarier to go," Hamilton said. "But it became more important to go."
Neither Ireland nor Hamilton consider themselves experienced campers. Ireland actually had to borrow camping equipment from friends in Charleston before she started her 20-hour drive to North Dakota.
As a mother, Ireland doesn't expect to be on the front lines, but she wanted to be part of the protest that started because of the tribe's concerns that the pipeline could rupture and leak oil into the Missouri River, which they use as their primary source of drinking water.
"For me, I have two teenagers and I have full custody of them. So I'm not free to get in a position to get arrested," said Ireland, who arrived Wednesday in North Dakota.
Ireland is also a committee member for the Advocates for a Safe Water System, a group that formed after the 2014 Freedom Industries spill. She said people in Charleston should be able to relate to the Sioux people that are trying to prevent their water from possibly being contaminated by a major oil leak in the future.
"There's something about the unfairness of this that is deeply moving," Ireland said.
When the pipeline originally was being planned it was set to run past Bismarck, but when questions were raised about whether it could pose a threat to the capital city's water supply that serves a primarily white population, it was rerouted to pass just north of the reservation.
It's that type of decision making that is driving people like Hamilton and Ireland to the southern border of North Dakota. Hamilton, who is a supporter of environmental groups throughout West Virginia, said she sees the pipeline as just the latest example of a Native American tribe being cheated.
"I think Standing Rock has already become something bigger in terms of native rights, in terms of prioritizing what is really important," Hamilton said.
"My heart and mind have been at Standing Rock, since last summer when I heard about it," she said.
Reach Andrew Brown at andrew.brown@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4814 or follow @Andy_Ed_Brown on Twitter.