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Ojibwe mining opponents have built a Harvest Camp to protest plans by Gogebic Taconite to dig a giant open pit iron ore mine adjacent to the Bad River Reservation in northern Wisconsin. Local tribes, environmentalists and concerned citizens say that the mine will pollute water in the Bad River watershed, home to several rivers that drain into Lake Superior. This pollution, they say, will damage fish, wildlife and wild rice and contribute to decline in quality of life in the region. Harvest camp occupants and supporters are making regular trips to the various exploratory drilling sites in the Penokee Hills in order to document work that GTAC is doing. (Related story: Fighting Mines in Wisconsin: A Radical New Way to Be Radical)
Ganson and his friends had walked about three-quarters of a mile from the Penokee Harvest Camp site to take a look at the most recent site where GTAC is conducting exploratory drilling. “We were just a group of middle-aged folks—we weren’t engaged in any activism. We just wanted to see where GTAC was drilling,” he recalls.
Walking slowly because of his emphysema, Ganson, 55, says he was surprised when he and his four friends approached the drill site and encountered a man dressed head to foot in camouflage, and carrying an assault rifle. Ganson was even more surprised when a second man suddenly appeared behind them in a similar outfit, also carrying an assault rifle. “I was kind of concerned for my wife,” he says. “I didn’t much like her walking into the midst of men carrying machine guns.”
Despite this unexpected display of firepower, Ganson focused on the job he had come to do: documenting what was happening at the drilling site. He also took some photos of the men.
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