Activists gather at Bear Butte

By Dan Daly, Journal Staff Writer | Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Previous Page

Share

• del.icio.us
• Digg
• NewsVine
• Fark

Print

Email

STURGIS — American Indian groups have already begun gathering at the base of Bear Butte for a planned summer-long encampment to protest what they believe is the continuing encroachment of the Sturgis motorcycle rally on their sacred mountain, organizers said.

An opening ceremony set for 1 p.m. today will mark the official start of the gathering, said Debra White Plume of the Inter-Tribal Coalition to Defend Bear Butte, one of several groups involved.

The gathering will be based at the Rosebud Sioux Tribe campsite north of the butte.

In addition, plans are in the works for an international Summit of Indigenous Nations set for Aug. 1-4 at Bear Butte.

By the time the Aug. 7-13 rally is under way, she said, thousands of people could be encamped at the Rosebud site and other tribal camp areas around Bear Butte.

During the rally, opponents plan to take their protest to the streets of Sturgis amid the crowded carnival of motorcycles, vendors and beer gardens.

“This is in response to the encroachment. … Every year, (the rally) gets closer and closer to Bear Butte,” she said.

Indians from a number of tribes, including the Lakota, the Northern Cheyenne, Osage and Ponca make pilgrimages to Bear Butte — known as Mata Paha — to fast, pray and undergo solitary vision quest ceremonies.

White Plume said the roar and rowdiness of the Sturgis rally makes that difficult.

Meanwhile, more beer licenses are on the Meade County Commission’s agenda for Friday, Meade County Auditor Lisa Schieffer confirmed.

The licenses are mostly for existing campgrounds that are being renewed or issued to new owners, she said. And none involve big concert venues that have been the target of the opposition groups to date.

However, White Plume said, members will likely attend Friday’s commission meeting to state their opposition once again.

For nine months, Indian groups, their non-Indian supporters and some east Meade County ranchers have formed a loose-knit coalition of opponents to new Sturgis rally week venues.

In recent years, the giant annual motorcycle rally has been on a collision course with the Bear Butte groups.

Live music has become increasingly important to rally bikers, and big-name concerts play nearly every night. But that kind of entertainment takes lots of land, and new venues are blooming on the prairies east of town.

The owner of Broken Spoke Saloon is building a new bar and campground called Sturgis County Line north of Bear Butte. He plans to later add a concert stage.

Glencoe CampResort, south of Bear Butte, has added a large concert venue called Rock’n the Rally.

Bear Butte groups have mostly directed their efforts toward persuading the Meade County Commission to deny beer or liquor licenses to the operators of the new venues. The venue operators and their supporters argue that as law-abiding property owners, they have a right to sell alcohol to rally bikers.

At every turn, the Meade County Commission has sided with the venue operators.

Opponents filed petitions to put the Broken Spoke license to a countywide vote, but the commission ruled that by law the license decision cannot be referred. The county faces a legal challenge in that case, and 4th Circuit Judge Jerome Eckrich could issue a decision this week.

The debate apparently goes far beyond Bear Butte and Sturgis, however. Organizers of the Summit of Indigenous Nations in early August have invited representatives from as far away as Canada and Ecuador, White Plume said.

Topics will include other fronts in the conflict between tribal groups and non-Indian land projects.

In northern Arizona, for example, tribes are fighting a ski resort proposal in the San Francisco Peaks area near Flagstaff, Ariz.

Farther south, on the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona, the ancestral homeland of the Tohono O’odham, or Desert People, would be bisected by a U.S. government-planned wall to keep illegal immigrants from entering the United States.

Contact Dan Daly at 394-8421 or dan.daly@rapidcityjournal.com