Ojibwa Montrealer driving to North Dakota to join pipeline protest

Timothy Armstrong embarked on a road trip with a purpose Monday.

Armstrong, a member ofthe Brokenhead Ojibway Nation in Manitoba, lives in Montreal andworks at K103, a radio station based in the Mohawk territory ofKahnawake, on Montreal's South Shore.

He'sbeen watching the goings-on in North Dakota, where membersof the Standing Rock Sioux Tribehave been fighting to halt the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline.

The multimillion-dollar project is supposed to transport light sweet crude oil from the Bakken oilfield, south ofthe Saskatchewan border, to Illinois.

• Responsibility, unity, hope: Stories of people who've come to Standing Rock

The pipeline will pass north of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, cutting through land the tribal members consider sacred and through burial grounds.

There are also concerns that a leak would contaminate the Missouri Riverwhich runs alongthe entire western edge of the reservation.

Armstrong decided it wasn't enough for him to voice his solidarity fromQuebec. So he's driving the roughly 2,500 kilometres in order to join the protest in person.

"There's strength in numbers," he said inan interview with CBC Montreal's Daybreak.

Support goes both ways

Armstrong said there are at least a dozen people fromKahnawake already at the protest in North Dakota.

He's been told it's a little late to head to North Dakota, but he said with the media coverage the cause has been getting, now isthe perfect time to go.

"We're going to bat for everyone else," he said.

On Friday, the Sioux scored a win when the U.S. government temporarily suspended construction on the project, saying thatthe case "highlighted the need for a serious discussion" about nationwide reforms "with respect to considering tribes' views on these types of infrastructure projects."

In a statement, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe called the federal order "a game changer."

Armstrong said TransCanada, the companybehind the proposed Energy East pipeline project, should take note of what's happening south of the border.

First Nations leaders in Quebecand in the Maritimesare adamantly opposed to that pipeline's construction.

"We expect just as much solidarity from them coming north as we are heading south," he said.

• Standing Rock protest grows with thousands opposing North Dakota pipeline