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		Points of View Sue Ellen Kingsley May 27, 2005 Text and photos © 2007 Sue Ellen Kingsley. Published with Permission.

Pilgrimage to Eagle Rock

By Sue Ellen Kingsley

HANCOCK -- We met the red sentinel first. It hung against a tree trunk at the north, watching us pass on the path below. As we entered the summit area of Eagle Rock, we spotted the yellow sentinel to the east, then the white sentinel lifting its skirt against the tree near the edge of the bluff to the south, and finally the black sentinel with its back to the summit, staring to the west out over the plains below.

Colored tobacco ties, like sentinels, represent the four directions on top of Eagle Rock: red, north; yellow, east; white, south; black, west. The tobacco ties were left at the site by members of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC) who regard Eagle Rock as a sacred site. (Photo © 2007 Sue Ellen Kingsley. Reprinted with permission.)

Eagle Rock, in the northwestern reaches of Marquette County, is the planned portal for Kennecott Minerals Corporation's proposed Eagle Project sulfide mine. The proposal calls for blasting through Eagle Rock and tunneling west under the Salmon Trout River into acid-generating sulfide ore, to extract nickel and copper. The winter 2007 newsletter from the Upper Peninsula Environmental Coalition (UPEC) carried a piece by Jon Saari, UPEC Board president, about Eagle Rock as a pilgrimage site.* When I read it, I immediately knew that this was something that I wanted to do, too. And recently, when, among friends, we talked about our need to find ways to recognize the value of our world in terms not dictated by our market economy, I knew that it was time for me to make the pilgrimage to Eagle Rock.

Kate Alvord joined me. On a brisk and sunny Sunday afternoon we followed the detailed instructions that the UPEC newsletter had given for a vehicle with a functioning odometer.** We traveled from L’Anse on the Skanee Road nearly 20 miles before turning off the pavement onto the sand and gravel Triple A Road. It crossed the Huron River, wound among leafy hardwood stands and lowland cedars; we stopped briefly at a magically still and sheltered wetland where we spotted red-winged blackbirds and imagined moose. Soon the Yellow Dog Plains opened up around us: shallow sand dunes of stumps and jack pine stretching across to the far away hills of the McCormick Tract. Eagle Rock rose abruptly above the plains, its stone bluffs forming a natural lookout point. I felt a sense of awe as we stepped out of the car at the base of Eagle Rock into an enveloping silence full of the scent of pine needles.

The stone bluffs of Eagle Rock rise above the Yellow Dog Plain, potential site for Kennecott Minerals' proposed Eagle Project sulfide mine. (Photo © 2007 Sue Ellen Kingsley. Reprinted with permission.)

We found a path that circled around a campfire ring at the base and climbed past pink-flagged survey markers on up to the summit. There in the hush above the plain below, we found the colored tobacco ties -- the sentinels -- at the four corners around the fire ring on the top of Eagle Rock. The tobacco ties had been left guarding the site by members of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community who regard Eagle Rock as a sacred site where they hold ritual fasts every spring and fall. Eagle Rock is on ceded land; that is, the tribe has the right to hunt and fish and use the land according to their traditions even though it is not part of their reservation.

Kate and I explored the top of the bluff in silence, finding red and white amulets tied to tree branches and a staff with two carved fish hanging from its point. SACRED WATERS SACRED LAND was carved in white letters along the length of the staff. Finally we added our own offerings: Kate’s husband had sent with her a dream-catcher from around the time of the successful FOLK (Friends of the Land of Keweenaw) struggle against the James River paper mill nearly twenty years ago. She hung the dream-catcher next to the black sentinel and added her own feather and rock talismans. I hung up a curved bone to which my dear friend Denise Marth had added blue and white beads. Denise died not too long ago and I miss her presence, but her earthy spirit continues in the many small gifts she had given me and my husband over the years; I felt very close to her up there on Eagle Rock. 

Another pilgrim to Eagle Rock left a staff with two carved fish dangling from its point. Carved on the staff is the message SACRED WATERS SACRED LAND. (Photo © 2007 Sue Ellen Kingsley. Reprinted with permission.)

It doesn’t come easily to me to talk about spirituality or what is sacred. But I know that Eagle Rock is sacred; and, if the mining proposal is approved, it and the surrounding region will be desecrated. What might it take to halt this proposal? Well, we shall find out. One thing seems clear to me: the power to oppose the forces behind such a desecration must come from a deep and abiding respect -- love, if you will -- for the earth as it is, for Eagle Rock as it is, and for its consecrated status among ancestors and present-day pilgrims.

An offering of a dream-catcher represents a victory by Friends of the Land of Keweenaw (FOLK) in overcoming a proposal to build a paper mill on Keweenaw Bay twenty years ago. (Photo © 2007 Sue Ellen Kingsley. Reprinted with permission.)

In my dreams I imagine Eagle Rock covered with the amulets of those pilgrims -- amulets filled with the power to speak truth; I imagine Eagle Rock continuing its hallowed vigil over the Yellow Dog Plains, unchanged for future generations.

I know that the memory of our pilgrimage will stay with me, along with the hope that I might repeat that pilgrimage to Eagle Rock again and again. 

Kate Alvord, left, and Sue Ellen Kingsley atop Eagle Rock. (Photo © 2007 Sue Ellen Kingsley. Reprinted with permission.)

* Read Jon Saari's article in the UPEC Newsletter.

** Click here for directions to Eagle Rock.

Editor's Notes: For the latest news on the Kennecott sulfide mining application, visit Save the Wild U.P. The articles include links to the recent DEQ report, a letter from former Michigan Governor William G. Milliken and the statement of opposition to the sulfide mining by the Michigan Chapter of Trout Unlimited. For more information on the sulfide mining visit the Northwoods Wilderness Recovery Web site. Read more about the author of this article, Sue Ellen Kingsley, on her contributor page.

Note: Views expressed by our guest columnists are not necessarily the views of Keweenaw Now.