Protect the Earth 2009 to offer speakers, workshops, walk to Eagle Rock Aug. 1-2

Protect the Earth photos courtesy Teresa Bertossi of Save the Wild UP.

MARQUETTE -- Protect the Earth 2009 will take place on Saturday, Aug. 1, and Sunday, Aug. 2, with events on the campus of Northern Michigan University (NMU), in Marquette, and on the Yellow Dog Plains, near the town of Big Bay.

Events begin with speakers and workshops at Noon on Saturday in NMU’s Whitman Building, Rooms 122 and 124. Follow the signs. Please park in the Whitman parking lot just off of the Elizabeth Harden Drive.*

Saturday activities will feature speakers from Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ontario and Utah including Flambeau Mine expert Laura Furtman, well-known Ontario writer and public health advocate Lorraine Rekmans, Great Lakes nature writer Eric Hansen, Utah student activist Tim DeChristopher, musician Bobby "Bullet" St. Germaine, global mining expert Professor Al Gedicks and more.

At 6 p.m. live music and Anishinaabe fancy shawl and hoop dancing by Megan Tucker will follow the Saturday presentations. Bobby "Bullet" St. Germaine, Ojibwe folksinger, will also entertain.

Protest against Rio Tinto, the parent company of Kennecott Minerals, whose potential gold and nickel mine near Marquette could cause serious environmental damage to trout streams and Lake Superior.

A demo screening of Yoopers vs. Giant Mining Corporation, a short film by filmmaker and composer Jeff Gibbs, will be held from 7:30 p.m. - 8 p.m. in the NMU Mead Auditorium, right across from the Whitman Building. Gibbs co-produced filmmaker Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 and did sound and field producing for Moore's Oscar-winning Bowling for Columbine. Gibbs is currently working on a new project with Michael Moore, due out this fall.

On Sunday, Aug. 2, a roughly two-mile walk to Eagle Rock, on the Yellow Dog Plains, begins at the Clowry Trail at 10:30 a.m. From noon to 2 p.m. there will be speakers, including Fred Ackley, Fran Van Zile and Jerry Burnett from the Mole Lake Chippewa reservation in Wisconsin; Lee Sprague (Little River Band of Ottawa Indians); musician Bobby "Bullet" St. Germaine; Jessica Koski (Keweenaw Bay Indian Community) and others.

Bring your blueberry pails! (Rides will be provided back to your vehicles, and if you cannot walk the two miles please meet at Eagle Rock for lunch and speakers at Noon.)

At 2 p.m. on Sunday there will be a memorial ceremony for legendary area historian Fred Rydholm, who passed away this spring.

For any questions, please e-mail gcaplett@gmail.com, call (906) 942-7325.

*View the event's website at yellowdogsummer.wordpress.com for maps, the complete schedule and directions to Eagle Rock.