While taking part in traditional sweats, Stone and Couture, among others who would form the Anishinabe Ogichidaa activist group, began receiving messages through dreams and visions from Native American spirits and ancestors.
The messages began a year before the EPA published an announcement that sulfide would be moved by rail over the reservation on Wisconsin Central Railroad tracks.
The white powder caused disease and death of animals, plants and people, including the destruction of the sacred wild rice sloughs on the reservation at the delta where the Bad River meets Lake Superior.
Before the blockade Stone and Couture vowed to Gichi Manidoo (Great Spirit) that they would be willing to sacrifice their lives if need be to stop the train from going through.
[4] The mine had drastically scaled back operations and laid off thousands the previous year due to its diminishing profits.
[5] Among those astounded by this decision was Walter Bresette, a Red Cliff Ojibwe activist and Indigenous chair of the EPA'S National Environmental Justice Advisory Council.
Bresette resigned his position and joined with the Native rights group Anishinabe Ogichidaa, Ojibwe for "Protector of the People," on a new course of action.
The first involved a representative of the Wisconsin Central Railroad, a "troubleshooter" who was experienced in dealing with aboriginal conflicts throughout the world using strong-arm tactics.
[9] The second crisis point occurred when the Ashland County Sheriff's Department went to the blockade site in force, ostensibly to review the situation and determine what, if anything, needed to be done, including the option of removing the protestors from the tracks.
On August 2, 1996, Justice Department mediator John Terronez arrived on the scene and began negotiations with parties involved in the dispute.
Furthermore, they insisted the project was illegal because the EPA had given it approval without consulting affected Indian tribes who as sovereign entities were entitled to be involved in the process.