Black Snake Killers documents the Anishinaabe-led struggle against the Line 3 tar sands oil pipeline — referred to by activists as the Black Snake — during the final 3 months of Line 3’s construction. Line 3 was built by Enbridge, a Canadian pipeline giant, to carry over 800,000 barrels of crude oil daily from Alberta, Canada, to a port in Superior, Wisconsin, USA. Along the way it crosses wide swaths of Anishinaabe territory, where treaty rights grant Indigenous residents the ability to live, hunt, fish and gather.

For almost a decade, Anishinaabe land defenders have fought Line 3, which has an emissions footprint roughly equal to 50 coal-fired power plants. They have attended public hearings, chained themselves to construction equipment, staged wide-scale protests and lived, sometimes for years, at resistance camps along the pipeline’s route.

The struggle over Line 3 is one of many Indigenous-led land and water defense movements ongoing worldwide. In fighting extractive industries, Indigenous environmental activists argue that restoring land to Indigenous stewardship — and keeping it out of the hands of fossil fuel companies — is a key means of preserving biodiversity and protecting our planet from further environmental destruction.