Voices From the Odeyak

To read the headlines in the newspapers, to listen to television, you would think that Americans are selfish people who are only interested in their own pleasure. You would think that Americans don’t feel any concern about the lives of other people. You would think that American people are not concerned about the land that they are taking from the Indians up in the north of Canada so that they can have cheaper electricity. I think the newspapers are wrong. I think the television doesn’t tell us the whole story. I think there are millions of Americans who will say "No."
When they realize that we are taking the homes of people who have lived there for thousands of years, people who took care of the land as they hunted and trapped and fished and who want to keep on living on their land — there are Americans who will say "No. That’s not fair to take their land. We may have to spend a little more for our electricity. But we’ll find something. We can learn how to use solar power. We can start using wind power." There are a whole lot of things we can do rather than to take away the land that belongs to these people.

Excerpt from foreword / Pete Seeger’s greetings to a reunion of Odeyak travellers and hosts at the Beacon Sloop Club, on April 11, 1991.