Healing Hula

By MARGA LINCOLN, Independent Record | Posted: Thursday, June 17, 2010 12:00 am

In late fall 1995 a flock of migrating snow geese stopped to rest on the toxic waters of the Berkeley Pit in Butte.

For 342 of them, it would be their last resting place.

For artist Kristi Hager, their deaths became a call to action — first in anger and later through dance.

Nearly five years later, on July 9, 2000, 154 women, children and men, dressed in water-blue sarongs, gathered on the rim of the pit, part of America’s largest Superfund site, and danced the “Cool Water Hula.”

This art action went down in history — recorded in “Montana: Stories of the Land,” an award-winning history book by Helena author Krys Holmes published by the Montana Historical Society.

Now, 10 years later, the dancers are back.

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Cool Water Hula: Making waves to transform a greed culture into a green culture

This July will mark the 10 year anniversary of this call to action for people to dance hula, to embody the beauty and sacredness of the land as well as to speak out against the toxic water accumulating in The Berkley Pit in Butte, Montana. The Pit is the world's largest Superfund site. You can follow the activities of the group posted on http://coolwaterhula.blogspot.com/