FORT YATES, N.D. (AP) - When Gov. Doug Burgum ordered all restaurants, bars and similar establishments to close on-site services to help slow the spread of the coronavirus, the owner of The Rock Pizza and Grill in Fort Yates turned the dining room chairs upside down on top of the tables and turned down the lights.
The restaurant still offers carry-out and drive-thru service, but shift supervisor Mike Archambault said customer traffic is down considerably.
“Business has gone way down,” he told The Bismarck Tribune. “We still have our regulars, and they are ordering mostly pizza and chicken.”
With the loss of about half of The Rock’s daily income, the nine-person staff is limited to just two or three workers per shift. They’re taking all of the necessary precautions to stay safe, such as washing hands frequently and disinfecting surfaces.
“We feel like we are doing everything that we can to stay open,” Archambault said.
The situation on American Indian reservations in North Dakota mimics what is happening across the state as a whole. Tribes are taking steps to safeguard health and safety, and working to maintain some sense of normalcy in turbulent times. Tribes also are working closely with the state, according to North Dakota Indian Affairs Commissioner Scott Davis, who noted that “this virus, it’s everywhere,” and “it’s time to come together.”
Disaster declaration
Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Mike Faith issued a tribal health emergency disaster declaration for the residents and tribal members in Sioux County and the rest of the 9,251 square-mile reservation that straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota border. Faith’s order was in conjunction with the governor’s March 13 executive order declaring a state of emergency in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Officials on March 18 closed tribal headquarters in Fort Yates to the public and limited it to tribal employees only. The employees also can work remotely from home.
In a statement posted on the tribe’s Facebook page, Faith asked tribal members and residents to follow the recommendations of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reduce the spread of the virus and to protect their communities.
“We don’t want our people to panic, but we want to be prepared,” he said. “We are asking that you stay home as much as possible and go out (only) if necessary.”
Sioux County, which encompasses the North Dakota portion of the reservation, recently recorded its first positive test — a man in his 60s who was tested in Morton County while receiving medical treatment.
Daily life
Kristen Carry Moccasin said she and her husband are trying their best to adhere to the chairman’s orders.
“We sanitize everything even more,” she said from the porch outside her home. “It’s very scary.”
Carry Moccasin watched her two nieces and nephew play outside while caring for her four young children, including 3-month-old twins. The neighborhood was quiet, with a few children playing outside in their yards. Carry Moccasin said the older children she watches are sad they can’t play with their friends because of the stay-at-home guidelines.
“We are cleaning everything and I’m having them wash their hands every time they come in from playing outside,” she said.
“People need to wake up and realize what’s going on,” added Robin Miller-Dogskin, Carry Moccasin’s mother.
The coronavirus isn’t the only thing on the mind of Carry Moccasin. One of her 3-month-old twins is in a Bismarck hospital battling pneumonia, an illness not related to the outbreak. Carry Moccasin and her husband are allowed to visit their daughter in the neonatal intensive care unit only for short periods due to coronavirus constraints put in place by the hospital.
“It’s hard for me,” Carry Moccasin said. “I can’t hold her because she is hooked up to so many machines.”
She said that as soon as her daughter improves, doctors will move her to another, more accessible room.
On the other end of town near the intersection of 92nd Street and Standing Rock Avenue, the parking spaces in front of the White Buffalo Foods store are full.
“Right now we’re sitting pretty good,” owner Mike Dowling said. “What we are going to look like (the community) two months down the road, that’s my main concern.”
He said food distributor SpartanNash is doing a good job allocating its inventory and not neglecting the smaller grocery stores in favor of the larger supermarkets across nine states.
He said his customers are still stocking up on meat and other necessities and are able to find what they need without having to travel to Bismarck-Mandan and compete with customers over the sparsely filled shelves.
“People here are trying to take this (coronavirus) seriously,” Dowling said. “We have a very old population, and they are very nervous.”
Learning and lunches
Standing Rock Community Schools is delivering learning packets to students after complying with North Dakota Department of Public Instruction guidelines on distance learning. The statewide effort is to educate students K-12 for the rest of the 2019-20 school year without having them congregate in large gatherings at schools. The packets will be delivered each Thursday by staff to nine locations across the reservation.
Since schools in the state were closed on March 16, the Standing Rock district has been distributing sack lunches to students and families at the schools or delivering them through the neighborhoods in school buses.
Lynn Landereaux, school maintenance and custodian worker at the St. Bernard Mission School in Fort Yates, with the help of teachers conducted a deep clean of the school building.
“I can’t wait until this all blows over,” he said.
Until that happens, Landereaux is helping hand out 30-40 sack lunches to children and families each weekday.
“(The families) have been very appreciative, he said. “For some it may be their only meal for the day. They depend on the school meal to get them through.”
Landereaux said he also delivers sack lunches to families without access to transportation. “And then I go straight home,” he said.
Working together
North Dakota tribes are working closely with the state on the coronavirus response, according to Davis. Tribal leaders are having weekly calls with state officials to coordinate.
“We work together, and it’s worked very well,” Davis said, adding that “I think it’s no different than some of the smaller towns and cities that have limited resources. The tribes are in that same situation.”
Whether reservation businesses have to follow a governor’s executive order depends on where they are. For example, a bar or restaurant in a state-incorporated city like New Town would need to follow the governor’s directive to shut down, but a casino restaurant on tribal land would not. But all tribes have still shut down their casinos.
Tribes also have incident command centers in place that are working closely with medical facilities on reservations, according to Davis.
“I think we feel pretty good about where things are at now,” he said.
Dowling feels the same way.
“Not many people are going to Bismarck,” the grocery store owner said. “They’re not finding what they need there.”
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