English transcript

If it's my way, I'll stay and hold and feed a nation.

26 million doesn't mean anything.

Some people might find it hard to understand

how Delcia Bear can turn away a $26 million

offer to buy some of her land until you spend a little time

with her walking the dirt road she grew up on

and in the house her daddy built.

My grandfather and great grandfather

and a whole bunch of family has all lived here for years,

paid taxes on it, fed a nation off of it,

even raised wheat through the Depression

and kept the bread lines up in the United States of America

when people didn't have anything else.

Delcia is one of dozens of landowners

approached by an anonymous buyer,

one of the major players in artificial intelligence,

likely Google or Meta or Amazon, to purchase their land.

The market value for land in Mason County

is about $6,000 an acre.

The realtor that came to her door last April

offered her and her mother about 10 times that.

They call us old stupid farmers, you know, but we're not.

We know whenever our food is disappearing,

our lands are disappearing and we don't have any water

and poison, we know we've had it.

Delcia's mom, Ida Huddleston, is now 82 years old.

She says she does not need the money or the hassle.

She was born on this land and she plans to die here

and she certainly does not trust the promises made

by the AI companies or the people

who want them to build here.

So what do you say to the people who are in town

that say, hey, this is gonna bring jobs,

this is going to bring economic prosperity?

I say they're a liar and the truth ain't in them,

is what I say, it's a scam.

For Delcia, scam or not, she says she's connected

to her home like Scarlett O'Hara was in Gone With the Wind.

As long as she was attached to that land,

her spirit never would die.

That's the exact same thing for me right here.

As long as I'm on this land, as long as it's feeding me,

as long as it's taking care of me,

there's nothing that can destroy me if I've got this land.