For months now, thousands of Native Americans (and allies) from across the continent have gathered in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux to block the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, a $3.7 billion piece of infrastructure intended to carry crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois, which threatens to poison the tribe's water supply and destroy its sacred burial sites. It's an old tale filled with familiar tropes: injustice, state-sanctioned brutality, plunder. In many ways it's a tale that's emblematic of America itself.

Over Thanksgiving weekend, GQ photographer Driely S. drove down to Standing Rock to spend time with the men and women on the front lines of the protest. "I was there for three days," she said. "Most of the photos are Thanksgiving day. I spent most of the other days trying to build relationship for the portraits. Those only happened on the last day. And even for those, I wish I had spent more time. It takes a lot of listening and engaging before you even feel like you can ask, and anytime I would do I would still feel like shit. I didn't want to come across like I was coming to steal their image and write my own story. I really wanted them to use me to send their message."