The dispute over an almost 2,000-mile long pipeline that will cross Canada and the United States continues as the Obama administration vacillates with its decision to continue the project. To make their opinion and feelings known, a group of protestors descended on Washington, D.C. earlier this week to protest the pipeline.

The Keystone XL Pipeline project aims to bring tar sand oil from Canada all the way to the Gulf Coast in Texas. According to the Huffington Post, the 1,179-mile pipeline will bring one of the dirtiest forms of oil across the Canadian and United States heartland, inciting the fears of environmentalists, indigenous people and ranchers.

In an unlike event, indigenous people, ranchers and farmers went to Washington on Tuesday to protest the construction of the pipeline, regardless of what the administration's ultimate decision. From then until Saturday, the protestors, donning Native American headdresses and cowboy boots, erected teepees, performed rituals and established a camp on the National Mall.

According to the Post, the federal government was to decide on the pipeline's progress on Friday; however, they pushed their deadline back. The State Department decided to wait until a lawsuit against the pipeline passed through a Nebraska courtroom. Former President Jimmy Carter asked the president to stop the project and a recent United Nations report warns against climate change and our dependence on fossil fuels.

The protests concluded on Saturday but there was no announcement from the federal government. According to CBC, the protestors' aim was to make the president remember them and their plight. 

"We came to D.C. with a lot of resolve to make sure that the president sees our faces, and sees the images of cowboys and tribes working together," said Jane Kleeb, a Nebraska political activist who has helped lead the anti-Keystone movement, according to the CBC.

"We think those messages from the communities that will be directly impacted will stay with the president, whether he's making a decision today or a decision in 2015."