Adriano Tsinigine, 17, wore his finest traditional jewelry -- a turquoise necklace, stamped silver and turquoise bowguard, and watch -- for the Navajo Code Talker Day festivities in Window Rock, Arizona, this past Friday. He was there partly to honor his late great-grandfather Wilford Buck, a Navajo code talker who served during World War II.

But the high school senior also wanted to make a political statement -- about Congress' sale of Oak Flat , a section of Arizona's Tonto National Forest that Apache consider holy land, to foreign mining conglomerates.

After the parade and gathering of state and tribal leaders -- who included Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) and Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye -- Tsinigine noticed that people were crowding around the politicians to pose for grip-and-grin photos.

"I thought, OK, here's my chance," Tsinigine told The Huffington Post on Monday during his lunch break at the Navajo Preparatory School in Farmington, New Mexico. He asked McCain for a photo, and just as the senator was putting on his best politician's grin, Tsinigine produced a card that read, "PROTECT OAK FLAT ."