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Decolonizing Climate Change: Stories of Indigenous Peoples

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Decolonizing Climate Change: Stories of Indigenous Peoples

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I am not an Indigenous person, nor am I First Nations. I acknowledge that I am writing this piece based solely on research and travel and do not represent the voices of Indigenous people across the world. However, I think it's important that we listen to the experience and wisdom of Indigenous people in tackling an issue as large as climate change. As a nation, we have a lot to learn about our relationship with our surroundings.

This past summer, I stopped by the Abbe Museum nestled in the middle of Bar Harbor, the largest town on Mount Desert Island, Maine. Mount Desert Island is more famously known for Acadia National Park, where I had spent the last three days hiking and exploring. Equally as important as national parks is the history of its land: Who originally inhabited this area of earth, and what are their stories? With this mindset, I stopped by the Abbe Museum on our last day in Bar Harbor, and a gentle, sloping cream-colored building with olive green trimmings welcomed me inside.

The Abbe Museum, a Smithsonian affiliate since 2013, is in collaboration with the Wabanaki, the People of the Dawn. The Wabanaki Confederacy includes the Abenaki, Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot Nations, all of whom have inhabited what is now known as Maine and Southeastern Canada for generations. The Wabanaki are known as the People of the Dawn due to their location in Turtle Island (now known as North America); they are the first people to see the sunrise over Turtle Island, and thus the first to see the dawn.

Visiting the Abbe Museum made me rethink my environmental education thus far. I'd only learned about white, eurocentric environmental pioneers in middle and high school; names like Aldo Leopold, John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt may sound familiar to you. But what about Indigenous pioneers, who have lived in harmony with the environment for centuries to a much greater extent than settlers ever have?

This is all part of a larger process of decolonizing environmental history and climate change, which, among other goals, includes understanding that Western ways of environmental thinking and teaching often overshadow perspectives of Indigenous people. Indigenous people around the world are protecting forests and their biodiversity, which sequesters carbon and protects natural resources. Indigenous people can teach us how to live sustainably through their agricultural practices, having depended on the environment their whole lives. Indigenous people are protesting against large oil companies and deforestation, recognizing that these practices contribute to increased worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.

We can all learn from Indigenous perspectives on our climate crisis, and the Abbe Museum is no exception. The exhibit " wolankeyutomon: Take Care of Everything" focused on the conservation of sea life and emphasized the Wabanaki's relationship with whales and other maritime creatures. The whale of Maine appears in Wabanaki stories as Bootup, whose back allowed for travel across the Western Atlantic, waters that are sacred to the Wabanaki. Whales have been poached and harpooned by humans for many years. Recently an equally alarming problem has come to light: the discovery of whales washed to shore with stomachs full of plastic products.

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The painting included in this article immediately caught my eye when I stepped into the exhibit, and for good reason. There are very few ways to misinterpret the message conveyed: Single-use plastics are threatening our marine biodiversity, including whales, one of the most ancient species on this earth. The Ziploc bag that you casually toss in the trash, the plastic fork that is thrown away instead of reused, the plastic bag that you insist is more convenient than a reusable one: All of this contributes to the problem.

Too often, I've come across the perspective that climate change can only be solved by large corporations changing their methods of production. Yes, a huge part of the problem lies with big oil and political lobbying. But another part lies with our flawed understanding of what we can do, individually and collectively, to help the environment. Grassroots change is hard, but it can spread like wildfire if you allow it to.

Undoubtedly, Indigenous people are welcome to these changing habits and have a breadth of knowledge to contribute to our understanding of the environment. A small panel tucked in the back of the Abbe Museum allowed visitors to input their personal commitments to help the environment on an iPad with the responses being projected continually on a large screen above. There's more to this climate crisis than we think and spreading information from different cultures and ways of life is critical to our relationship with this planet.

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Decolonizing climate change: stories of indigenous peoples | The Michigan Daily

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I am not an Indigenous person, nor am I First Nations. I acknowledge that I am writing this piece based solely on research and travel and do not represent the voices of Indigenous people across the world. However, I think it's important that we listen to the experience and wisdom of Indigenous people in tackling an issue as large as climate change.

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In mid-September, the Sipekne'katik First Nation launched a moderate livelihood lobster fishery along the coast of southwestern Nova Scotia. Its fishers set out an estimated 250 traps at the time, the equivalent of one commercial boat.

Some, including the commercial fishing sector, worried this new fishery was a threat to maintaining healthy lobster stocks. Commercial fishers have articulated two conservation concerns about the Sipekne'katik fishery: its scale and whether fishing during the summer season - when lobsters molt and their shells are soft - is a problem for the survival of lobsters that are thrown back.

As a researcher with expertise in fisheries science, fisheries economics and marine policy, I see no evidence the fishery will harm lobster stocks. Conservation is not at the heart of the ongoing dispute.

Inherent and treaty rights

Mi'kmaq have inherent rights to practise their traditions and customs, including fishing. Under the Peace and Friendship Treaties signed in the 1700s, codified in the Constitution under Section 35 and reaffirmed by the Supreme Court, Mi'kmaq have a right to harvest fish for food, social and ceremonial purposes and a right to fish for a moderate livelihood.

Yet two decades later, there has been no clarity on what "moderate livelihood" means, nor how implementation of the treaty right should unfold. Great people have been working on it, but it is not a trivial question.

Others have as well, including Listuguj and Potolek First Nations.

THE CANADIAN PRESS /Andrew Vaughan

The protests over the Mi'kmaw fishery have escalated to acts of vandalism and violence. The message from commercial fishers is that fishing in St. Marys Bay outside the commercial season is illegal and a conservation concern. In fact, it is neither.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) did not immediately help the situation. Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan and Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett waited five days to make an explicit statement that it was, in fact, a legal fishery. By that time, the commercial sector's view became further entrenched.

Conservation concerns unfounded

The commercial lobster season in Lobster Fishing Area 34, where the bay is located, runs from late November to late May. The livelihood fishery was launched outside that, leading the commercial harvesters to label it as illegal. Yet, as Shelley Denny, a Mi'kmaw doctoral student at Dalhousie University, points out, there are two sets of rules for Indigenous and non-Indigenous fish harvesters. The Indigenous fishery is not illegal, but is it a conservation concern?

(Brandon Maloney), Author provided

Initially, five Sipekne'katik vessels were fishing 50 traps per vessel; there are now reportedly 10 vessels fishing a total of 500 traps. Compare that to the commercial sector, where each vessel - there are about 100 fishing in the bay - is allowed to fish 350 traps, for a total of about 35,000 traps.

There is no reason, no science, to suggest that the equivalent of one or two commercial vessels fishing in St. Marys Bay will be problematic. Lobster biologist Robert Steneck would bet you a beer there will be no negative impact on the lobster population.

Fisheries scientists and managers need only look to our neighbour to the south, Maine, which operates a year-round lobster fishery. In the summer, lobster molt and their shells are soft, resulting in a lower quality lobster. The Canadian market doesn't prioritize these lobsters, even though Maine does.

These lobsters are more susceptible to what's called "post-release mortality," meaning that those lobsters that cannot be kept - lobsters that are too small or females bearing eggs, for example - are thrown back and may not survive. This mortality needs to be accounted for, but it doesn't mean it's not sustainable to fish during the summer.

Normal catches

One index fisheries scientists use to measure the status of a resource is called catch per unit effort (CPUE). In this case, lobster is the unit and the effort invested is one vessel.

While not perfect, the CPUE represents a relative abundance of lobster in a given area. When CPUE falls, it may be a sign that fewer lobsters are available in that particular area, but may or may not signal that the population as a whole may be in trouble.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

Data for St. Marys Bay and Lobster Fishing Area 34 show that commercial catches have declined the past two years compared to the 2015-16 season. Commercial fishers have argued this is due to the summer "food, social and ceremonial" fishery that operates outside the commercial season.

The recent protests have targeted the "livelihood" fishery, but it seems that what the commercial sector is actually angry about is the food, social and ceremonial fishery. According to Brandon Maloney, fisheries director for Sipekne'katik, the band developed their plan for this fishery twenty years ago - this is not a new development.

So, what does the CPUE for St. Marys Bay look like over the past 16 years? I took the data released by Fisheries and Oceans Canada and calculated it. Although the CPUE in the past two years are on the lower end of the range, they are clearly within it. And they really only seem low when compared to the highs recorded in 2015-16.

(Author provided. Data from DFO, September 2020.)

The assertion that the drop in bay catches is a conservation concern is wrong, as DFO itself has stated. So if there is no conservation concern, then the assertion that Indigenous summer food fisheries are decimating the stocks, as the commercial sector has argued, is incorrect.

It's not surprising that commercial fishers are upset by a decrease in lobster landings in St. Marys Bay. But my assessment of the fishery is not why the public has a poor view of the group.

Their behaviour has been abhorrent. The sector needs to address its racism, cease its vigilantism, support dialogue and ensure that its positions are grounded in evidence. And, as Denny argues, it must make room for the livelihood fishery. The rest of Canada - and the world - is watching in shame. We must do better.

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Nova Scotia lobster dispute: Mi'kmaw fishery isn't a threat to conservation, say scientists

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In mid-September, the Sipekne'katik First Nation launched a moderate livelihood lobster fishery along the coast of southwestern Nova Scotia. Its fishers set out an estimated 250 traps at the time, the equivalent of one commercial boat. Some, including the commercial fishing sector, worried this new fishery was a threat to maintaining healthy lobster stocks.

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Wabanaki Sweetgrass Harvesting in Acadia National Park

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Wabanaki Sweetgrass Harvesting in Acadia National Park

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Wabanaki peoples have gathered sweetgrass from the land of Acadia since time immemorial. However, now access is restricted due to its National Park status.

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Native to New England, sweetgrass can be found locally within Acadia National Park in grassy stands that appear to glow in the early morning light. The plant is easily identified by its sweet, hay-like scent, which many describe as similar to vanilla. Sweetgrass continues to be an important resource for the Wabanaki as a medicinal plant and for its use in basket making.

As is often the case with colonized land, Wabanaki basket makers have been forced to contend with a number of limits on access to sweetgrass and other resources like black ash trees imposed by private landowners and harvesting restrictions instituted within Acadia National Park. Recently, however, studies like those conducted by Suzanne and her team of botanists in conjunction with Wabanaki harvesters have called into question the necessity of the Park's strict harvesting regulations, given the sustainability of Native gathering techniques. Suzanne's research sets a precedent for new models of harvesting access which could have implications throughout the National Park Service.
Methodology and Findings
Suzanne's work employs a participatory research methodology, which in the context of sweetgrass harvesting engages with Native harvesters as active participants, recognizes the practical role of findings as agents of change, and allows for methods to evolve throughout the research process. Anticipated outcomes of Suzanne's research include a greater understanding of the efficacy of TEK as it relates to sweetgrass harvesting as well as the expansion of access to sweetgrass within Park boundaries for Wabanaki harvesters who have cultivated an intimate knowledge of this culturally significant resource for generations. In 2016, federal regulations against harvesting sweetgrass within Acadia National Park were relaxed for Wabanaki gatherers intending to use sweetgrass in traditional ways. Still, Suzanne hopes, more can and will be done to reconnect Wabanaki harvesters with culturally significant sweetgrass plots in the near future.

Suzanne highlighted the fact that the sustainable harvest of sweetgrass is a priority among Indigenous harvesters. The common understanding among the harvesters who worked with Suzanne is that "if it doesn't give itself to you, it's not sweetgrass. Don't take it." Additional studies have shown that when half of the sweetgrass in an area is harvested, the overall population remains unaffected in subsequent years. Suzanne's preliminary findings recapitulated the common understanding among Native gatherers that regular harvesting enhances sweetgrass abundance and allows the species to flourish. Her study therefore provides an important example of the efficacy of Native stewardship, TEK, and the role of each in the maintenance of local biodiversity.
Cultural Significance
Suzanne's research also points to the importance of practices related to sweetgrass within Wabanaki culture, especially during difficult times when the use of Wabanaki languages was prohibited or discouraged. "While [harvesters] couldn't speak their language," Suzanne told the audience, "they could harvest sweetgrass." Sweetgrass harvesting also provides a meaningful connection to earlier generations. "Landscape remembers," Suzanne impressed upon us. "Harvesters felt as if their ancestors were there with them." The presence of sweetgrass in Koluskap narratives indicates the importance of this cultural keystone species for the Wabanaki, but, in this case, the sharing of such stories cannot entirely replicate the experience of engaging directly with the plant. "Culture is a practice," Suzanne emphasized. "You can't practice your culture from a book."
TEK as Decolonization
Suzanne also discussed a focus on TEK as a tool for decolonization. She found that harvesters tended to defer to botanists though they themselves possessed a body of practical knowledge related to the species unparalleled by researchers. "Nobody ever said this was knowledge," Suzanne explained. By reinstating TEK as a viable and valued way of understanding the natural world, Suzanne's work highlights the practice of sustainable sweetgrass harvesting as a vital aspect of Wabanaki culture as well as its immense significance for those interested in the maintenance of local biodiversity or for those who just can't get enough of the lovely scent of dried sweetgrass braided along the edge of a hand-woven ash basket. As an agent of change, her work calls for the continued expansion of Indigenous access to Park resources as well as the advancement of collaborative efforts between Acadia National Park and Wabanaki harvesters who have gathered sweetgrass, among other species, on Mount Desert Island for centuries.

To learn more about efforts to ensure the health and continuity of sweetgrass, please read:

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Wabanaki Sweetgrass Harvesting in Acadia National Park - Abbe Museum

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Traditional Ecological Knowledge The Abbe Museum's Annual Meeting, held on Friday, June 15th, brought together members of the board, Abbe staff, and friends within the greater Abbe community to celebrate the successes of the Museum's recent Indian Market and to anticipate the exciting growth of su

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Traditional Sweetgrass Harvest May Return to Acadia National Park

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Traditional Sweetgrass Harvest May Return to Acadia National Park

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Courtesy Suzanne Greenlaw | BDN

There's something timeless about the scent of sweetgrass. Even baskets woven long ago by Maine Indian basket makers still give off a whiff of the hay-fresh, vanilla-sweet smell that almost seems like an aromatic portal to the past.

Sweetgrass, though, isn't something from yesteryear. Also known as holy grass, the grass is native to North America and grows in wet meadows, bogs, marshes and along lakeshores. It is used for baskets, ceremonies and more, and is an important part of the cultural heritage of members of the Penobscot nation and the Passamaquoddy, Maliseet and Micmac tribes here, who are collectively known as the Wabanaki people. Wabanaki basket making continues to be a vibrant, important art form, and Maine Indian basketmakers have won national accolades and attention for their baskets in recent years. But harvesting sweetgrass for those baskets isn't as simple as it used to be. Gatherers often have to drive long distances to find it and when they do, accessing it is not guaranteed.

"The majority of the older gatherers have stories of going to patches they had long gone to and being denied access," Suzanne Greenlaw, a member of the Houlton Band of Maliseets and a doctoral candidate in the University of Maine School of Forest Resources, said recently. "And even being threatened with guns or dogs."

Those stories can be hard to hear - but they are also part of the reason why Greenlaw is feeling optimistic about the sweetgrass research project she is working on at Acadia National Park. If all goes well, tribal basket makers eventually will be allowed to harvest sweetgrass in Bass Harbor Marsh within the park, and accessing a good patch of grass will no longer be in doubt.

For many years, park visitors only have been allowed to gather blueberries and apples (along with their photographs and memories). But recently, an effort was launched at the national level to see whether the parks could provide opportunities for traditional tribal gathering needs. In 2016, the National Park Service modified the plant-gathering regulation to allow members of federally recognized Indian tribes to gather and remove plant parts for traditional purposes. In order to be eligible, tribes need to have a traditional association to the park lands and the agreements between tribes and the National Park Service will specify which plants may be gathered and in what quantities. The change is a positive one, according to Rebecca Cole-Will, Acadia's chief of resource management.

"We've always known how important the places we now call national parks are to tribal members. In many cases, national parks were carved out of tribal lands that were always used and important," she said.

For three seasons now, park officials and tribal members have been working to figure out if a sustainable sweetgrass harvest could happen at the park.

"Parks are places set aside for all time, and for all people. This project gives us the opportunity to do that," Cole-Will said.

The research project is headed up by Greenlaw and Michelle Baumflek, a research biologist with the United States Forest Service. They've interviewed many Indian sweetgrass gatherers to find out where they go, what obstacles they have faced and how important sweetgrass is to them. Greenlaw, whose husband, Gabriel Frey, is an acclaimed Passamaquoddy basketmaker, said that the Wabanaki people have a long history of basketmaking.

"Basketmaking, which included sweetgrass baskets, was a form of resistance to assimilation policies," she said. "And has always been a consistent source of spiritual, cultural and economic significance."

One basketmaker in her 60s remembered gathering sweetgrass with her grandmother when she was a child, and translating for her grandmother, who did not speak English. Those memories are powerful, Greenlaw said.

"There'd be sweetgrass hanging up in their house. The smell of it brings them back to their childhood. It's a cultural identifier," she said.

But even though sweetgrass remains just as important to Indians as ever, the land where it grows has changed. Coastal development has put pressure on traditional sweetgrass areas and even marshy parts of Aroostook County, where it also grows, have more restricted access now than before.

"A lot of people talk about how when they go to sweetgrass patches they'll never know if they can go back," Greenlaw said. "They have to be really quiet and keep a low profile. Not be seen."

But if a sweetgrass harvest at Bass Harbor Marsh is found to be sustainable and is given the official go-ahead, gatherers won't have to worry about that. So far, the harvest potential seems promising, the researchers said. Last summer, they asked gatherers to identify locations where they would like to harvest sweetgrass in the marsh, then set up their test plots accordingly.

"We're trying to really think about different ways to gather knowledge," Baumflek said. "We're trying to not misrepresent what people do. As there's been a history with or about native people that doesn't incorporate their knowledge, we're trying to be extremely careful."

Last summer, gatherers harvested sweetgrass in the test plots in the marsh. This year, Greenlaw and Baumflek will go back to the plots and see how the grasses are coming back. Wabanaki people believe that harvesting is not detrimental to sweetgrass, and the scientific research done so far seems to bear this out.

"Gatherers are excited about coming back," Baumflek said. "It's warmed our hearts, and raised a hope that we can do shared research projects where everybody is respected and valued."

And if, ultimately, the sweetgrass harvest at Acadia is allowed, it will mean a lot to the gatherers.

"A question we asked is, 'What does harvesting here mean to you?'" Greenlaw said, adding that the answers they heard were powerful. "People said they feel like they are sitting next to their ancestors, harvesting," Greenlaw said. "That time is not linear. That plants remember us, that the landscape remembers us. That they are sharing with their ancestors, and that this is another way to practice your culture."
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Traditional sweetgrass harvest may return to Acadia National Park

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If all goes well, tribal basket makers eventually will be allowed to harvest sweetgrass in Bass Harbor Marsh within the park, and accessing a good patch of grass will no longer be in doubt.. Maine news, sports, politics, election results, and obituaries from the Bangor Daily News.

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Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance - Blog - Abbe Museum

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MIBA, as part of its mission to preserve and extend the art of basketmaking within the Wabanaki communities, is responsible for bringing in dozens of new "next generation" basketmakers and their families to the event.

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Annually there is a basket market in Bar Harbor. Basketmaking is a vital aspect of Wabanaki identity. Within the context of Maine’s diminishing open land tradition, there is less access to sweetgrass in coastal communities (Ellis 2016). Sweetgrass is a major component to Wabanaki fancy baskets which are culturally and economically vital.

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Basketmaking is an intrinsic part of Wabanaki culture. Access to sweetgrass and black ash is vital to basketmakers. Culturally and economically our baskets have great significance.

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Issue: September 2020
"Glooskap came first of all into this country, into Nova Scotia, Maine, Canada, into the land of the Wabanaki, next to sunrise. There were no Indians here then (only wild Indians very far to the west). First born were the Mikumwess, the Oonabgemessuk, the small Elves, little men, dwellers in rocks. And in this way he made Man: He took his bow and arrows and shot at trees, the basket-trees, the Ash. Then Indians came out of the bark of the Ash-trees." From "Glooskap the Divinity," The Algonquin Legends of New England, Charles Godfrey Leland, 1884
Maine didn't exist until two hundred years ago. That's a minor blip on the timeline of geological history, a small portion of the timeline of biological history, a single entry in the timeline of human history. For centuries, Maine wasn't. But there was land here, and there were people here. And anywhere that people exist, art does too.

Of all the art forms practiced by indigenous people in this region, the weaving of ash baskets is perhaps the broadest and deepest tradition. Birch bark baskets also have a great and significant history, and there are certainly carvings to be mentioned, but baskets occupy a special place in Wabanaki culture. "Basketmaking, and all our art forms, was what helped us survive and adapt," explains Penobscot weaver Jennifer Neptune, director of the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance.

"It's pretty amazing," she says. "The glacier was here 20,000 years ago. The water level was different. The Gulf of Maine had islands in it that are now just banks. We know our ancestors were hanging around during that time, because scallop draggers and fishermen bring things up from the ocean floor. We've been here longer than 13,000 years."

Baskets, she explains, were made first for practical use. These were the work baskets, the storage baskets. Made from wide strips of pounded, flexible ash wood, they were strong and durable. "Everything about ash that makes it a junk wood for other industries makes it incredibly great for weaving baskets," explains Passamaquoddy basketweaver Gabriel Frey. "Black ash is an incredibly fibrous hardwood. When we pound it, we are reverse-engineering how nature puts the tree together. What we are doing is taking the cellular structures of a tree and rearranging them into a usable container." Ash pack baskets ("one of our most ubiquitous traditions," notes Frey) helped people move from place to place. For their own pleasure, people also made fancy baskets, distinguished from the storage containers by their tight weave, small scale, and decorative function.

Once colonizers arrived and began to forcibly seize land and slaughter the native population, baskets took on a new meaning, particularly the fancy baskets. At first, the Wabanaki Nations (a group of peoples that includes the Maliseet, Mi'kmaq, Penobscot, and Passamaquoddy) traded their storage baskets and fancy baskets for dried beans or other foods. Then, as time went on and the U.S. government demanded more and more assimilation, the practice of weaving baskets became a way to resist demands that the Wabanaki settle in one place. For thousands of years, the Wabanaki had been traveling inland in the winter to hunt, to the coast in the summer to escape the flies and gather clams, fish, eggs, and sweetgrass. "They wanted to turn us into farmers, but we were hunters and gatherers," says Neptune. "It was an act of sovereignty to say no and go where we wanted. To go to the coast to sell baskets, or go to New York City, or Philadelphia. To say, no one will stop us."

The sale of art, she explains, "built our communities." It enabled students to pay for college. It kept families fed. It bought clothes and cars and houses. "It's more than just a basket," says Neptune. "It's cultural survival." There are many ways of looking at a basket, just as there are many ways of seeing a painting or reading a poem. Each person brings their own experiences to a work of art, their own biases. This can be a beautiful thing, like when an image moves you to tears. It can also be a poisonous thing, like when a creation is dismissed out of hand, devalued, destroyed. Sometimes, objects are revered but their makers are not.

For a long time, U.S. art institutions didn't consider fancy baskets to be art, but this has begun to change. According to Neptune, Wabanaki art and craft was once "relegated to history and anthropology museums, to the past." She says, "That's too bad. By not looking at contemporary artists, you miss out on so much. You only get a sliver of the story, and the whole cake is better than a slice."

It isn't possible to present the whole cake in a single article, a single museum exhibit, or even in a single book. But Tilly Laskey, curator of the Maine Historical Society, has been trying to showcase basketweavers both past and present. "Wabanaki history is Maine history," she says. She is working to change the perception of "what is art and what isn't." "A pot made in ancient Greece was put in an art museum, but something made by Wabanaki people didn't go into a museum. Or pots made in the Southwest weren't in the art museum," Laskey points out. These choices reflected the values of white culture and worked to uphold and reproduce them. In Holding Up the Sky, a 2019 exhibition curated by Laskey and eight Wabanaki scholars and experts, the Maine Historical Society showcased a mix of historical objects and contemporary pieces. The aim was to educate viewers on how things were made, how they were used, how artists are still working within the various traditions today, and to provide context that a visitor to an ordinary art museum or gallery might not get. For instance, historical baskets were shown alongside the forms they were made on and next to jewelry featuring basketweaving techniques, as well as nonfunctional, purely decorative "baskets" by contemporary artists. The opening, Laskey says, was "the best night of my life," the result of years of efforts to recenter Native voices and move toward "sharing authority" within the organization. But, she notes, "we have so far to go still."

Exhibitions like this one show a non-Native audience an element of culture that exists alongside mainstream U.S. culture. They help educate Mainers and visitors about an underrepresented and often misun-derstood practice. Basketmaking is neither something of the past nor a newly revived phenomenon-it's ongoing; it ebbs and flows. "I remember living with my gram and her sons, my uncles, and watching them pound ash," says Passamaquoddy artist Debra Nicholas. "I would wake up to the sound of pounding ash. It sounds musical. You'd hear someone pounding it on one side of the road, and then you'd hear it again coming from the other side." Life on the Maine reservations was filled with these moments, the call-and-response noise of breaking down wood, the rituals of going out to collect sweetgrass, ash, and porcupine quills, the many stages of pounding and braiding and dying and weaving. "It even sounds like music when you're braiding sweetgrass," says Nicholas, who grew up watching her mother and her aunts work on their baskets, fingers flying.

For Frey, the urge to innovate began over a decade into his basketmaking career. "I was always a strict purist when it came to form, but then about seven years ago, I remembered something my grandfather said in his teachings," he explains. "He said he could teach me how he makes baskets, but I had to learn how I make baskets." Frey had been wondering for some time about how to bring the art form into the twenty-first century and make it relevant and useful for contemporary people. "I was thinking things like, 'Why not have a pack basket for yoga? Why not have one you can carry on the subway?'" He began using the fancy basket techniques to create large, practical carriers for yoga mats and books. He began to create small, delicate handbags that you could take on a night out (including one stunning rainbow-hued handbag he made for a private client because "they wanted something really special for Pride," he says).

Jeremy Frey, Gabriel's brother, has also spent the past few decades innovating. "I'm seeking to elevate baskets to the level of luxury handbags, but Jeremy's in a whole different realm," Gabriel says. "He's making fine art." From the 1990s onward, the Freys have seen an increase in respect for their wares, which Jeremy credits to the creation of the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance in 1993. "I believe that program changed things," Jeremy says. "It kicked off a new wave of basketry." It helped makers connect to other makers, to buyers, and to new sources of inspiration and education. Jeremy says that when he first started making his dramatic fine art pieces, he faced a lot of pushback from the elders. "They couldn't understand," he says. "They were trapped in tradition."

But Jeremy didn't want to stagnate, and he didn't want to see this art form he loved so much stagnate either. He kept pushing and pushing, making ever more intricate objects, like baskets that nestle within each other, baskets that are unable to be opened, baskets that are shaped like urns and others shaped like urchins. These baskets sell for hundreds-even thousands-of dollars. (Price is determined by size, shape, and complexity. For instance, the price for a custom basket decorated with porcupine quills starts at $1,000 and go upward from there.)

"I respect the people who use the original designs so much," Jeremy says. "It's like hearing a language, seeing their work. It's beautiful. But it's not for me. I have to redesign." His work, he says, carries "an energy." That's how he knows a piece is worth its price, worth its place in a fine art institution. "When you see a piece, and you know-you know if there is an energy there. It's something that can't be replicated. You know if it's art."

We're living during a time of instability. We don't know what damage climate change will cause-not really, at least. We have models and ideas. We know it is causing more "weather events" and increasing the spread of certain diseases. We know the sea is rising. We also know the emerald ash borer, an invasive species of jewel beetle native to Asia, has come to Maine. Like climate change, it's already here. Since its introduction to North America in the early 2000s, the emerald ash borer has killed hundreds of millions of ash trees. Humans spread the disease by moving forest products (usually firewood) from one region to another. No ash species native to North America is resistant to the burrowing pest. Even in Maine's isolated forests, where the pest has been slow to take hold, it's already doing damage.

For some people, this means the end of an era. Gabriel Frey views the coming infestation as a looming apocalypse. "Ultimately, I think basketweaving as we practice it is headed for extinction. Probably within my lifetime, and I don't think there is a way to stop it," he says. "I see a tsunami crossing the country. A millennium-old art form is on the verge of extinction. That is one of the prices of globalization."

Without black ash trees, the many basketweavers can't continue doing their work. Jeremy has been focusing his energy on building up a store of ash, but that will run out. "No matter what we artists do, there will come a point where we can no longer make ash basketry," he says. "Even if I can still produce work and make a living, it's a crazy loss. It's like the loss of a language, or a sacred ceremony you never do again. It hurts inside." Ash is central to Wabanaki myths, to the culture. Ash leaves flutter through the histories of the peoples. Ash fibers tell the story of seasonal movements, cultural resistance, and contemporary innovation. That's not something that can be easily replaced, even if you can find other materials to work with.

Still, Neptune keeps hope alive. She believes they may be able to mitigate the damage done by emerald ash borers, that science may still find a way to stop the spread of this pest. "We have so much," she points out. "We have other weaving traditions of basswood and cedar bark, other materials." No matter what happens, art will persist. She knows that.

Neptune also draws strength and hope from the stories of her ancestors. "We've been here," she says, "adapting to all the changes, all the fluctuations in climate, in sea level. We've been here for the tundra turning to trees turning to dense forests. Our ancestors were here and learned to survive contact with settlers. All these things, they found ways to deal with." Right now, as coronavirus continues to sweep across communities and through hospitals, Neptune thinks it is more imperative than ever to honor our artistic impulses, to embrace the opportunities that we have. "Each day is not guaranteed. That's in our face right now," she says. "What will you do with it? What will you make with what you have been given? Do it now. Don't wait."

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Weaving Stories The Wabanaki art of basketmaking has been passed down from generation to generation, but there's a new threat to its future by Katy KelleherPhotography by Nicole Wolf Issue: September 2020 "Glooskap came first of all into this country, ... Continue reading →

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"It even sounds like music when you’re braiding sweetgrass"

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"It even sounds like music when you’re braiding sweetgrass"

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Debra Nicholas, Passamaquoddy basketmaker (and my aunt)

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Ckuwaponahkiyik, "people from the land where the sun rises"
cku denotes coming forward, as in the command ckuwi, "come here";
wapon denotes both light and things that are white in color--ckuwapon refers to the rising sun;
ahkik, denotes a physical location.
Ckuwaponahkik, means "the land of the dawn." Changing the ending to ckuwaponahki (long form of waponahki) means a single person from the Dawnland, and ending with iyik denotes a group of people. Ergo, Waponahki, or Wabanaki, is interprested to mean "the people of the dawn."
[Source: Neptune, G. (2015). Naming the Dawnland: Wabanaki Place Names on Mount Desert Island. Chebacco: The Magazine of the Mount Desert Island Historical Society, 16, 92-108.]

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735 Acres of Ancestral Territory in Piscataquis County is Returned to Penobscot Nation

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735 Acres of Ancestral Territory in Piscataquis County is Returned to Penobscot Nation

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After 350 years of colonization, the Wabanaki in Maine now have access to less than 1 percent of the land that once supported their place-based cultures. Maine’s rivers and mountains may carry some Wabanaki names, but the people and the stories that those names belong to have been relegated to small reservations out of sight to most Mainers.

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More than 700 acres of Wabanaki Territory in Piscataquis County have been returned to the Penobscot Nation through a land stewardship agreement, the tribe said in a joint statement with the Elliotsville Foundation Friday afternoon.

The land is located in Williamsburg Township - west of Brownville - and sits between two parcels already in the Penobscot Nation's stewardship.

The 735-acre parcel comes from the Elliotsville Foundation, which owns 125,000 acres of timberland throughout northern and central Maine.

"The Penobscot Nation is extremely grateful to [the] Elliotsville Foundation for this generousrestoration of land stewardship to our Tribe. We take our land stewardship responsibilities very seriously and appreciate the opportunity to once again have this parcel within our present-day landholdings," Penobscot Nation Chief Kirk Francis said.

"Through this gesture, Elliotsville Foundation has shown its commitment to strengthen and honor their relationship with the Wabanaki Tribes and recognize our long-standing cultural connection with the land and water," he said.

John Banks, the tribe's director of natural resources, said the land and neighboring Pleasant River - which is a tributary of the Penobscot - is "sacred ground to many people."

"For the Penobscot people, this return expands our existing land base and also actually extends between, and connects, two of our existing Penobscot Indian Territory tracts, making both more accessible," he said.

Lucas St. Clair, representative of the Elliotsville Foundation, said that he was compelled to "use his platform to tell a different narrative," after learning about Maine's history of land ownership and its relation to the state's indigenous people.

"I learned the Wabanaki believe that they belong to the land and the western perspective is that land belongs to individuals and this is at the root of the misunderstanding of the way we treat land in Maine and around the country," he said.

St. Clair said the foundation hopes to show confidence in Maine's Native communities and the Penobscot Tribe as sovereign nations that can take on the responsibility to steward the land.

"While this is not the start or the end of a long journey of [reparations], it is what I can do now and what I hope to do more of while encouraging others to join us," he said.

The Elliotsville Foundation is also part of First Light, a group that aims to "learn the history of Wabanaki land dispossession and to work together to expand Wabanaki presence in and relationship with their ancestral territory."

"This is just the beginning of long work at making amends in real ways," First Light Representative Peter Forbes said.

"After 350 years of colonization, the Wabanaki in Maine now have access to less than 1 percent of the land that once supported their place-based cultures. Maine's rivers and mountains may carry some Wabanaki names, but the people and the stories that those names belong to have been relegated to small reservations out of sight to most Mainers.

"In the last 50 years, land trusts in Maine have come to work on [or] have relationships with almost 23 percent of the land in the state, which includes countless places of great importance to Wabanaki people and once stewarded by them. First Light exists as a bridge between conservationists and Wabanaki people to reconcile this history by expanding Wabanaki presence and relationship with their territory that we now share together.

"This is good for all of Maine," he said.

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735 acres of ancestral territory in Piscataquis County is returned to Penobscot Nation

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More than 700 acres of Wabanaki Territory in Piscataquis County have been returned to the Penobscot Nation through a land stewardship agreement, the tribe said in a joint statement with the Elliotsville Foundation Friday afternoon. The land is located in Williamsburg Township - west of Brownville - and sits between two parcels already in the Penobscot Nation's stewardship.

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Maine Must Keep Promises to Tribes, Protect Elvers Before they Disappear

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Maine Must Keep Promises to Tribes, Protect Elvers Before they Disappear

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I spent significant portions of my childhood on Lake Champlain, a habitat for American eel, with my mother's people. My grandmother enjoyed eel and prepared it well.

There came a time when the eel were elusive; for five or six years we did not see them. One day, when I was 12, we finished fishing and began to troll toward shore. My line was still in the water when I saw the reel spin. Whatever I'd hooked, it was big.

My grandfather knew that I'd hooked an eel. I became excited. "Grandma will be so happy!" I said. My grandfather's face hardened, and he directed me to cut the line.

"This one goes free."

It was my first conservation teaching: Conservation requires sacrifice. Today, the eel has all but vanished from Lake Champlain.

This story framed my thinking as the price of elvers skyrocketed and harvesters jockeyed for licenses to fish them at their most abundant and most vulnerable life stage when they are translucently miraculous and singularly determined to swim from the salt to the fresh water.

This is "first contact," and what happens here will determine the health of the species.

Similarly, what Maine government decides now with regards to the elver fishery will have long-lasting impact.

The Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act, a federal law that returned land to the tribes, lays out the legal basis for the Maine Implementing Act, which defines the relationship between the state and tribes. Without the settlement act, the implementing act does not exist.

The settlement act lists the rights and resources the tribes deliberately transferred. Saltwater fishing is not listed. It is a "reserved right." By definition, the state of Maine has no jurisdiction over reserved rights.

Last year's LD 451 - which limited the Passamaquoddy Tribe to issuing 200 elver licenses - and this year's LD 1625 - which would require state fishery officials to approve each individual tribal elver license in writing - are in conflict with the settlement act and the implementing act. The Passamaquoddy rightfully refused to comply with LD 451.

The Passamaquoddy wisdom teachings embrace conservation. Conservation and protection of the eel are central to their plan.

Last year, the state limited gear, not catch. In comparison, the tribe offered access to any Passamaquoddy who wanted to fish but managed the take through a total allowable catch of 3,600 pounds - less than the recorded take of the top 50 state harvesters. Amid claims that the Passamaquoddy were ruining the fishery, the tribe predicted reaching this total allowable catch would be difficult. The tribe's take was 1,650 pounds.

Under pressure from federal and multi-state agencies, the Department of Marine Resources is struggling to retain a fishery that is devoid of conservation benchmarks. Over the past year, the department did not engage its harvesters in the necessary conversation about protection of the eel. Instead, it implemented a complex quota system and turned its attention to the "Passamaquoddy problem."

The Passamaquoddy returned with stronger conservation markers. Their plan prohibits the use of fyke nets and reduces their total allowable catch to 1,650 pounds - more than 1,000 pounds less than the top 50 state harvesters take under the new quota system.

The department and the Joint Standing Committee on Marine Resources welcomed these changes and worked diligently with the Passamaquoddy to draft a memorandum of agreement in advance of this season.

On Jan. 29, the attorney general's office raised a " constitutional concern " stating the memorandum creates an equal protection problem because it creates a "special class" of people who would be dealt with differently should legal conflict arise.

This is startling given that federal Indian law, the law that governs this state's "special relationship" with four sovereign nations, explicitly states that equal protection concerns apply differently to Indian tribes. The attorney general knows this yet chooses to advance an empty legal argument that will only serve to deepen enmity.

Fishermen know that cutting bait is necessary preparation. And every fisherman knows there is a time when they must cut the line. The tribe, the department and the joint committee have worked hard to prepare a solution. Let's hope that the actions of the attorney general do not force the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to "cut the line" on Maine's elver fishery.
Jamie Bissonette Lewey is chairman of the Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission, an intergovernmental body charged under Maine law to review the effectiveness of the Maine Implementing Act.

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Maine must keep promises to tribes, protect elvers before they disappear

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I spent significant portions of my childhood on Lake Champlain, a habitat for American eel, with my mother's people. My grandmother enjoyed eel and prepared it well. There came a time when the eel were elusive; for five or six years we did not see them.

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The Wabanaki and the Mount Desert Island Region before Colonization
By Julia Clark and George Neptune
Spring 2014 Friends of Acadia Journal

Wabanaki people and their ancestors lived on the land now known as Acadia National Park for thousands of years prior to the arrival of Europeans in their homeland, and continue to have an important presence in this place today.

According to oral histories, the Wabanaki have lived in this area since time immemorial. The roots of the word wabanaki can be found, as one example, in the Passamaquoddy word ckuwaponahkiyik, which means "people from the land where the sun rises." The Wabanaki refer to their homelands as the "Dawnland." When Koluskap, "culture hero" of the Wabanaki, arrived in the Dawnland, it was void of people. So, taking an arrow from his quiver, he aimed at a brown ash tree and fired. From the opening in the tree left by his arrow came the first Wabanaki people.

Archaeological evidence tells us that Native Americans first arrived in Maine beginning around 13,000 years ago, after the Laurentide Ice Sheet retreated. Archaeological sites in interior and western Maine tell us about these earliest inhabitants. In and around Acadia National Park, however, the glacial retreat was followed (for a variety of reasons) by a substantial increase and then a substantial drop in sea level. And since Native American archaeological sites near the coast tend to be on the water, evidence of Mount Desert Island's earliest inhabitants is now under water and not easily accessible to archaeologists. Archaeological research in other parts of Maine give evidence of people living in small groups and traveling across the landscape hunting migratory animals (including now-extinct mastodon) and gathering wild plant foods. They were highly skilled stone tool makers, and are perhaps best known for their distinct fluted spear points. They inhabited a tundra-like environment into which woodlands were slowly spreading.

As the environment warmed following the end of the ice age, Maine became more forested, the last of the ice age mega-fauna became extinct, and the plants and animals familiar in Maine today took up residence. Early forests on and around Acadia would have looked different from what was here when the first Europeans arrived. The composition of hardwoods and conifers changed with long-term changes in the climate, in some cases influenced by changing tidal amplitude and water temperatures in the Gulf of Maine.

The Wabanaki have many stories that serve the purpose of preserving the history of people in the Dawnland. In one tale, Koluskap must travel the world in search of animals that wish to harm Wabanaki people, so that he can shrink them to a more manageable size. Another tells of a winter that lasted many years, and Koluskap convinced the Winter Bird to close his wings for part of the year. While these stories are often interpreted as myths, modern science can sometimes inadvertently support oral histories by providing evidence-in these cases, with the proven existence of mega-fauna and the discovery of Maine's "mini ice age" in the geological record.

During what archaeologists call the Archaic Period (9,500-3,000 years ago), native people living on or near the coast of Maine adapted to a forested environment. They hunted a wide range of animals- moose, deer, a variety of smaller mammals on the land, and seals and small whales in the ocean. They fished for everything from sturgeon and swordfish to cod, and took full advantage of annual runs of fish like alewives. A wide variety of birds, both migratory and local, contributed to their diet, as did amphibians like turtles, and of course shellfish. From the remains of fire hearths and food storage pits archaeologists find evidence for the harvesting of a wide variety of plants, especially nuts and berries.

Some creation stories go beyond the task of preserving Wabanaki history, and can even be seen as crucial to survival. In the story of the First Moose Hunt, Koluskap chases his prey, a baby moose and its mother, all over the Dawnland, leaving footprints and other clues of his journey. Eventually, the mother moose dies and turns into stone, while Koluskap catches up to the baby near the ocean, and prepares it to eat. He throws the entrails to his dog, while it waits across the bay. At first glance, the story seems to simply be a fantastical account of the excitement of moose hunting; however, a closer look reveals much more important meanings. This story not only speaks about how to hunt a moose, but which parts of the moose to eat and, most importantly, how to find the stones needed to make arrowheads. Starting in Penobscot Bay, you can identify the "entrails" of the moose-a large deposit of quartzite that reaches from one side of the bay to the other. While heading for the entrails, you discover "Moose Liver Rock," an important vantage point to discover a portage route. Eventually, the story would lead you all the way back to the Mother Moose, who has turned into a large deposit of the stone that killed her, which is now called Mt. Kineo.

It is from the Archaic Period that the earliest archaeological sites in and around Acadia National Park are found. By about 5,000 years ago, the shoreline was fairly close to where it is today, and sites dating to this time period have been uncovered in places like Gouldsboro, Blue Hill, and Ellsworth. People lived in family-based groups and traveled by ocean, river, and lake (perhaps in dugout canoes) to take advantage of the seasonal resources in their homeland. We also see evidence of trade and interactions with groups as far away as Labrador and Pennsylvania, most often in the form of raw stone materials for making tools, but also in shared styles of tools. Some of the most characteristic tools associated with the Archaic Period in Maine are heavy, ground-stone woodworking tools such as gouges, celts, and adzes. Another tool type associated with the Archaic Period along coastal Maine is the plummet, a pendant-shaped tool that archaeologists believe was used to weight fishing lines or fish nets. Several large plummets have been discovered by fisherman around Mount Desert Island, pulled up in their nets.

More significant changes began to happen in the region approximately 4,000-3,000 years ago. The environment in the Mount Desert Island region started to shift from a more mixed forest to the coastal coniferous forest we see today from Penobscot Bay east, in part caused by drops in ocean temperature as a result of increasing tidal amplitude in the Gulf of Maine. Moose became more important than deer, as populations of each animal followed the shifting forest cover. It may have been around this time that Wabanaki ancestors in Maine began to make and use birchbark canoes. Interactions (the exact nature and extent of which archaeologists are currently debating) with people to the south and west increased, and perhaps the most important technological introduction, that of pottery, occurred in Maine.

Archaeologists refer to this time period in Maine as the Ceramic Period (3000-500 years ago) because the presence of pottery, which is an easily recognized marker in archaeological sites. During the Ceramic Period, populations in Maine increased, and larger groups of people came together to live year-round in both coastal and interior Maine. While in southern and western Maine the introduction of domesticated plants supported the formation of fairly large villages, in the Acadia region, it was an abundance of both marine and terrestrial wild resources that supported groups of multiple extended families living together in small settlements, evidenced in the shell middens that dot the shores of the area.

While it is theorized that the island's resources would not be plentiful enough to support several year-round encampments, Wabanaki people used Mount Desert Island as a meeting place for trade and to collect various resources. For example, two Passamaquoddy place names, moneskatik (Bar Harbor) and wawonok (Somes Sound), speak to two important resources found in those places: moneskatik, "the clam digging place," and wawonok, "the egg gathering place" (literally, eggs), reveal the history of Wabanaki people gathering clams and waterfowl eggs from the Bar and Egg Rock.

As the region closes in on the imminent arrival of European fishermen, explorers, and settlers, the Wabanaki had established a well-adapted and fairly affluent life in their homeland surrounding present-day Acadia National Park. Living on the coast year-round, they took advantage of the diverse and abundant plant and animal resources harvested from the land and water. They traveled widely to gather seasonal resources, to meet with extended family and allies, and to trade with other groups near and far. Important political alliances had been developed to manage relationships between communities and tribes. In fact, evidence from archaeology, oral tradition, and early European accounts suggest that the Mount Desert Island area was an important meeting place where people from several larger groups came together to interact in a variety of ways, and was the center of one of the most important Wabanaki alliances encountered by early European arrivals. And Frenchman Bay became a critical borderland of sorts in the complex relationships that developed between the Wabanaki, French, and English. (To learn more about what happened in the area during this critical time of contact, visit the exhibit "St. Sauveur: A Meeting of Nations" at the Abbe Museum at Sieur de Monts Spring, or on the Abbe's website at: www.abbemuseum.org/downloads/StSauveurAMeetingofNations.pdf.)

With the colonization of Mount Desert Island, the Wabanaki presence here slowly began to dissipate. Once an important resource, Mount Desert Island became the home to fewer and fewer Wabanaki encampments while colonial settlers expanded their homesteads. During the Rusticator time period, Wabanaki people continued to visit Mount Desert Island and made tourist-trade items to sell to the wealthy visitors of the island-Wabanaki encampments were eventually banned from Bar Harbor and surrounding areas. Now, the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance and the Abbe Museum host an annual Native American Festival and Basketmakers Market at the College of the Atlantic in July. And Wabanaki people still live and work on and around Mount Desert Island or travel here to share knowledge about their culture and history, and to sell their fine art and crafts in the modern-day incarnation of millennium-old traditions.

JULIA CLARK is the curator of collections at the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor. She has a B.A. in anthropology from Bowdoin College and a M.A. in anthropology from the University of Arkansas. Before coming to the Abbe, she worked for ten years doing cultural resource management archaeology in Maine.

GEORGE NEPTUNE is the museum educator at the Abbe Museum. He learned basket making from his grandmother at the age of 4, and his baskets have been featured at the Abbe for many years. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 2010 with a BA in theater, and was active in the Native American Studies program. He has been an interpretive ranger at Saint Croix Island International Historic Site and was the Unit Director/Mentor Program Coordinator of the Passamaquoddy Boys and Girls Club at Indian Township before joining the Abbe.

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The Wabanaki and the Mount Desert Island Region before Colonization By Julia Clark and George Neptune Spring 2014 Friends of Acadia Journal Wabanaki people and their ancestors lived on the land now known as Acadia National Park for thousands of years prior to the arrival of Europeans in their homeland, and continue to have an important presence in this place today.

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Wabanaki Place Names on Mount Desert Island

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Wabanaki Place Names on Mount Desert Island

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Geo Soctomah Neptune

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Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination in Maine Law. Changes are proposed by the Wabanaki Tribal Governments to oppose Section 6204.

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During his tenure as the Executive Director for the Maine Indian Tribal State Commission, John Dieffenbacher-Krall worked closely with Maine Wabanaki REACH engaging tribal and state partners, assisting with writing the mandate and developing the Commission selection process. He has worked tirelessly toward the repudiation of the Doctrine of Chrisitan Discovery and we are pleased to offer the text of his talk at the Wilson Center in Orono on March 4, 2020, as our blog this month. The text has been edited slightly for readability.

Maine's Original Sin with Wabanaki Nations and Peoples

by John Dieffenbacher-Krall

First, I want to acknowledge that we gather on Penobscot Nation land that perhaps a deed says belongs to the Wilson Center or University of Maine, but it will always be Penobscot land until the earth ceases to exist. Regardless of the current legal status of the land, the Penobscot people have a connection with this land that is part of them in an eternal relationship. I believe as settlers we often don't sufficiently appreciate the relationship Original Peoples have with the land. It is not a resource to exploit but instead a relation to protect and to nurture.

Though I assume few of you know much about the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination even though you have been taught history and social studies and learned about the founding of the United States, I did not do the original scholarship that has exposed the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination as the legal and moral justification for Christendom's colonization of North America. Many people credit Vine Deloria, Jr. for bringing the concept into greater prominence in his 1972 An Open Letter to the Heads of the Christian Churches in America. Lenape/Shawnee scholar Steven Newcomb has further researched and more fully explicated this worldview that is the ultimate expression of white supremacy and a terrible evil that any person of conscience should work to purge from the world.

Tonight, I address you during the liturgical season of Lent in the Christian Church...a period marked by "prayer, doing penance, mortifying the flesh, repentence of sins, almsgiving, and self-denial." I find repentance to be an especially applicable word for what settlers need to do in their relationship with the Original Peoples and Nations of this land. Note the two-part aspect of this definition from Wikipedia: "Repentance is the activity of reviewing one's actions and feeling contrition or regret for past wrongs, which is accompanied by commitment to and actual actions that show and prove a change for the better." My intent is to inform and to motivate you sufficiently tonight that you will take action to join with other like-minded people to purge the world of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination.

For the past 23 years, I have expressed some important aspects of my spirituality through worship in the Episcopal Church. As is the case for most Christians, Episcopalians view sin as a foundational concept to understanding our faith. Even if a person is not a practicing Christian, s/he has heard the word and probably has some understanding of sin as a concept... For Christians, sin means "an immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law" (Google).

I titled my talk in part "Maine's Original Sin." I did not do that accidentally. The Episcopal Church describes original sin as "the shared sinful condition of all humanity." The original sin consists of Adam's and Eve's defiance of God by eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.

I assert Maine's Original Sin is its reliance on the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination and continued colonial occupation to exert control over the land and the Original Peoples and Nations we today recognize within the boundary of the State of Maine. I want to acknowledge my friend and fellow Episcopal Committee on Indian Relations member Father Ted Kanellakis for his expression of this idea as Maine's Original Sin. Similarly to the Episcopal description of Original Sin as the "shared sinful condition of all humanity," I maintain all settlers living within the State of Maine live in a "shared sinful condition" as occupiers of Wabanaki land. Until we renounce the colonial power we have exerted and create a new relationship with Wabanaki Peoples and Nations based on acknowledgment of their inherent right to self-determination and their eternal relationship with the land, we live as unrepentant occupiers and sinners.

Why is the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination so central to our colonial occupation of Wabanaki Peoples and the land they view as a relation? It provides unjustified moral cover for evil and genocidal acts and the legal basis for the stealing of Wabanaki land and asserting settler political control over formerly free and independent peoples.

The Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination asserts Christians - based solely on the fact that they profess to be Christians in contrast to other individuals and peoples who do not espouse such a religious identity - have a right blessed by God to enter non-Christian lands, seize the land and possessions of non-Christians, and kill the original inhabitants unless they instantly submit to the domination of the Christian invaders. This worldview was delineated in a series of papal bulls - think of them as official pronouncements by the Pope. Scholars generally attribute the first articulation of this concept to the Papal Bull Dum Diversas issued in 1452 by Pope Nicholas V:

"We grant you [Kings of Spain and Portugal] by these present documents, with our Apostolic Authority, full and free permission to invade, search out, capture, and subjugate the Saracens and pagans and any other unbelievers and enemies of Christ wherever they may be, as welll as their kingdoms, duchies, counties, principalities, and other property...and to reduce their persons into perpetual servitude."

Spain was not alone in using the concept to justify its greed and colonial desire. King Henry VII of England borrows the reasoning first articulated by Pope Nicholas V in sanctioning John Cabot's voyage to North America. Instead of a Papal Bull, he uses the instrument of a letters patent:

"Be it known and made manifest that we have given and granted as by these presents we give and grant, for us and our heirs, to our well beloved John Cabot, citizen of Venice, and to Lewis, Sebastian and Sancio, sons of the said John... to find, discover and investigate whatsoever islands, countries, regions or provinces of heathens and infidels, in whatsoever part of the world placed, which before this time were unknown to all Christians. And that the before-mentioned John and his sons or their heirs and deputies may conquer, occupy and possess whatsoever such towns, castles, cities and islands by them thus discovered that they may be able to conquer, occupy and possess, as our vassals and governors, lieutenants, and deputies therein, acquiring for us the dominion, title and jurisdiction of the same towns, castles, cities, islands and mainlands so discovered." (Patent granted to John Cabot and his Sons, March 1496)

Vine Deloria, Jr. told Studs Terkel in a 1975 interview:

"I think the doctrine of discovery has kind of separated out the Christian church establishment, as at least a theoretical enemy of Indians and not simply a religious enemy, because Christian docrines have in my opinion, [in] many other Indians' opinion, supported the disenfranchisement of Indians and genocide of Indians."

The United Nations in 2007 condemned the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination in the preamble to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples:

"Affirming further that all doctrines, policies and practices based on or advocating superiority of peoples or individuals on the basis of national origin or racial, religious, ethnic or cultural differences are racist, scientifically false, legally invalid, morally condemnable and socially unjust."

Every member state present for the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples voted in support of it except for Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the US. Subsequently, all four countries issued qualified statements supporting the Declaration.

Though the official body of nation-states rejects the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination, it formed the legal basis for the taking of Wabanaki and all Original Peoples' lands. An example of how something so fundamental to the existence of the State of Maine remains so invisible today can be found on page 40 of Maine, The Pine Tree State, from Prehistory to the Present (compiled by the University of Maine). Here it describes the voyage of Humphrey Gilbert: "After sailing to Newfoundland, which he officially claimed for the Queen..." How did Gilbert do that, claim Newfoundland for the Queen of England? The Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination supported his action. Yet the text of Maine never states this fact.

Robert Miller and the co-authors of Discovering Indigenous Lands: The Doctrine of Discovery in the English Colonies describe "ten elements that constitute the Doctrine." The initial one is "first discovery: The first European country that discovered lands unknown to other Europeans claimed property and sovereign rights over the lands and Indigenous Peoples." The fourth element underscores the profound injustice of the most important US Supreme Court decision ever decided affecting the Original Nations and Peoples of this land, Johnson v M'intosh:

"Indigenous/Native title. After a 'first discovery,' European legal systems claimed that Indigenous Peoples and Nations had automatically lost the full ownership of their lands. Europeans claimed that Indigenous Nations only retained the rights to occupy and use their lands. These rights could last indefinitely, however, if the Indigenous Peoples never consented to sell land to the European country that claimed the preemption right. But if Indigenous Nations did choose to sell, they were expected to sell only to the European government that purported to hold the preemption right."

Fast forward from Humphrey Gilbert in 1583 to the US Supreme Court in 1823. In its decision Johnson v M'intosh, the Court ruled the Original Nations and Peoples of this country had a mere right of occupancy but no legal title to the land:

"On the discovery of this immense continent, the great nations of Europe were eager to appropriate to themselves so much of it as they could respectively acquire. Its vast extent offered an ample field to the ambition and enterprise of all; and the character and religion of its inhabitants afforded an apology for considering them as a people over whom the superior genius of Europe might claim an ascendancy. The potentates of the old world found no difficulty in convincing themselves that they made ample compensation to the inhabitants of the new, by bestowing on them civilization and Christianity, in exchange for unlimited independence. But, as they were all in pursuit of nearly the same object, it was necessary, in order to avoid conflicting settlements, and consequent war with each other, to establish a principle, which all should acknowledge as the law by which the right of acquisition, which they all asserted, should be regulated as between themselves. This principle was, that discovery gave title to the government by whose subjects, or by whose authority, it was made, against all other European governments, which title might be consummated by possession.

"In the establishment of these relations, the rights of the original inhabitants were, in no instance, entirely disregarded; but were necessarily, to a considerable extent, impaired. They were admitted to be the rightful occupants of the soil, with a legal as well as just claim to retain possession of it, and to use it according to their own discretion; but their rights to complete sovereignty, as independent nations, were necessarily diminished, and their power to dispose of the soil at their own will, to whomsoever they pleased, was denied by the original fundamental principle, that discovery gave exclusive title to those who made it."

Though Chief Justice Marshall writing for the Supreme Court does not use the term "Christian" Discovery, that is the basis for this decision. So a country that purports to keep separate church and state has based the most important Supreme Court decision ever issued affecting the Original Nations and Peoples of this land on a religious concept condemned by the United Nations and many 21st century religious bodies.

Anyone with even a cursory interest in Maine politics and the political scene knows of the deep conflict between the Wabanaki Nations and Peoples who reside in what we today call Maine, and Maine State Government. I deliberatedly chose Maine State Government instead of Maine People because I know many Maine residents oppose the actions and policies that Maine State Government has pursued on what political leaders would call its citizens' behalf. For anyone here unfamiliar with the term Wabanaki, I am referring to the Original Nations and Peoples that inhabit New England and provinces in eastern Canada who speak a common Algonquin-based language and share many cultural practices, spirituality, and traditions. They have also been united for centuries in the Wabanaki Confederacy. In Maine, these Wabanaki Peoples include the Abenaki, Maliseets, Micmacs, Passamaquoddies, and Penobscots.

The Wabanaki did not escape the American genocide. Many Wabanaki Peoples who lived in this territory at the time of early European contact no longer exist (see Unsettled Past, Unsettled Future: The Story of Maine Indians, by Neil Rolde). For the Wabanaki Peoples that remain, they are engaged in a constant struggle for survival.

Maine State Government has also acted in a white supremacist and colonial posture toward the Wabanaki no different that other states within this country or the United States or other nation-states of the world. I can point to many examples. I offer two from the Maine judiciary. In Murch v Tomer decided by the Maine Supreme Court in 1842, the court said: "Imbecility on their [the Indians'] part, and the dictates of humanity on ours, have necessarily prescribed to them their subjection to our paternal control; In disregard of some at least, of abstract principles of the rights of man." Fifty years later the Maine Supreme Court opined in State v Newell (1892), "Though these Indians...perhaps consider themselves a tribe, they have for many years been without a tribal organization in any political sense...They are as completely subject to the State as any other inhabitants can be."

Reflecting the paternal control the State of Maine exerted for 155 plus years, from the inception of Maine as a state in 1820 until the Passamaquoddy v Morton decision in January 1975, the Maine Legislature passed numerous laws controlling and regulating the Wabanaki. The compilation of these laws was commonly referred to as the blue book, State of Maine: A Compilation of Laws Pertaininig to Indians, prepared by the now defunct Department of Indian Affairs.

Another example of the State of Maine denying the political rights of the Wabanaki applies to voting. The audience may be unaware that the State of Maine, not Alabama or Mississippi or some other state we might want to believe is more racist and less progressive than the Pine Tree State, was the last state in the US to grant the Wabanaki the right to vote in state elections. It happened in 1967.

Despite all the colonial oppression directed at the Wabanaki, they have endured and have refused to become acculturated and assimilated. Unbelievably, Wabanaki Tribal Governments continue to find themselves constrained by laws rooted in the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination. The most significant of these laws is the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980. The Act resulted in response to a land claim initially brought by the Passamaquoddy Tribe and later joined by the Penobscot Nation. During the last year of negotiations that produced the settlement agreement, the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians joined the process.

The Settlement Act consists of two acts that function together, a state act known as the Maine Implementing Act, and the federal act titled the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act. The state act would not have effect or force of law without the federal act. The reason is the Federal Government has principal authority iin governmental relations with Indian Tribes, not the individual states. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution states, "Congress shall have the power to regulate Commerce with foreign nations and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes."

Though the Maine Implementing Act would not have effect without Congress ratifying it when it enacted the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act in 1980, disputes involving the settlement agreement most often focus on the state act. Several initiatives have been attempted during the settlement agreements' nearly 40-year history to address some of its flaws and produce a more just agreement. The Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission (MITSC), a body created as part of the Maine Implementing Act to monitor the implementation of the Act and to make recommendations to the signatories, found in 2012:

"These Acts are in serious nonconformance with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), both in the process leading up to their enactment and in how they have been implemented. The Acts have created structural inequities that have resulted in conditions that have risen to the level of human rights violations." (in MITSC's letter May 16, 2012 to Mr. James Anaya, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples)

Several provisions in the Maine Implementing Act reflect the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination. The most egregious in my opinion is Section 6204:

"6204 Laws of the State to Apply to Indian Lands. Except as otherwise provided in this Act, all Indians, Indian nations, and tribes and bands of Indians in the State and any lands or other natural resources owned by them, held in trust for them by the United States or by any other person or entity shall be subject to the laws of the State and to the civil and criminal jurisdiction of the courts of the State to the same extent as any other person or lands or other natural resources therein." [1979]

In 2019, leadership exercised by the Wabanaki Tribal Governments with active support from individuals and groups committed to a more just Wabanaki-State of Maine relationship has resulted in the creation of a Task Force on changes to the Implementing Act. The Task Force was directed to:

"...review An Act to Implement the Maine Indian Claims Settlement and the Micmac Settlement Act and make recommendations to the Legislature for legislation regarding any suggested changes to those Acts. Recommendations of the task force must be made by consensus. For the purposes of this order, "consensus" means consensus between representatives on the task force of the tribe or tribes affected by the suggested changes and a majority of the other voting members of the task force." (129th Maine State Legislature, Joint Order Establishing the Task Force on Changes to the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Implementing Act)

All of us...can help expunge this repugnant, colonial, and evil Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination from Maine law. I urge you to contact your State Representative and State Senator. Tell them to support the changes submitted by the Wabanaki Tribal Governments that include striking Section 6204. Let's stop oppressing the Wabanaki and all Original Peoples throughout the world.
Editor's note: The Task Force Final Report with 22 Recommendations was submitted to the Joint Standing Committee on Judiciary of the Maine Legislature in January 2020. Once the Committee had transformed these recommendations into LD 2094 An Act to Implement the Recommendations of the Task Force on Changes to the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Implementing Act, several public hearings were held in February, followed by worksessions in early March with tribal counsel and relevant committees weighing in. At that point, work was halted by the pandemic. LD 2094 will be carried over to any special session of the legislature.

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During his tenure as the Executive Director for the Maine Indian Tribal State Commission, John Dieffenbacher-Krall worked closely with Maine Wabanaki REACH engaging tribal and state partners, assisting with writing the mandate and developing the Commission selection process.

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One mission, two locations - Inspiring new learning about the Wabanaki Nations with every visit. In recent years, the Abbe has grown from a small trailside museum, privately operated within Acadia National Park, to an exciting contemporary museum in the heart of downtown Bar Harbor. In 2013, the Mus

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When this goal is realized, the Abbe, tribal communities, and academia will be working in concert. New Abbe resources will attract researchers to its collections, and field work will continue with a clearly-defined, Wabanaki-supported, research agenda.

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Gathering is only allowed on Maine's Public Lands, not on Maine State Parks and Historic Sites.
[Source: https://www.maine.gov/dacf/parks/hunting_fishing/index.shtml]

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Hunting, fishing and gathering are traditional pursuits in Maine.

Hunting is allowed on Public Lands and many of the State Parks in accordance with the laws of the State of Maine, the laws and rules of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (IF&W); and local ordinances. Additionally see the IF&W Wildlife Management Areas virtual tour.

Use our Park Search Feature and select the hunting icon under "Search by Activities" to find the allowable hunting locations on Maine State Parks and Public Lands.

Hunting is not allowed at State Historic Sites or Memorials or at these properties:

Bradbury Mountain State Park west of State Route 9

Cobscook Bay State Park

Crescent Beach and Kettle Cove State Parks

Damariscotta Lake State Park

Ferry Beach State Park

Holbrook Island Sanctuary State Park

Owls Head Light State Park

Quoddy Head State Park within 1,000 feet of the lighthouse

Reid State Park

Sebago Lake State Park

Shackford Head State Park

Two Lights State Park

Wolfe's Neck Woods State Park

Additional Hunting Closures and Rules are listed in the Rules for State Parks and Historic Sites.

Bear Baiting information.

Fishing is a popular sport for all ages in Maine.

Gathering is a tradition of many Maine families who make a day of berry picking and seasonal treks to the woods to collect fir tips for wreath making or birch and ash for basket making.

Is only allowed on Maine's Public Lands, not on Maine State Parks and Historic Sites.

Permits are required for some forms of gathering. A list and contact information is provided on the gathering page.

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Hunting, fishing and gathering are traditional pursuits in Maine. Hunting is allowed on Public Lands and many of the State Parks in accordance with the laws of the State of Maine, the laws and rules of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (IF&W); and local ordinances.

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HALIFAX -- A man police say is a "person of interest" is in hospital with life-threatening injuries after a large fire destroyed a commercial building reported to be a lobster pound used by Mi'kmaw fishers.

Shortly after midnight on Saturday, Yarmouth County RCMP and West Pubnico Fire Department responded to a structure fire at a fish plant located at 1065 Highway 335 in Middle West Pubnico, N.S.

RCMP says the building incurred "significant damage," but was not occupied at the time, and no employees were injured.

Sgt. Andrew Joyce of the RCMP confirms that the man taken to hospital was not an employee of the building and is "considered a person of interest in the RCMP's investigation."

RCMP remain on scene Saturday morning and are investigating the fire as suspicious.

Chief Mike Sack of the Sipekne'katik First Nation confirmed in a statement Saturday morning that the building was "owned by a friend and ally of Sipekne'katik."

"The devastating fire at the lobster pound in Middle West Pubnico further illustrates the need for greater police presence in the region," wrote Sack in an emailed statement. "This should never have happened, and the people responsible should be brought to justice. I do believe with the proper police presence, however, this could have been avoided. I am once again calling on Prime Minister Trudeau and the RCMP to dedicate the necessary resources to this region to protect everyone. I am extremely concerned that someone is going to hurt or worse."

"Our community members are working with the people that own those pounds," says Sack. "The industry doesn't like that - so they're forcing anyone that's dealing with us out of the industry."

Jonathan LeBlanc, fire chief for Eel Brook & District Fire Department, says his department was one of eight that received a call to assist the West Pubnico fire department with the structure fire.

Twitter user Pierrette dEntremont posted a video of the blaze early Saturday morning.

"I can't believe it's actually happening," says dEntremont.

LeBlanc says that upon arrival, the building was fully involved, and crews were unable to approach it due to power lines.

Crews focused on protecting exposures to adjacent buildings while the building was destroyed.

LeBlanc estimates that 80 to 120 firefighters from eight area fire departments were at the scene overnight. He says that after several hours, crews were able to contain the fire around 4:30 a.m.

There is no idea of the fire's cause at this point, and LeBlanc says it will be difficult to determine as the building was fully involved when crews arrived. The fire marshal has been called to investigate.

FAMILIAR SCENE

While LeBlanc wasn't able to confirm the use of the building, a media representative for Sipekne'katik First Nation confirmed to CTV Atlantic that the building was the same lobster pound where two employees had barricaded themselves in on Tuesday.

RCMP confirmed in a news release that about 200 people were present at two incidents Tuesday night outside lobster pounds in southwestern Nova Scotia, during which employees were prevented from leaving, rocks were thrown, and a vehicle was set on fire.

Jason Marr, a fisher from Sipekne'katik, said he and another Indigenous lobster fisherman were trapped inside the Middle West Pubnico facility after he arrived to store his lobster.

"Somebody followed me to the place in Pubnico, and I wasn't there for three minutes before 200 guys showed up," Marr said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

He said the non-Indigenous "mob" threw stones at the facility, broke windows and damaged his van, burning its interior. Marr said that when RCMP arrived, they wanted him to leave the building, but he declined and remained barricaded inside.

"They said, `If you don't come out, we're going burn you out,'" he said of the crowd outside. "I watched them pour stuff in my gas tank and my van, slash the tires, cut wires, they pissed all inside of it."

DEMAND FOR INVESTIGATION

On Twitter Saturday, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde said he's reached out to the RCMP and the federal government to express First Nations' "deep concern."

"I demand a full and thorough investigation by the proper authorities," Bellegarde said. "I will be monitoring the situation and will update later today."

CALLS FOR CALM

Sack believes the pound wouldn't have been destroyed had a larger police presence been in place. Despite a man - who is considered a person of interest in connection to the suspicious fire - being sent to hospital with life-threatening injuries, Sack is sympathetic.

"My stomach turned. The last thing we want is for anyone to be hurt," says Sack. "We pray for strength and courage and for everyone to be safe. Everyone has a family to go home to - we're not here to fight."

A group of six Nova Scotia senators, meanwhile, condemned what they described as escalating violence against Mi'kmaq fishers. Their remarks came in a statement released just hours before the Middle West Pubnico blaze broke out.

"Regardless of whatever concerns individuals or groups may have, there can be no justification for the vigilantism and blatant racism that is now being witnessed," the statement said.

"We urge everyone involved to remain calm and peaceful and let the discussions currently underway proceed without any further violent acts, racial insults or threats of any kind."

The senators said the Mounties must "rapidly and effectively uphold their responsibility to restore peace and order."

Tension has been building for weeks between Indigenous and non-Indigenous lobster fishers in southwest N.S.

On Friday, the chief of the Sipekne'katik First Nation said between 150 and 200 lobster traps were lost after non-Indigenous commercial fishers cut lines and destroyed buoys.

The Sipekne'katik band argues Indigenous people in Atlantic Canada and Quebec have a treaty right to fish for a moderate livelihood where and when they want, based on a 1999 Supreme Court of Canada decision that cites treaties signed by the Crown in the 1700s.

Many non-Indigenous critics, however, invoke a clarification issued four months after the 1999 ruling, stating the Mi'kmaq treaty rights would be subject to federal regulations to ensure the conservation of the resource, in consultation with First Nations.

PUSHING FORWARD

Sack calls the incident a "huge step back in the relationship with the commercial fishermen."

The incident prompted statements of solidarity from various federal cabinet ministers and a pledge to deploy more RCMP officers to the area.

Despite the support, Sack says the army is needed to prevent commercial fishermen from "taking the law into their own hands."

"They're doing whatever they want and getting away with it," he said in an interview. "We need the military to come step in to keep the peace."

"This was retaliation," Sack said. "We're being targeted now. These are hate crimes."

Meanwhile, spokesperson for the Maritime Fishermen's Union, Ruth Innis, describes what is happening in the community as anarchy - noting threats are being hurled from both sides. Innis says commercial fishermen have been vilified but says they're not.

The Maritime Fisherman's Union is now calling on Ottawa to appoint an independent mediator to bring everyone to the table.

"If the Government of Canada was doing their job, this would not be happening - communities would be safe, they would be living in peace," says Innis. "Maybe we should ask Prime Minister Trudeau if he's happy that his Canadian families are living in fear."

Despite the apparent setback, the First Nation is pushing forward.

"We had a call with Minister Jordan today - we had a great conversation with her," says Sack. "We're looking to move forward with our plan and have the government uphold our treaty rights."

Meanwhile, Meteghan RCMP have laid charges in relation to the assault of Chief Michael Sack that occurred on Wednesday, October 14, in New Edinburgh. Chris Gerald Melanson, 46, of Digby County, was arrested Friday evening and has been charged with assault. Melanson was released from custody on conditions and is scheduled to appear in Digby Provincial Court on December 21 at 9:30 a.m.

With files from The Canadian Press.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Sarah Plowman

Correction:

The lobster pound in this story was originally described as a Mi'kmaw-owned lobster pound. It has been clarified by Sipekne'katik First Nation Chief Mike Sack that the building "is owned by a friend and ally of Sipekne'katik".

view larger image

A fish plant in Middle West Pubnico, N.S. was destroyed in an early Saturday morning fire that police are investigating as suspicious. (Photo via: CTV Atlantic's Sarah Plowman)

A fish plant in Middle West Pubnico, N.S. was destroyed in an early Saturday morning fire that police are investigating as suspicious. (Photo via: CTV Atlantic's Sarah Plowman)

A fish plant in Middle West Pubnico, N.S. was destroyed in an early Saturday morning fire that police are investigating as suspicious. (Photo via: CTV Atlantic's Sarah Plowman)

A fish plant in Middle West Pubnico, N.S. was destroyed in an early Saturday morning fire that police are investigating as suspicious. (Photo via: CTV Atlantic's Sarah Plowman)

A large fire completely destroyed a commercial building, reported to be a Mi'kmaq lobster pound, in Middle West Pubnico, N.S. in the early morning hours of Oct. 17. (Photo via: Pierrette dEntremont)

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Fire destroys N.S. lobster pound, police say 'person of interest' hospitalized with injuries

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HALIFAX -- A man police say is a "person of interest" is in hospital with life-threatening injuries after a large fire destroyed a commercial building reported to be a lobster pound used by Mi'kmaw fishers.

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Former Grand Chief for Northern Manitoba Shelia North said:

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Former Grand Chief for Northern Manitoba Shelia North said:

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Hunting and livelihoods are at the heart of it. Indigenous people have been denied these rights for many generations. That’s why a lot of people are sick, that’s why we keep calling Indigenous people and communities the most vulnerable during this pandemic time, because they haven’t been given the right and access to live out what they have a treaty right to, living off the land and supporting their families through these practices that have been there for many, many generations.

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An explainer on the Mi'kmaq lobster conflict

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Who is involved and what's at stake? Here are key points you need to know about the Mi'kmaq lobster dispute brewing in Nova Scotia.

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Wabanaki presence slowly dissipated here with the colonization of MDI. Eventually, Wabanaki encampments were banned from Bar Harbor and the surrounding lands.

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Stereoview by Kilburn Brothers

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The significance of all of this for Acadia National Park and its visitors is the fact that Mount Desert Island has been a nexus point over the centuries for Wabanaki peoples – not only part of their prehistoric and historic hunting, fishing, gathering and trading range, but a strategic location in military maneuverings during the colonial wars and American Revolution, a prime place for marketing traditional crafts (and thereby for sustaining knowledge concerning the making of these crafts) and more recently a center point in their individual and collective efforts toward cultural reclamation.

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In its unanimous judgment on the case, the court ruled that, based on the 1752 treaty, Simon had the right to hunt for food anywhere in Mi’kmaq country. This right was not absolute; it had to include “reasonably incidental activities” such as travelling with necessary equipment to the hunting grounds and safe ownership of a hunting rifle and ammunition.

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In 1927, Gabriel Sylliboy, the first elected Grand Chief of the Mi'kmaq Grand Council (in 1918), was arrested on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia for hunting and possessing pelts out of season while off his Whycocomagh reserve. While Sylliboy argued that he had Indigenous rights to hunt and fish on the land, he was convicted of these charges in Magistrate's Court under Nova Scotia's Lands and Forests Act.

Appeal and Ruling

In R. v. Sylliboy, chief Sylliboy appealed the ruling in a County Court in July 1928, using treaty rights as a defence. He argued that the 1752 Peace and Friendship Treaty signed between the Crown and Mi'kmaq chief Jean Baptiste Cope recognized the right of his people to freely hunt and fish on traditional territories. As the treaty states, "It is agreed that the said Tribe of Indians shall not be hindered from, but have free liberty of Hunting & Fishing as usual." Sylliboy and five members of the Mi'kmaq nation - Joe Christmas, Andrew Alec, Andrew Barnard, Francis Gould and Ben Christmas - testified at the trial, supporting the hunting rights and practices of their people.

Judge George Patterson explored aspects of Mi'kmaq treaty rights as they related to the case but ruled that the conviction stood. According to Patterson, the Mi'kmaq "were never regarded as an independent power" and therefore, could not have entered into a treaty with the Crown. Moreover, Patterson concluded that Governor Hopson, who signed the 1752 treaty with the Mi'kmaq, did not have the authority to make such an agreement. Thirty-six years after losing his appeal, Sylliboy died on 4 March 1964.

The Simon Case and its Impact

In 1981, James Simon of the Mi'kmaq nation was convicted, much like Gabriel Sylliboy before him, under Nova Scotia's Lands and Forests Act for possession of a rifle and shotgun cartridges. Similar to the Sylliboy case, the Court of Appeal upheld the judge's ruling that the Treaty of 1752 did not exempt Simon from provisions of the provincial Lands and Forests Act.

Parallels between the two cases ended when R. v. Simon went to the Supreme Court of Canada in 1985. Simon argued that the right to hunt, as set out in the Treaty of 1752, combined with section 88 of the , offered his people immunity from prosecution under the provincial act. (Section 88 states that although provincial laws of general application apply to Indigenous peoples in Canada, these are subject to the terms of any treaty.)

In its unanimous judgment on the case, the court ruled that, based on the 1752 treaty, Simon had the right to hunt for food anywhere in Mi'kmaq country. This right was not absolute; it had to include "reasonably incidental activities" such as travelling with necessary equipment to the hunting grounds and safe ownership of a hunting rifle and ammunition.

Despite these limitations, the court's ruling vindicated Simon and overturned the Sylliboy decision. Chief Justice Brian Dickson stated that "the language used [in the Sylliboy case] reflects the biases and prejudices of another era in [Canada's] history. Such language is no longer acceptable."

Since the Sylliboy case, section 35 of the Canadian Constitution enshrined the rights of Indigenous peoples, and as a result, higher courts began to recognize treaties with Indigenous peoples as potential justifications for offences against provincial jurisdiction.

Today, the Treaty of 1752 remains in effect.

DID YOU KNOW?
In the case ofR. v. Marshall (1999), Donald Marshall Jr., the son of a Mi'kmaq grand chief, was charged with illegal fishing in Nova Scotia. He defended himself using the Peace and Friendship Treaties of 1760 and 1761. Marshall won his case; the Supreme Court ruled that the Mi'kmaq could earn a living from fishing and hunting as their ancestors once did. It also stated that courts must "choose from among the various possible interpretations... the one which best reconciles" Indigenous interests and those of theCrown.

Official Pardon and Apology

On the 50th anniversary of Gabriel Sylliboy's death in 2014, his family raised the issue of requesting an apology or pardon from the provincial government for his wrongful conviction with the Mi'kmaq Grand Council. Grand Keptin Andrew Denny of the council first approached the premier of Nova Scotia about the matter in 2016. In March of that year, Nova Scotia's chiefs formally asked the provincial government to act.

On 16 February 2017, Sylliboy received a posthumous free pardon from Lt.-Governor J.J. Grant. A free pardon, which recognizes that a conviction was made in error, is considered "only in the rarest of circumstances," according to the office of the premier. This marked just the second posthumously granted free pardon by the province. (The first went to Viola Desmond in 2010.)

Lt.-Governor Grant said that Sylliboy was pursuing his "aboriginal and treaty rights" and called the pardon "a process of treaty education," which included "understanding and valuing what the Mi'kmaq have contributed in shaping this province and nation."

The same day, Justice Minister Diana Whalen and Premier Stephen McNeil formally apologized to the Grand Chief's family and the Mi'kmaq community for Sylliboy's unjust treatment.

Grand Chief Ben Sylliboy of the Mi'kmaq Grand Council called the pardon and apology "a significant symbolic step towards reconciliation." ( See also Truth and Reconciliation Commission.) He said that contemporary Mi'kmaq peoples celebrate their constitutionally protected Indigenous and treaty rights largely because of people like Gabriel Sylliboy. ( See also Treaty Day.)

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In 1927, Gabriel Sylliboy, the first elected Grand Chief of the Mi'kmaq Grand Council (in 1918), was arrested on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia for hunting and possessing pelts out of season while off his Whycocomagh reserve.

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Donald Marshall Jr., pictured here with Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson. (Courtesy the Marshall family)

Trial Case and Appeal

In R. v. Marshall, Donald Marshall Jr. argued that he was fishing lawfully, based on the Peace and Friendship Treaties. Judge John Embree of Nova Scotia's Provincial Court agreed that the 1760-61 treaties once gave the Mi'kmaq the right to "bring the products of their hunting, fishing and gathering to a truckhouse to trade." However, since a system of truckhouses (licensed Indigenous traders) did not exist in August 1993, Judge Embree ruled that there was no right to trade. Embree convicted Marshall on all three offences on 27 June 1996. ( See also Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Canada.)

Marshall then pleaded his case in the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal in February 1997. On 26 March 1997, the appeals court maintained his conviction. The court rejected Marshall's argument that he was exempted from obeying the province's fishing regulations.

Supreme Court Case

The Supreme Court of Canada heard the Marshall case on 5 November 1998 and a decision was reached on 17 September 1999. The judges ruled that the scope of Donald Marshall Jr.'s fishing activities fell within treaty rights. This is because Marshall was selling eel only in limited quantities to "obtain necessaries" as a "moderate livelihood." Marshall was supporting himself and his family, not operating a large-scale commercial fishery.

The Supreme Court ruled that the Peace and Friendship Treaties of 1760-61 created an ongoing treaty right "to obtain necessaries through hunting and fishing by trading the products of...traditional activities." It also stated that courts must "choose from among the various possible interpretations...the one which best reconciles" Indigenous interests and those of the Crown.

These treaty rights are protected under section 35 of the Constitution of Canada. According to Marshall's lawyer, Bruce Wildsmith, the rights apply to the Mi'kmaq in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. They also apply to Quebec's Gaspé area and the south coast of Newfoundland. The Supreme Court noted that these rights are held by the community as a whole because Indigenous groups, rather than individuals, negotiated the treaties.

DID YOU KNOW?
Donald Marshall Jr.'s eeling nets, taken by fisheries officials in 1993, are now displayed at a heritage park in Membertou First Nation on Cape Breton Island. (See also Reserves in Nova Scotia.) After storing the weathered nets in an Antigonish locker for about 26 years, Fisheries and Oceans Canada returned them to the Marshall family. The nets were on display at a 20th-anniversary event commemorating theSupreme Court of Canada's Marshall decision onIndigenous fishing rights

Marshall II

The Supreme Court of Canada's initial ruling drew criticism and protest from non-Indigenous fishermen. They were upset because some Indigenous people immediately started fishing out of season. In addition, the court never defined what it meant to fish for "a moderate livelihood."

On 17 November 1999, the Supreme Court clarified its ruling in what became known as Marshall II. The court stated that Indigenous treaty rights were not unlimited. Indigenous fishing activities can be regulated based on conservation concerns or other important public objectives. This ruling angered some Indigenous groups, who viewed it as backpedalling on the original decision.

In Marshall II, the Supreme Court defined the term "gathering" as relating to resources historically gathered in an Indigenous economy, aside from fishing and hunting. However, the term "moderate livelihood" remains undefined. Federal fisheries minister Dominic LeBlanc appointed a federal consultant in November 2017 to negotiate with the Mi'kmaq, Wolastoqiyik and Peskotomuhkati towards the "reconciliation of fisheries rights." Together, they plan to come up with a workable definition of a "moderate livelihood."

Impact

The Marshall case is a ground-breaking decision in Indigenous treaty rights. It affirms the rights of the Mi'kmaq, Wolastoqiyik and Peskotomuhkati as set out in the Peace and Friendship Treaties.

Indigenous communities covered by the decision gained access to commercial fisheries, including the lucrative lobster industry, with the help of federal funding from Fisheries and Oceans Canada. In exchange for training, licences and vessels, Indigenous communities agreed to operate by the federal government's commercial fishery regulations. ( See also Fisheries Policy.) The number of Indigenous workers in fisheries has increased. The Marshall decision has helped Indigenous communities develop. Processing plants and related businesses have expanded, bringing substantial economic benefit. R. v. Marshall has helped to revive sustainable and responsible harvesting, known as netukulimk in Mi'kmaq.

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Donald Marshall Jr., pictured here with Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson. (Courtesy the Marshall family) In R. v. Marshall, Donald Marshall Jr. argued that he was fishing lawfully, based on the Peace and Friendship Treaties. Judge John Embree of Nova Scotia's Provincial Court agreed that the 1760-61 treaties once gave the Mi'kmaq the right to "bring the products of their hunting, fishing and gathering to a truckhouse to trade."

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Peace and Friendship Treaties.
(courtesy Victor Temprano/Native-Land.ca)

Historical Context

The Indigenous nations that have inhabited most of North America's northern Atlantic region include the Mi'kmaq, Wolastoqiyik, Passamaquoddy, Abenaki and Penobscot. These Eastern-Algonquian speakers were loosely united in the 18th-century political alliance known as the Wabanaki Confederacy. When Europeans arrived, the inhabitants of the region - an area that includes the current-day provinces of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, as well as Quebec's Gaspé region and some of the state of Maine - became involved in colonial wars between the French and British.

The French readily established alliances with Indigenous peoples in the area. After France claimed Acadia in 1604 and established a settlement at Port-Royal in 1605, French-Indigenous relations emphasized peace and collaboration in trade. Indigenous nations in Acadia allied politically with France in the 17th century, and the Wabanaki Confederacy fought with France against English colonial forces in the First Abenaki War (1675-77), King William's War (1688-97) and Queen Anne's War (which was the North American part of the War of the Spanish Succession, 1701-13).

While the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht that ended Queen Anne's War ceded most of Acadia to Britain, the Maine and New Brunswick borderlands were never clearly defined and armed conflict erupted again in 1722. A pattern of peace and conflict between Wabanaki nations and Britain continued until the Conquest in 1760 ended France's military influence in the region. ( See also Treaties with Indigenous Peoples in Canada.)

Treaties of 1725 and 1726

The 1725 treaty officially ended Dummer's War (1722-25) - a series of conflicts between the British and Wabanaki Confederacy over the borderlines between Acadia and New England. By the summer of 1725, both sides wanted to end the escalating violence. Acting with British approval, a Penobscot man named Sauguaaram (or Saccamakten) initiated armistice talks among his people, and in December 1725, the Penobscot and some other allied Indigenous bands in the northeastern United States signed what became known as the Treaty of Boston (or Dummer's Treaty).

One year later, the Mi'kmaq and Wolastoqiyik in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick (as well as the Abenaki and Passamaquoddy living in Massachusetts and New Hampshire) signed essentially the same agreement, sometimes referred to as Mascarene's Treaty (named for military officer Paul Mascarene, who became the acting governor of Nova Scotia in 1740). By signing the treaty, Indigenous peoples agreed to cease hostilities against Britain; in exchange, the British promised not to interfere with Indigenous hunting, fishing and farming.

While the Treaties of 1725 and 1726 were not the first peace agreements signed by the Crown and eastern Indigenous nations (for example, the Abenaki had signed a peace treaty with Massachusetts in 1678 that was renewed in 1686, 1693, 1689, 1713 and 1714), the 1725-6 Treaties now included the Mi'kmaq, who had not previously signed a peace agreement with Britain.

Treaty of 1749

Peace was short-lived, as the Mi'kmaq and Wolastoqiyik allied with France against Britain during King George's War (the North American part of the War of the Austrian Succession, 1744-48). After that conflict ended, Nova Scotia's Governor Edward Cornwallis, hoping to secure control over lands west of the Missaguash River, and to reconfirm loyalty to the Crown, invited the two Indigenous nations to sign a new treaty. However, most Mi'kmaq leaders refused to attend the 1749 peace talks in protest of the governor's founding of Halifax that year. Moreover, increasing British military presence and settlement in the region threatened traditional Mi'kmaq villages, territories and fishing and hunting grounds. Only the Chignecto Mi'kmaq joined the Wolastoqiyik in signing the treaty at Halifax on 15 August. This agreement renewed the Boston Treaty of 1725 without adding new terms.

Treaty of 1752

Governor Edward Cornwallis punished the rest of the Mi'kmaq for refusing to engage in treaty making by posting a reward of ten guineas for any Mi'kmaw captured or scalped in the region (this reward increased to 50 guineas in June 1750). Other historical accounts suggest that Cornwallis called for the capture and death of the Mi'kmaq after they had sent him a letter in late September 1749 that read, "'the place where you are...where you are building a fortification...the place of which you want to make yourself absolute master, this place belongs to me. Me, the Indian...."A third theory maintains that Cornwallis sought revenge on the Mi'kmaq after some warriors seized a ship at Canso in September 1749.

Regardless of his reason, Cornwallis offered a bounty on Mi'kmaq heads. Anglo-Mi'kmaq hostilities during this time initiated the first phase of the Anglo-Micmac War (1749-60), in which Mi'kmaq fighters, supported by Acadian militiamen, unsuccessfully attempted to expel British colonists from traditional Wabanaki homelands. Fighting ceased temporarily in 1752 with the signing of a treaty at Halifax on 22 November by Jean-Baptiste Cope, chief of the Shubenacadie (Sipekne'katik) Mi'kmaq in Nova Scotia, and Peregrine Hopson, the province's governor. It is sometimes referred to as the Halifax Treaty. In 2002, the Sipekne'katik First Nation erected a monument in honour of Cope and the signing of the 1752 treaty.

Contemporary scholars debate whether Cope signed on behalf of all Mi'kmaq, or just for his own band, but in either case, financial considerations likely motivated Cope's signing of the treaty. The ensuing peace agreement included the British pledge to establish "truck houses" (trading posts) for the use of the Indigenous peoples involved in the treaty. This would have allowed Britain to challenge French trading in the region and given the Mi'kmaq greater access to finished European goods. However, no truck houses were built in accordance with this treaty.

Treaties of 1760 and 1761

The Anglo-Micmac War resumed when members of the Wabanaki Confederacy sided with France against Britain in the Seven Years War (1756-63). France had lost Quebec and other key holdings to the British by 1760, leading the Wabanaki to make peace treaties with the British.

The Wolastoqiyik and Passamaquoddy signed a treaty on 22 February 1760, agreeing to uphold the provisions of the Boston Treaty of 1725 and to stop trading with enemies of the Crown. In exchange, Britain promised to establish a truck house at Fort Frederick, New Brunswick. On 10 March, the La Have, Sipekne'katik and Richibuctou Mi'kmaq also signed the 1760 treaty.

The Treaty of 1761 was signed on 25 June by the Miramichi, Shediac, Pokemouche and Cape Breton Mi'kmaq in a "Burying the Hatchet" ceremony in Halifax. The Chignecto and Pictou Mi'kmaq signed onto the 1761 treaty on 12 October.

Much like the previous agreements, the 1760-61 treaties guaranteed Mi'kmaq, Wolastoqiyik and Passamaquoddy peoples the right to hunt, fish, farm land and earn a reasonable living without British interference. In 1762, Belcher's Proclamation (named for Jonathan Belcher, Nova Scotia's governor) confirmed Britain's intention to protect the land rights of the Mi'kmaq. ( See also Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Canada.)

Celebrated annually on 1 October, Nova Scotia's Treaty Day commemorates the signing of the 1760-61 Peace and Friendship Treaties. The first of October is a significant date to the Mi'kmaq especially, because this was when they were to receive a gift from the Government of Nova Scotia and to renew their relationship with the Crown.

Treaties of 1778 and 1779

With the start of the American Revolution in 1775, the British sought to confirm bonds of peace and friendship with Indigenous allies in Eastern Canada. ( See also American Revolution - Invasion of Canada.) On 24 September 1778, Wolastoqiyik delegates from the St. John River area and Mi'kmaq representatives from Richibuctou, Miramichi and Chignecto signed an agreement promising not to assist the Americans in the revolution and to follow their "hunting and fishing in a peaceable and quiet manner."

The following year, Mi'kmaq people from Cape Tormentine to Chaleur Bay signed a similar peace agreement with the British. As confirmed by The Court of Appeal of New Brunswick in R. v. Paul, 1980, the 1779 Treaty guaranteed fishing and hunting rights: "The said Indians and their Constituents, shall remain in the Districts before mentioned, quiet and free from any molestation of any of His Majesty's Troops, or other his good Subjects in their Hunting and Fishing."

Post-1780 Period

With the coming of the Loyalists in the 1780s, the nation-to-nation relationship that once existed between the Crown and First Nations was altered. Settler governments were less inclined to honour the terms of the Peace and Friendship Treaties. Loyalist migrations and the provincial government's creation of reserves in the 19th century pushed Indigenous peoples onto lots of land that were much smaller than their traditional territories. Despite their perceived reduced power in the eyes of the settler-colonists, the Mi'kmaq and Wolastoqiyik peoples never forgot about the Peace and Friendship Treaties and have used them to defend their rights to hunting, fishing and land use.

The Treaties in Select Case Law

Beginning in the 20th century, various descendants of the Indigenous signatories of the Peace and Friendship Treaties have taken the federal government to court in an attempt to recognize and protect their treaty rights. The following section provides examples of key cases in Canadian law that involve disputes over the terms of the Peace and Friendship Treaties.
The Sylliboy Case, 1927
In 1927, Gabriel Sylliboy, grand chief of the Mi'kmaq Grand Council (1918-64) was charged with out-of-season hunting. In his case, R. v. Sylliboy, he argued that the Treaty of 1752 protected his right to hunt on the territory in question. According to Mi'kmaq law professor Naiomi Metallic, this was the first time treaty rights were used as a defence in a court of law. Sylliboy was unable to convince the court of his treaty rights and was consequently convicted of his charges. In 2017, nearly 90 years after the ruling (and well after Sylliboy died in 1964) the Government of Nova Scotia pardoned Sylliboy of his convictions in 2017.
The Simon Case, 1985
In 1980, James Matthew Simon, a member of the Sipekne'katik (Shubenacadie) First Nation (Mi'kmaq) in Nova Scotia, was charged with violating provincial hunting regulations. Much like Sylliboy, Simon argued that the Treaty of 1752 gave him the right to hunt and fish freely in the area. The Province of Nova Scotia disagreed, arguing among other reasons that subsequent conflicts between the British and the Mi'kmaq terminated these treaty rights.

The case of Simon v. The Queen went to the Supreme Court of Canada in 1985. The judges recognized Mi'kmaq rights to hunt for food and ruled that treaty rights had not been extinguished. Simon was subsequently acquitted of the charges against him. This was the first time the courts had affirmed the rights of the Mi'kmaq people as set out in the Treaty of 1752.

Treaty Day in Nova Scotia was held for the first time in 1986 - the year after the Simon case - on 1 October, the day the Treaty of 1752 designated for renewing friendship between the Mi'kmaq and the Crown.
The Marshall Case, 1993
In August 1993, Donald Marshall Jr., a member of the Membertou First Nation (Mi'kmaq), was arrested and charged for fishing violations in Nova Scotia. Marshall argued that the treaties of 1760 and 1761 enshrined his right to catch and sell fish. He took his case - R. v. Marshall - to the Supreme Court of Canada. In September 1999, the court ruled that the hunting and fishing rights guaranteed to the Indigenous signatories in the treaty had never been extinguished, and therefore, the modern-day descendants of these peoples in the Maritimes and in Quebec are not subject to government regulations governing hunting, fishing or land use.

This ruling angered members of the West Nova Fishermen's Coalition and other non-Indigenous people subject to strict commercial fishing limits in these areas. Two months later, the court incited some Indigenous opposition by clarifying that these rights could be curtailed by future government regulations, if they were deemed environmentally or socially necessary, did not pertain to mining, logging or the exploitation of offshore gas deposits, and were intended to allow for community or individual subsistence, not large-scale profit. Despite these restrictions, the Supreme Court's ruling in R. v. Marshall generally resulted in the constitutional protection of Mi'kmaq, Wolastoqiyik and Passamaquoddy hunting, fishing and gathering rights in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Quebec.

Aboriginal Title Claim

In October 2020, six Wolastoqiyik communities announced a title claim to lands along the Saint John River. Indigenous descendants of the Peace and Friendship Treaties argue their ancestors never surrendered these lands. The claim covers roughly half of New Brunswick. ( See also Aboriginal Title.)

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The Indigenous nations that have inhabited most of North America's northern Atlantic region include the Mi'kmaq, Wolastoqiyik, Passamaquoddy, Abenaki and Penobscot. These Eastern-Algonquian speakers were loosely united in the 18th-century political alliance known as the Wabanaki Confederacy.

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Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980

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Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980

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Shown Here:
Passed House amended (09/22/1980)

(Measure passed House, amended)

Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980 - Declares that Congress approves and ratifies any transfer of land or other natural resource located anywhere within the United States from, by, or on behalf of the Passamaquoddy Tribe, the Penobscot Nation, the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, or any of their members. Prohibits the United States from asserting any Indian claims arising from any transfer of land or natural resources and arising before the date of enactment of this Act, on the grounds that such transfer violated laws of the State of Maine.

States that Congress approves any such transfer within the State of Maine from, by, or on behalf of an individual Indian prior to December 1, 1873. Extinguishes the aboriginal title and any Indian claims to such lands.

Establishes in the Treasury the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Fund to be held in trust by the Secretary of the Interior equally for the benefit of the Passamaquoddy Tribe and the Penobscot Nation. Directs the Secretary to accept reasonable terms for investment and administration of such Fund proposed by the Tribe or Nation.

Prohibits the distribution of the principal of the Fund to either Tribe or Nation or to their members. Requires the Secretary to make available, on a quarterly basis, any income derived from such Fund to the Tribe or Nation, and directs that a specified amount be expended annually for the benefit of members who are over the age of sixty.

Establishes in the Treasury the Maine Indian Claims Land Acquisition Fund to be held in trust by the Secretary. Sets forth the apportionment of the principal of such Fund to be held in trust for each Tribe. Provides that lands acquired for the Penobscot Nation and the Passamaquoddy Tribe within the boundaries described in the Maine Implementing Act shall be held in trust by the United States, and all lands acquired outside such boundaries shall be held in fee by the Nation or Tribe. Restricts the acquisition of land for the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, to be held in trust by the United States, until the State of Maine has enacted appropriate legislation for such acquisition. Provides that should the Houlton Band terminate its interest in any such acquired lands, the Tribe and Nation shall have one-half undivided interest in the corpus of such trust.

Authorizes the Secretary to participate in negotiations between the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians and the State of Maine in securing agreement on lands to be acquired for the Band. Sets forth the limitations on the agreement and the legislation to be enacted by the State.

Authorizes the Secretary to acquire land and natural resources from the ostensible owners and to institute condemnation proceedings thereto in order to perfect title satisfactory to the Attorney General.

Prohibits the Secretary from expending any monies from the Settlement or Acquisition Funds until the Tribe, Nation, or Band has relinquished all claims necessary under this Act.

Exempts, with specific exceptions, any Indian lands in Maine from restraint on alienation by virtue of being held in trust.

Makes void any transfer of land or natural resources within the Passamaquoddy or Penobscot Indian Territories, except takings for public use or transfers of individual Indian use assignments within each Tribe.

Allows each Tribe, Nation, or Band to lease, sell, or exchange their lands in accordance with provisions of this Act.

Requires the Secretary to accept reasonable terms from the Tribe or Nation for management and administration of lands acquired and held in trust for such Indians.

Provides that trust or restricted land or natural resources within the Passamaquoddy or Penobscot Indian Reservations and trust lands outside such reservations may be condemned for public purposes in accordance with the Maine Implementing Act. Requires the United States to be a party to any such condemnation proceedings. Directs that any proceeds from such proceedings be deposited into the Land Acquisition Fund.

Declares all Indians, other than the Passamaquoddy Tribe and the Penobscot Nation and their members, to be subject to the civil and criminal laws of the State. Subjects the Tribe and Nation to the jurisdiction of the State to the extent provided by the Maine Implementing Act. Declares that Congress approves, ratifies, and confirms such Act.

Directs the Secretary to submit a report on the Federal and State funding provided the Tribe and the Nation compared with similar funding in other states.

Prohibits the Federal Government from asserting criminal jurisdiction in the State of Maine for certain Indian offenses.

Makes the Tribe and Nation, including their officers and employees, immune from suit to the extent provided in the Maine Implementing Act. Authorizes the Secretary to pay from the Settlement Fund any judgment entered against such Indians.

Consents to some amendments to the Maine Implementing Act made with the agreement of the Tribe or Nation. Authorizes such Indians to exercise jurisdiction, separate and distinct from the civil and criminal jurisdiction of Maine, to the extent authorized by such Act.

Directs the Passamaquoddy Tribe, the Penobscot Nation, and the State of Maine to give full faith and credit to the judicial proceedings of each other.

States that the laws which accord special status or rights to other Indians shall not apply to the State of Maine. Makes the Tribe, Nation, and Band eligible to receive all financial benefits provided to other Indians under the same eligibility criteria. Deems such Indians federally recognized Indian tribes for purposes of Federal taxation.

Authorizes the Tribe, Nation, and Band to adopt a written document to govern their affairs consistent with the Maine Implementation Act and this Act.

Authorizes the Tribe or Nation to assume exclusive jurisdiction over Indian child custody proceedings after the approval by the Secretary of a petition to that effect. Provides that such assumption shall not affect any proceeding over which a court has already assumed jurisdiction. Deems such Indians to be bonafide reservations and tribes for purposes of such child custody proceedings.

Prohibits: (1) any payments to the Tribe, Nation, or Band from being considered in computing the State of Maine's eligibility for financial aid programs; (2) any payments from Maine to such Indians from being computed in determining such Indians' eligibility for financial aid programs; and (3) the availability or distribution of funds under this Act from being considered income for the basis of denying any federally assisted housing programs or other financial aid to which such Indians would otherwise be entitled. Stipulates that an administering agency is not barred from considering the actual financial situation of any applicant when such financial aid programs are dependent upon a showing of need.

Grants a deferral of capital gains to any private owners who transferred lands to the Secretary for moneys from the Land Acquisition Fund.

Directs the transfer of tribal trust funds held by the State of Maine to the Settlement Fund.

Declares that this Act constitutes a general discharge and release of obligations of such State arising from any treaty or agreement with any Indians of the State, including a specified action pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine.

Provides that any conflict of interpretation between the Maine Implementing Act and this Act shall be governed by this Act.

Declares that any Federal law enacted after this Act for the benefit of Indians shall not apply with the State of Maine, unless such Act is specifically made applicable within such State.

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H.R.7919 - 96th Congress (1979-1980): Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980

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(Measure passed House, amended) Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980 - Declares that Congress approves and ratifies any transfer of land or other natural resource located anywhere within the United States from, by, or on behalf of the Passamaquoddy Tribe, the Penobscot Nation, the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, or any of their members.

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Section 35 of the Constitution Act states:

35. (1) The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed.(2) In this Act, “aboriginal peoples of Canada” includes the Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples of Canada.(3) For greater certainty, in subsection (1) “treaty rights” includes rights that now exist by way of land claims agreements or may be so acquired.(4) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, the aboriginal and treaty rights referred to in subsection (1) are guaranteed equally to male and female persons.

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Early Monday morning, flames engulfed a fishing boat belonging to a Mi'kmaw fisherman from the Sipekne'katik First Nation at a southwestern Nova Scotia wharf. The suspicious fire is the latest in a weeks-long saga of conflict between Indigenous lobster fishers and non-Indigenous commercial fishers.

Beginning on September 17, the day the Sipekne'katik nation launched its self-regulated lobster fishery, a multi-day standoff between Indigenous and non-Indigenous fishers led to violence on wharves in Saulnierville and Weymouth, Nova Scotia. The RCMP charged two men with assault. On the water, commercial fishers fired flares at Sipekne'katik fishers, blockaded their vessels, and removed hundreds of traps from St. Marys Bay, Nova Scotia, home to some of the most lucrative lobster fishing in Atlantic Canada. There is worry the unrest will flare up again when commercial lobster season opens, and Indigenous and non-Indigenous fishers are on the water at the same time.

Around Nova Scotia, the opening of the lobster fishing season is staggered throughout the year. But in this part of the province, St. Marys Bay, which is part of Lobster Fishing Area 34, commercial lobster season, as designated by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), runs from November 30 to May 31.

The commercial fishers claim the protests are to protect the lobster population, insisting that catching lobsters out of season threatens this valuable resource.

But does it?

Commercial fishers invoked lobster conservation two decades ago when they violently opposed fishing by the Esgenoôpetitj First Nation, near Burnt Church, New Brunswick. The ensuing lobster war lasted three years, with destruction of Mi'kmaw and non-Indigenous property, gunshots, and instances of DFO patrol vessels charging Esgenoôpetitj fishing boats.

Underlying these conflicts is a court ruling, made in 1999 by the Supreme Court of Canada, which determined that Mi'kmaw people-based on rights secured in the 1760-61 Peace and Friendship Treaties between East Coast First Nations and the British Crown-can fish year-round and earn a moderate livelihood selling the catch without a commercial license. The ruling, known as the Marshall Decision, was made in the case of Donald Marshall Jr., a Mi'kmaw man convicted by a lower court for catching and selling eels out of season.

The ruling confirmed that the Mi'kmaw right to fish, known as a moderate livelihood fishery, is distinct from commercial fishing and subsistence harvesting. Later, the Supreme Court clarified that DFO can limit this right for conservation purposes.

In the 21 years since, DFO and Mi'kmaw chiefs have not come to an agreement on how moderate livelihood fisheries should look in practice.

On the water in St. Marys Bay, Sipekne'katik fishers are now setting and hauling lobster traps without obstruction. On land, however, the situation continues to evolve. After days of talks with Sipekne'katik leadership, Bernadette Jordan, the minister of fisheries, oceans, and the Canadian Coast Guard, said the federal government would support a new Atlantic First Nations fisheries authority working directly with the Crown to establish new fisheries, provided the idea is supported by Mi'kmaw chiefs.

Excluded from these negotiations, commercial fishers continue to protest outside DFO offices in Nova Scotia, questioning the sustainability of the Sipekne'katik fishery.

To get to the heart of that argument, Hakai Magazine spoke with a range of experts to find out if the Sipekne'katik fishery poses a real threat to lobster conservation, or if something else is going on in St. Marys Bay.

These experts are:

Bob Steneck, a lobster biologist at the University of Maine, who specializes in marine biology and marine policy

Susanna Fuller, the vice president of operations and projects at Nova Scotia-based NGO Oceans North, who works in fisheries science, policy, and economics in Atlantic Canada and the Eastern Arctic

Tony Charles, a management scientist at Saint Mary's University in Nova Scotia, who studies sustainability issues in coasts, oceans, and fisheries

Megan Bailey, a fisheries scientist at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, who specializes in fisheries economics, management, and marine policy

Omer Chouinard, a professor emeritus of sociology and environmental studies from the Université de Moncton in New Brunswick, who helped found the Maritime Fishermen's Union in 1977

Hakai Magazine: There are currently 10 Sipekne'katik moderate livelihood license holders fishing with a total of 500 traps in St. Marys Bay, following the nation's lobster management plan. Is this fishery a conservation issue for the lobster population?

Steneck: The American lobster-the same lobster in Canada and in Maine-is perhaps the only species on the planet that's been targeted for 150 years and is, by and large, doing better today than ever before. ... I can't say we completely understand [why], except that lobster traps are not 100 percent efficient. ... That inefficiency probably is crucial to the sustainability of these stocks.

I would love to see a study that would look at coves where [the Sipekne'katik are] fishing-a before-after control-impact study. I would be willing to bet you a beer that there'd be no effect, relative to the control areas that are not fished.

Fuller: I don't think it is a conservation concern. ... If you compare this to the lobster fishery writ large in Atlantic Canada or in the State of Maine, the traps are a small fraction of the actual effort. In Atlantic Canada, we have about 3,000 lobster licenses. The average number of traps [per license] is 300. So that's 900,000 traps, and this is far less than that.

Charles: In the regular commercial lobster fishery [in Lobster Fishing Area 34], that's something like one person's lobster traps.

Of course, there is the question of other First Nations starting up fisheries as well. And there's also a question of where the fishing is actually taking place. If it's concentrated in one location where there's already fishing activity going on, then that can have more of a local impact.

Bailey: There's nothing inherently sustainable or unsustainable about that particular fishery. It's the cumulative impact of all of the fisheries over the year. If there was no commercial lobster fishery, would [the Sipekne'katik] fishery be sustainable? What is completely missing is the fact that you can't take the system and say, Well, the system is sustainable, so now we add one more fishery, therefore it is unsustainable. ... The additional mortality impact of the current scale of the livelihood fishery-I don't think is a conservation concern. But we are talking about one [Mi'kmaw] band exercising their right. There will be other bands. ... So, that is an evolving space in terms of how this fishery scales up.

Hakai Magazine: Some commercial fishermen have suggested that, by fishing out of season, the Sipekne'katik moderate livelihood fishery will interfere with lobster molting and reproduction, which happen in summer and early fall when the water is warmer. Is that a concern?

Bailey: After the molting, females tend to spawn, and then females are carrying their eggs with them for nine to 11 months. ... There are regulations across the lobster fishing areas about bringing up egg-bearing females, because that can happen months after this time period. Even when you're fishing in November, December, January, February-you're pulling up females that have their eggs on them and have to throw them back. So, I don't think it's fair to point that out for the summer fishery, because that situation is going to exist for nine to 11 months.

Fuller: I do think [lobster fishing seasons] have some conservation outcome, but they were not initially only conservation driven. ... The State of Maine fishery has no seasons. It's a year-round fishery, and fishermen have about three times as many traps as Atlantic Canada. Because [lobster is] an effort-controlled fishery, there are different ways of managing it, and Canada has chosen to manage it with seasons that maximize the amount of hard shell lobster on the market.

Steneck: It's actually very clever that Canada has the different [lobster fishing] areas, and those areas harvest different months of the year, because it means that Canada has product to ship 12 months out of the year.

If you do catch lobsters when they're molting and their shell is soft, there is a greater chance of mortality from handling, and they don't ship as well. ... It's interesting because I've worked with hundreds of lobstermen on the coast of Maine, and the lobstermen all prefer soft shell-and I do, too-but there is [higher] market value [for] hard shell.

Hakai Magazine: If the current scale of the Sipekne'katik moderate livelihood fishery is not a conservation concern for the lobster population, why has it been so contentious?

Charles: [Commercial] lobster fishers have been engaged over decades in a bit of a struggle to get the government to let them make some of their local decisions themselves. ... So, the mostly non-Indigenous fishers have bought into the management system that's there. They believe in the closed seasons that are set, and they believe that they're fishing as much as they should be fishing.

Chouinard: Some people have the conception that the First Nations are poaching. It's not the case. It's the subsistence fisheries, and the moderate [livelihood] fisheries. [The government has] to establish parameters and explain that to the communities. Because the tendency of some people who don't have a good intention [is to say], "If they are doing that, if they're poaching, we'll go poaching, too." And it's not the case.

Fuller: At the end of the day, we have a racism problem, and that is one thing to unpack. The other thing is that the government needs to deal properly with moderate livelihood [fishing] on a community-by-community basis. And that is going to be hard. But we have to come to a place where we can talk about all the issues on the table, because if we don't resolve the violence and the anger-what people are feeling-then we're not going to get to that spot.
Hakai Magazine: In the 1999 Marshall Decision, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the Mi'kmaw right to fish and earn a moderate livelihood. How do moderate livelihood fisheries fit into a hierarchy of fishing rights?
Charles: I think a lot of people don't fully understand what the Indigenous communities' rights are. They don't fully understand that the First Nations have rights that are different from the privileges to fish that non-Natives have.
Hakai Magazine: What are the next steps to resolving the uncertainty and conflict around First Nations' moderate livelihood fisheries in the Maritimes?
The overall solution to this particular current dilemma is not to simply increase the number of traps and increase the length of fishing time by itself. If you're going to increase traps in one spot-like if the First Nations who have recognized treaty rights to fish are increasing their amount of fishing-then something has to give somewhere else in the fishery.

Bailey: If what fishermen are saying is that the total effort in this fishery is fully subscribed ... then under a hierarchy of rights, the commercial sector is going to have to be the one to fish less.

Chouinard: It's not an easy thing, you know, because our history is a colonial history. Negotiation, education-it's a long process. You have to be at the table with the federal government, with the First Nation, and with commercial fishermen to try to arrive at a compromise. It's not a consensus, it's a compromise.

Bailey: Can we have collaborative coexistence of a commercial sector and an Indigenous sector? Of course we can. But parties have to be willing to show leadership to get us to there. Parties being, you know, fishing association heads and government heads and First Nations leaders.

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Mi'kmaw Fishery Dispute Is Not About Conservation, Scientists Say | Hakai Magazine

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Early Monday morning, flames engulfed a fishing boat belonging to a Mi'kmaw fisherman from the Sipekne'katik First Nation at a southwestern Nova Scotia wharf. The suspicious fire is the latest in a weeks-long saga of conflict between Indigenous lobster fishers and non-Indigenous commercial fishers.

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For centuries, the Passamaquoddy people of Maine have faced a violation of their inherent rights as Indigenous Peoples. They have been repeatedly displaced from their original lands by European settlers since the 16th century, eventually limited to their current reservation in eastern Washington County, Maine. Now their fishing rights -an intrinsic part of Passamaquoddy culture and sustenance -are threatened, under the ironic pretext of equal protection for state fishermen. At issue are two pieces of legislation, both in conflict with the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act and the Maine Implementing Act. The Passamaquoddy refused to comply with LD-451, a law that limited the tribe to issuing just 200 elver licenses in 2013, and this year's LD-1625, which requires state fishery officials to approve each individual tribal elver license in writing. The tribe has been in discussion with the state since January on ways the Passamaquoddy can maintain its cultural identity throughout the fishing season "because our fishery is based on culture, conservation, and preservation of the eel," says Passamaquoddy Tribal Councilman Newell Lewey.
Conservation Requires Sacrifice
The price of elvers has risen steeply in recent years and non- Native fishers have pressed for licenses to fish them at their most abundant (and vulnerable) life stage, when they are determined to swim from salt to fresh water. This critical transition determines the health of the species. The Passama- quoddy fishing plan centers around conservation of the eel, prohibits the use of fyke nets (a fish trap that consists of cylindrical netting bags mounted on rings or other rigid structures), and reduces their total allowable catch to 1,650 pounds-1,000 pounds less than the top 50 state harvesters are taking under the new quota system. In 2013 the state's Department of Marine Resources did not require its harvesters to take measures towards conservation of the eel, but instead implemented a complex quota system.

"The state had no conservation measures in their plan last year, and that virtually went unheralded," Lewey says. "All they could talk about was the number of licenses that the Passamaquoddy were issued in defiance of LD-451. The state plan called for the state to have 432 licenses, but those 432 state licenses could land as many pounds of eels as they could get. The state limited gear, not catch. They could have caught a million pounds and it would have been perfectly fine in terms of the law." In contrast, the Passamaquoddy's proposal bore in mind the health of the species. "We said that we would have a communal eel fishery for the Passamaquoddy Tribe that allows us only to catch 3,600 pounds. We feel that [we have] inherent rights to fish in any marine resources available to us because of where we live, and because our rights have never been surrendered, including under the Land Claim Settlement Act. We cannot limit licenses to our people...[so] when the state said, 'We're going to issue you 150 licenses and 50 additional licenses for dip nets on the St. Croix River,' we never agreed to it. We walked out of Augusta that day and said, 'We don't accept it.'

The Passamaquoddy's defiance has not been quietly overlooked. Lewey recalls a violent scene from last year's fishing season: "When we submitted our license list to the commissioner at the Department of Marine Resources, they came down on us pretty hard that first weekend, Easter Sunday, when they raided the fishing site in the Pennamaquan River in Pembroke, Maine. They had maybe 20 armed personnel on site and it escalated very quickly, but we did manage to speak to them. This year, with the eels, our number one concern is that we've got to have our limited licensing for the Passamaquoddy tribal people. We're at a point again where our existing law is in conflict with state law: Passamaquoddy tribal law states that we will have a fishery with unlimited licenses, and we agreed to their 1,655 pounds of eel, but we said that we want to have an open fishery for 80 percent of those eels. The first 1,320 pounds would be an 'open derby' fishery, where every individual could go out and just catch as many eels as they could catch. When the total tribe reached that 80 percent quota we would shut the swipe card system down and reissue the remaining 335 pounds on a per capita basis."

Lewey says the Commissioner agreed with the proposal when the tribe presented it in January, as did the Atlantic State Marine Fishery Commission in Washington, D.C., but within a week of negotiating the new legislation, Commissioner Patrick Kelleher "had done a 180," citing equal protection for the state fishers. The Attorney General argues that the tribe's proposed agreement raises a constitutional concern and creates an equal protection problem because it creates a special class of people who would be dealt with differently should legal conflict arise. Federal Indian law governs Maine's "special relationship" with the four sovereign Nations there (Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, Penobscot and Mi'kmaq), and explicitly states that equal protection concerns apply differently to Indian tribes. But for Lewey, "The equal protection thing doesn't hold water with me. If you look at what our history is full of, is unequal protection."

The Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980 is a federal law that settled the land claim brought by the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, and Maliseet tribes and lays out the legal basis for the Maine Implementing Act, which defines the relationship between the state and tribes. The settlement act outlines the rights and resources the tribes deliberately transferred; saltwater fishing is considered a reserved right over which the state has no jurisdiction. Lewey points out that the first thing LD-451 does is cap the Passamaquoddy tribal licenses. "Just the wording is really upsetting. It's a state statute that's directed to the Passamaquoddy tribal membership. It limits the number of licenses that we can obtain for all of our fishing. The claim about our sovereignty on the saltwater fishing issue, the state says that we gave that up in 1980. But nowhere in the Claims Settlement Act of 1980 does it say anything about saltwater treaty fishing rights. We know we never gave them up. Nor will we ever."

"The violations are just staggering," Lewey says. "I'm trying to advise the tribe and tribal membership in my charge as being a tribal councilor and a fishery committee member, to say 'Yes, we are a sovereign nation and we're going to stand up.' I hate to use that term 'crying foul,' but this is disgusting, what the state is doing to the tribes. I don't know how to say it any more passionately. Passamaquoddy people are economically depressed. On the Passamaquoddy tribal reservation the unemployment rate is over 50 percent. We need economic development. We are doing what we can. The tribe is starting up a maple syrup business but it's not going to be a money maker for us right off the bat; that's going to take a couple of years to get going. We have a successful blueberry company that nets a good profit for us every year. That's basically what we have for tribal resources. This is our 20th year of putting forth a casino initiative; we have been blocked every time. Why are resources so scarce? And I'm not talking just about eels. We're talking about a mindset that you keep these people economically dependent on the state and they're going to comply because they don't have the ability to fight back. But we can always stand up. We may get knocked down, but we can always stand up."
Editor's note: The interview with Newell Lewey was conducted prior to the start of this year's fishing season. The Passamaquoddy did not fish on opening day, and as yet there has been no further interaction between the tribe and the state.

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Restricting Fishing Rights, Undermining Tribal Sovereignty

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For centuries, the Passamaquoddy people of Maine have faced a violation of their inherent rights as Indigenous Peoples. They have been repeatedly displaced from their original lands by European settlers since the 16th century, eventually limited to their current reservation in eastern Washington County, Maine.

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Last month, the Elliotsville Foundation gave back 735 acres to the Penobscot Nation, a parcel of land that connects two Penobscot-held land plots. While this return of land is a significant milestone in terms of the work of conservation groups in Maine, it also reflects a larger shift in thinking about land ownership, from property and caretaking toward Indigenous stewardship.

Before European settlers arrived, the land in Maine was stewarded by the Wabanaki people-a confederacy of five nations including Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, Mi'kmaq and Abenaki.

Early treaties between Indigenous tribes and settlers were signed, but not upheld. Early Maine court cases set the for land theft. The state legally prohibited treaty obligations from being published in its constitution. Ever since the 1980 Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act, the state government has significantly limited tribes' sovereignty and access to ancestral lands. Now, the Maine legislature is preparing to take up a that would make 22 law changes to the 1980 act to promote Wabanaki sovereignty and correct the impacts of the 40-year-old piece of legislation that placed Wabanaki people in a separate category from other federally-recognized tribes.

Currently, a vast majority-90 percent-of land in Maine is privately owned, unlike in states like Nevada, Utah and Idaho, where the vast majority of land is owned by the U.S. government. Less than one percent of Maine land is owned by Wabanaki people.

To many Indigenous people, the legacy of white-led conservation groups in Maine and nationwide represents a failure of true environmental stewardship.

"Across the country, land conservation groups and land trusts participated in depopulating, cutting off Indigenous access to certain lands and resources," said Dr. Darren Ranco, associate professor of Anthropology and coordinator of Native American Research at the University of Maine.

Dr. Ranco said that the history of environmental protection in the U.S. starts in the 19th century and focuses on two movements: conservation and preservation.

"On the one hand, you have people saying, 'You want to use the public lands wisely' - and that often led to extreme forms of exploitation through oil and gas contracts. The other side of it was, 'Let's just keep it wild and preserve it as-is, as a wild space,'" said Dr. Ranco, who is a member of the Penobscot Nation. "Ironically, both of those approaches in the 19th century sought to displace Indigenous people."

"A lot of the [conservation] practices in the past actually marginalized native people, and didn't allow for their voice to be heard, and discouraged their voices," said Suzanne Greenlaw, a Maliseet forestry scientist and PhD student at the University of Maine.

" The native approach is very much in the center-we do harvest, but we harvest in a sustainable way that actually forms a relationship with the resource," said Greenlaw, who conducts research on the sustainable harvesting of sweetgrass by Indigenous people.

In fact, the way that Indigenous people understand land is markedly different from western ideas of ownership.

"The idea of private property puts us in this framing where the land, the water, and the air, and the animals, and everything else-all our relations-are meant to serve us, they are things below us, things to dominate and control and take ownership over," said Lokotah Sanborn, a Penobscot activist.

"For us, it would be absurd to say 'I own my grandmother,' or 'I own my cousin,' or 'I own my brother.' You don't talk about things like that. And so when we're talking about land ownership, it's that same idea -these are our relations, these are things that hold a lot of significance to us," said Sanborn.

While the planet's Indigenous people make up less than five percent of the global population, they manage 25 percent of its land and support 80 percent of global biodiversity, shows.

"We've been led down this path toward climate catastrophe and the extinction of millions of species, all to drive extractive industries," said Sanborn. "If we wish to reverse these things, we need to give land back into the hands of Indigenous peoples and to respect our ability to protect those lands," said Sanborn.

This growing recognition of Wabanaki stewardship is part of the mission of First Light, a group that serves to connect Wabanaki people with conservation organizations who seek to expand Wabanaki access to land. Currently, 50 organizations are participating, including Maine Audubon and The Nature Conservancy.

Lucas St. Clair, president of the Elliotsville Foundation, participated in First Light's year-long educational program before fulfilling a request by John Banks, Natural Resources Director for the Penobscot Nation, to return the 735-acre property to the Penobscot Nation. This comes four years after the foundation gave 87,500 acres of land to the federal government for the establishment of Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. St. Clair said the foundation currently holds 35,000 acres of land.

"In the grand scheme of things, this is not a lot of land," said St. Clair, about the foundation's recent transfer of 735 acres. "It was more about justice, relationship-building and awareness."

"You see this move toward Indigenous knowledge and practices of management and conservation that have existed for hundreds of years, and this possibility with land conservation groups and Wabanaki people having a more central role in understanding and managing the lands is coming to the fore," said Dr. Ranco.

And while organizations undergo the learning and transformational processes that precede giving back land, and as the legislature and are taking up questions of Wabanaki sovereignty and stewardship, people are working on the ground everyday to re-imagine relationships with land.

Alivia Moore, a Penobscot community organizer with the Eastern Woodlands Rematriation collective, said that a crucial part of the work of expanding Indigenous access to land in Maine is recognizing and restoring the history of matriarchal Indigenous societies.

"To restore land to Indigenous matriarchies is to make sure that everybody has what they need on and from the earth. There's enough for everyone," said Moore

With Eastern Woodlands Rematriation, Indigenous people are growing their connections to regenerative food systems. Whereas cultural use agreements are more formal ways Indigenous people can access resources from the private land of people and organizations, Moore said other relationships can form and strengthen even informally.

Years ago, a white farmer offered land to Indigenous women to use for farming to restore their connection to the land. That has been an ongoing relationship that became one of mutual exchange of information and resources, shared learning and shared meals, said Moore.

The movement to give land back to Indigenous stewardship is not confined to a single organization, legal battle, or project. For Indigenous people -and a growing number of environmental organizations-it is a step toward justice and a sustainable future.

"Land back is not just about righting past wrongs. The point of land back is that it's the future, if we wish to adequately address and avoid further global devastation from climate change," said Sanborn.
Top photo: Gabriel Frey (left), a citizen of the Passamaquoddy tribe, and Tania Morey (right), a citizen of the Mi'kmaq tribe, show Tania's daughter Zigwan how to harvest sweetgrass in Acadia National Park, Maine on July 29, 2018. | Will Newton/Friends of Acadia/NPS

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Returning land to tribes is a step towards justice and sustainability, say Wabanaki, environmental activists

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Last month, the Elliotsville Foundation gave back 735 acres to the Penobscot Nation, a parcel of land that connects two Penobscot-held land plots.

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