As Penobscot Indian Nation Chief Kirk Francis finished leading the crowd in prayer Monday morning, he said that celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day on the banks of the Penobscot River is special.
“[The Penobscot] is a citizen of our tribe, and we see everything in it as a relative, and try to go about how we care for the river from that perspective,” Francis said. “It’s our cultural identity and at the very core of who we are. So when we talk about things like clean water, bringing our relatives back to their homeland, all of those things, that’s not rooted in any kind of power trip or some muscle flexing of sovereignty, it’s really about a holistic approach for our future.”
That approach is how the Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission’s special report “Sea Run” came to life. The 2022 report is a look into the factors that have limited tribal people’s access to sea-run fisheries, the decline in fisheries, and recommendations to bolster Wabanaki sustenance fishing.
Sea-run fisheries are the areas where fish from the ocean swim up rivers to lay their eggs. Atlantic Salmon, alewife, trout, bass and sturgeon are just a few examples.
The Indigenous Peoples’ Day event held at the Veazie Salmon Club aimed to spread awareness for the “Sea Run” report, which was released on audiobook Monday, and shared how the Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission is using grant funding to push for the report’s recommendations, including the Wabanaki Nations being included in sea-run fisheries policy conversations, to be implemented.
The Veazie Salmon Club is the site of the former Veazie Dam, which previously prevented sea-run fish from accessing the Penobscot.
The commission is using a $25,000 grant from Native Voices Rising to implement the recommendations, Jill Tompkins, executive director of Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission, said. The commission includes 13 people tasked, in part, with conducting studies on the use of fish and wildlife management policies on non-Indian lands to protect those stocks on tribal lands and waters.
Judd Esty-Kendall, one of the authors of the report, and multiple Penobscot Nation members spoke of its importance and how its recommendations could improve Maine rivers like the Penobscot.
Esty-Kendall and co-author Tony Sutton used data collected since the first contact between Europeans and the Wabanaki Nations, in combination with interviews with tribe members, to understand the harm that forts, sawmills and dams had on sea-run fisheries and the Wabanaki Nations.
For example, in 1875, log drives — when felled trees were floated downriver to transport them — were already being called into question because of the negative effect they had on fish populations, though the practice continued.
Esty-Kendall said he had to learn about Maine from a different perspective to understand the sea-run fisheries fully.
“[‘Sea Run’] is the story of what happened to our sea-run fish, to our ecology, and to the Wabanaki people and their lifeways. It is a story we should all know; it is a story that Wabanaki people have always known,” Esty-Kendall said.
Esty-Kendall’s approach led to him having more in-depth conversations with members of the Penobscot Nation, who he said more people should hear and understand.
The 133-page report was released on audiobook on Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission’s website to make it more widely available, approachable and accessible, Tompkins said.
The audiobook is narrated by four Wabanaki citizens: Dawn Neptune Adams, Penobscot; Sue Desiderio, Maliseet; Dale Lolar, Penobscot; and Dwayne Tomah, Passamaquoddy.
The second version of the report should lead to more people understanding what happened to the fisheries and how it affected the Penobscot Nation, something Esty-Kendall said everyone should take in.
“Hopefully this will spread this story, this view of Maine’s history, this view of Wabanaki culture around the state,” Esty-Kendall said.
