Katahdin Woods & Waters National Monument
Photo: Mark Picard
On July 25, 1939, 12-year-old Donn Fendler stumbled onto the bank of the East Branch of the Penobscot River and saw a camp and canoes on the opposite shore. After nine days of being lost in the woods, his ordeal was over. Today, that location, and much of the final stretch of his journey, lie within Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument.
Located within the homeland of the Penobscot Nation, the monument extends east from Baxter State Park. Carving through it are the waterways that led Fendler to safety: Wassataquoik Stream and the East Branch of the Penobscot River. These waterways served as important travel routes for the Wabanaki peoples and later carried log drives from remote camps to Maine’s lumber mills and shipping centers.
The creation of its more than 87,000-acre expanse builds on the example set by Governor Percival Baxter to protect the North Woods. Like Baxter, Roxanne Quimby assembled her donation parcel by parcel. In August 2016, it became the state’s first new national monument since Acadia was established a century earlier.
Opened in 2024, the monument’s Tekαkαpimək (deh gah-gah bee mook) Contact Station, nestled into Lookout Mountain, is the distillation of the landscape and that landscape’s meaning to the Wabanaki peoples. The Penobscot River watershed is etched into the floor; exhibits share Wabanaki language, history, and stories; the absence of exterior lights respects the monument’s Dark Sky Sanctuary status. And from its center, visitors can view the surrounding Wabanaki homelands in every direction, reflecting the Penobscot meaning of the station’s name: “as far as one can see.”
Author: Stephanie Bouchard
