Wabanaki Territory
Katahdin Woods & Waters National Monument. Photo: Jamie Walter.
“Place of hungry animals.”
“Plenty of sturgeon.”
“Duck-hunting place.”
“Corn-planting land.”
“Place to cross.”
“Across the usual path.”
These names speak of a homeland known down to the bones by generations of a people. They canoe its rivers, fish its coastal waters, traverse its mountains, wind their way through its forests, live alongside its animals, harvest its nourishments. They tell its stories in song, in dance, in poetry, in baskets woven with ash and sweetgrass, decorated with porcupine quills.
They are the Wabanaki, the People of the Dawnland – the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet), Mi’kmaq, and Abenaki peoples – whose origin stories say they have always been here, born out of the landscape itself. Intertwined with the rhythms of their homeland, an area roughly extending from Quebec and the Canadian Maritimes into Vermont, they interacted with every aspect of their territory, moving from the coasts inland and north to south with the seasons.
That homeland was profoundly altered by European settlement when it was broken up into owned parcels, rivers were dammed, and forests were cleared. But that homeland persists. It is Mahoosuc Notch, Cobbosseecontee Lake, Chebeague Island. It is Cobscook Bay, Damariscotta, Madawaska. The Mattawamkeag River, Mooselookmeguntic Lake, Quoddy Head. Katahdin.
Author: Stephanie Bouchard