#penobscotriver — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #penobscotriver, aggregated by home.social.
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#Maine - #WabanakiAlliance holds U.S. Senate candidate forum, participants discuss gaps in #IndigenousEducation
By Arianna Perdomo on April 20, 2026
"Democratic U.S. Senate candidates #DavidCostello and #GrahamPlatner outlined their positions on tribal sovereignty and education during a debate organized by the Wabanaki Alliance on April 16 on Indian Island in Old Town, which is home of the #PenobscotNation. The event was hosted by Penobscot Nation members and offered a chance to discuss non-partisan policy affecting #WabanakiNations and candidates’ plans to support those communities.
"Located less than 15 minutes from the #UniversityOfMaine, #IndianIsland sits along the #PenobscotRiver. This reservation serves as a cultural and historical center for the Penobscot people. Within the community there are buildings and museums that reflect ongoing preservation efforts of Wabanaki culture. According to the Wabanaki Alliance, the Penobscot Nation is one of the oldest continuous governments in the world and remains committed to protecting territories, culture and language as a federally recognized #SovereignNation.
"The debate was moderated by Dr. #DarrenRanco, chair of the #NativeAmerican programs at #UMaine. Notably, Democratic candidate Gov. #JanetMills and five-term Republican candidate Sen. #SusanCollins were extended invitations to participate, but were not in attendance. However, Costello and Platner offered insight on their approach to ongoing issues facing Wabanaki nations.
"Opening remarks were delivered by #MaulianBryant, executive director of the Wabanaki Alliance and Chief of the Penobscot Indian Nation, #KirkFrancis. Each candidate then gave a five minute opening introduction explaining why they are running.
"The first round of the debate consisted of eight questions surrounding topics of tribal sovereignty, environmental justice, regulation and the implementation of legislation that would help address these issues. Costello and Platner agreed that there needs to be a restructuring of the government and a new balance of power. Both candidates stated that they would support legislation that helped extend the power to engage the Wabanaki people in issues that are important to them."
Recording of the forum:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_yvkISNZEc&t=74s#USSenate #UselessSusanCollins #MainePol #Elections2026 #TribalRights #Wabanakik #WabanakiSovereignty
#WabanakiCulturalPreservation #WabanakiHistory #NativeAmericanHistory #CulturalPreservation #WabanakiConfederacy -
One of the folks I had the opportunity to talk to at a #MaineRivers conference some years ago was #PenobscotNation member #JohnBanks. So glad to see him being honored... He has been a tireless advocate for the #PenobscotRiver!
"Banks was the Penobscot Nation’s representative on the Maine-Indian State Tribal Commission from 1987 to 2021, making him its longest-serving member. He also served on many local, regional and national organization boards, including the National Tribal Environmental Council, Native American Fish and Wildlife Society, National Indian Policy Center, and the Tribal Operations Committee with the federal EPA.
"But arguably Banks’ most noteworthy accomplishment involves bringing a Wabanaki voice and leadership to the historic #PenobscotRiverRestorationProject (1999-2016) in which two dams nearest to the sea were removed and a stream-like bypass channel was completed around a third dam at Howland.
"Completed in 2016, the $63 million restoration project opened almost 2,000 miles of habitat for 11 species of sea-run fish that had been choked off from their spawning grounds for almost two centuries by dams across the river.
"Since then, the river has come back alive with millions of river herring joined by Atlantic salmon, shad, sturgeon and other species in numbers that hadn’t been seen on the Penobscot River for nearly two centuries. Laura Rose Day credits Banks with a key intervention in 2002, when it looked like negotiations that had been going on for three years between #EnvironmentalGroups and the #hydro company owner were about to collapse.
" '[John] asked for a few minutes,' she wrote in a 2014 Christian Science Monitor commentary recalling the moment. 'Removing an eagle feather from a cloth wrap, he circled the table, laying the feather on each shoulder. He reminded us that, no matter whom we served, we were also responsible for being the voice for all the creatures of the river – the birds, the fish, and all of the people as well. The common goal had to be the health of the river.' "
Read more:
https://www.wabanakialliance.com/nihkaniyane2025-johnbanks/#WaterIsLife #WabanakiAlliance #Wabanaki #Nihkaniyane #MaineRivers #DamRemoval #RiverRestoration #SolarPunkSunday
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#PenobscotNation #Elder ‘Butch’ Phillips dies at 85
A celebrated #CultureBearer and artist, Reuben Elliot 'Butch' Phillips also was part of the team that negotiated the #Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980.
Reuben M. Schafir, July 29, 2025
"Reuben Elliot “Butch” Phillips, a Penobscot elder, artist, culture-bearer and the former lieutenant governor of the tribe, died Sunday at the age of 85.
Phillips was a leader within his tribe, an accomplished birch bark artist known for crafting moose calls adorned with intricate etchings, an athlete and a masterful hunter.Scott Phillips, one of the elder Phillips’ three sons, said his father was a “very patient, very soulful” hunter who successfully hunted moose until just two years ago.
Phillips was often called upon to perform ceremonies and lead prayers at events. He cherished his role as a tribal elder, family members said, and was a living advocate for Penobscot traditions.
“He was a proponent of the Penobscot Nation,” Scott Phillips said. “All the traditions and customs, he wanted to keep that going for future generations, and he tried to pass a lot of that knowledge on to me and my brothers, his grandchildren and the people of the nation.”
“He never opened a ceremony without recalling the ancestors and ensuring that we honored them in our daily lives,” said #BarryDana, Phillips’ nephew and former two-term chief of the Penobscot Nation. “When you’re an elder and you preserve a value, you repeat it as early and as often as needed, and he didn’t hesitate to repeat it all the time. And now he’s an ancestor.”
#MaulianBryant, Dana’s daughter, recalled her great-uncle as well-spoken, diplomatic and warm, yet stalwart in his convictions. Known for his impeccable presentation, Bryant said he sported a neatly combed coif of dark hair well into old age and was often present at tribal ceremonies in full regalia.
Phillips was born May 7, 1940, and grew up on Indian Island, the seat of the Penobscot Nation’s government. He served in the U.S. Army and had a lengthy career in telecommunications, in addition to the various positions he held within the Penobscot Nation and associated causes, according to an obituary written by his family. He served as lieutenant governor, a position now known as vice chief, of the Penobscot Nation from 1992 to 1994. He lived in his later years on Penobscot ancestral homelands known today as Milford, across the river from the tribe’s headquarters.
In the 1970s, Philips was one of the Penobscot representatives on the team that negotiated the Maine Indian Land Claims Settlement of 1980. The legislation was viewed by many at the time as the only way for tribes to secure limited compensation for stolen land. It also subjected tribal nations to state government control and excepted them from the sovereignty all other federally recognized tribes have.
The law was a divisive topic internally among tribal members during negotiations. Its impacts have shaped the work of Dana and Bryant, who served as Penobscot tribal ambassador before she became executive director of the Wabanaki Alliance in January 2025. Bryant’s work today is largely dedicated to unraveling many of the restrictions imposed by the settlement act. Conversations with her great-uncle caused her to shift her thinking of the law and of the negotiators who partook in its crafting.
“I never wanted those tribal leaders to feel ashamed or that they did a bad thing, because it was a historic thing and there were good things for the tribe and they were between a rock and a hard place,” she said. “I really credit him with me shifting my approach to the whole thing and seeing it in a wholesale way and just remembering the humanity of everyone involved.”
Dana and Phillips never spoke of the negotiations outside of a single town-hall meeting — but Dana said he knew his uncle was fully behind him when he went head-to-head with the state on several occasions.
By working on the negotiating team, Phillips was fulfilling a duty asked of him by his government, said John Dieffenbacher-Krall, the former executive director of the Wabanki Alliance.
“There can be no greater example of citizenship,” he said.
Phillips was also an outspoken advocate of the #PenobscotRiver restoration.
“My generation, we saw the Penobscot River at its worst. It was like an open sewer,” he told #WERU Community Radio and #SunlightMediaCollective in 2018. “And as children, it really didn’t mean too much to us. We still swam in it, we still ate the fish, we still canoed in it and so forth. But I also witnessed the cleansing of the river.”He was part of a group in 2002 that built the first birch bark canoe on Indian Island in 60 years and helped paddle the boat up the Penobscot River to Katahdin.
Butch Phillips at his Milford home in 1997. (John Ewing/Staff Photographer)
“It was a really strong moment in the revitalization of our culture,” Dana said.
Phillips was married for 40 years to Linda Ann Stewart, who died in 2001. He is survived by his three sons, four siblings and numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren and friends.In his final days, family members say Phillips asked those around him to show love.
“He hoped people would put their differences aside and just love each other,” Scott Phillips said."
Source:
https://www.pressherald.com/2025/07/29/penobscot-elder-butch-phillips-dies-at-85/Archived version:
https://archive.md/Dmby4#Penobscot #PenobscotElder #MaineSettlementAct #WaterIsLife #PenobscotRiver #WaterKeeper #NativeAmericanArtist #CultureKeeper
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#PenobscotNation citizens rally in opposition to proposed expansion of #JuniperRidgeLandfill
Jul. 18, 2025
OLD TOWN/ALTON, #Maine (WABI) - "Penobscot Nation citizens rallied across the Penobscot County court Friday afternoon in opposition to a proposed expansion to Maine’s largest #landfill.
"The rally was in response to the #ConservationLawFoundation and the Penobscot Nation appealing an expansion to #JuniperRidgeLandfill, which will allow #CasellaWasteSystems to expand Juniper Ridge by 11.9 million cubic yards.
"According to members of the #WabanakiAlliance, the expansion would pose a threat to surrounding #TribalLands due to concerns of air and #WaterPollution surrounding the #PenobscotRiver from the landfill.
"Speakers at the rally represented citizens of the Penobscot Nation, the Wabanaki Alliance, as well as the environmental groups #Slingshot and #DontWasteME.
" 'It is incredibly powerful to see the number of people out here in opposition to this expansion and support of this appeal. We know the time for #EnvironmentalJustice is now. We need to turn the tide towards #ZeroWaste,' said #DanaColihan, Co-Executive Director of environmental group Slingshot.
" 'I just hope that the state can get serious about actual environmental justice, and Casella can implement some practices that it make it so that they don’t have to bring out of state waste to stabilize our sludge, and really find solutions instead of creating more problems with us,' stated #MaulianBryant, Executive Director of the Wabanaki Alliance."
Read more:
https://www.wabi.tv/2025/07/18/penobscot-nation-citizens-rally-opposition-proposed-expansion-juniper-ridge-landfill/
#AirIsLife #WaterIsLife #MaineResists #PFAS #PenobscotRiver #Casella #ProtectTheSacred #Wabanaki #Wabanakik #NativeAmericanNews #MaineNews -
From 2020: Restoration of #LandStewardship
#SunlightMediaCollective, October 14, 2020
"A significant return of land #stewardship to the #PenobscotNation celebrates their history and cultural #resilience and serves to inspire similar land stewardship returns during and beyond this important moment of historical reckoning. On October 30th, 2020, in the Ancestral territory of the Penobscot Nation, #ChiefKirkFrancis and the Penobscot people received 735 acres of #LandBack in what is currently known as #WilliamsburgTownship. The land is located between two parcels of land already in Penobscot stewardship, to the West of the #PleasantRiver and the town of #Brownsville. This is a broad landscape of #RiverEcosystem and critical #AtlanticSalmon habitat that connects the #PenobscotRiver to #Katahdin."
Video link:
https://www.sunlightmediacollective.org/restoration-of-land-stewardship/ -
Amid Continued #Sovereignty Campaign, #Wabanaki REACH Creates Play as Part of Truth-Telling Project
Evan Popp, Maine Beacon
Thu, August 31, 2023"As part of a truth-telling initiative that seeks to illuminate the issue of land claims and the 1980 #SettlementAct as well as celebrate the resilience of #Indigenous communities, the group #WabanakiREACH has partnered with a #Maine-based #theater organization to create a play developed by and for #Wabanaki people.
"The play, titled where the river widens, is an original, community-developed production and is being put on in partnership with #ThreadbareTheatreWorkshop, a group located on the Blue Hill peninsula. The work is the first public offering based on a project in which Wabanaki REACH — an organization supporting Indigenous self-determination through education and other restorative practices — spent a year gathering more than 40 oral history interviews from Wabanaki people and those in Maine about Maine Indian land claims and the 1980 Settlement Act.
"As Beacon previously reported, Wabanaki tribes have long argued that the Settlement Act has stifled tribes’ economic development and allowed the state to treat sovereign Indigenous nations as municipalities, creating a paternalistic and unfair relationship that no other federally-recognized tribe is subject to. Given that, the Wabanaki have created a grassroots movement in the last couple years behind reforming the Settlement Act to recognize the tribes’ inherent sovereignty, but opposition from Gov. #JanetMills has stymied such efforts despite broad support for change from the public.
"Earlier this year, tribal leaders also attempted to pass a bill to ensure that the Wabanaki would have access to most federal laws that benefit Indigenous tribes around the country. Proponents of that legislation noted that because of the Settlement Act, any federal law enacted after 1980 for the benefit of tribes across the U.S. that impacts the application of Maine law doesn’t apply to the Wabanaki unless they are specifically included in the measure by Congress. However, Mills in June vetoed the measure pushed by tribal leaders to rectify that situation.
"Given the power of the stories Wabanaki REACH was able to collect on the subject, Maria Girouard, the group’s executive director, said the organization felt it was important to share those experiences with a wider audience via theater.
“We were so moved by the stories we gathered, it was a natural next step to talk about theater as a way of continuing to move the conversation from the head to the heart, to reach more people, and to gather in community,” Girouard said.
"The play is set outdoors along the #PenobscotRiver, which itself has been the subject of land claim disputes and issues related to tribal sovereignty. It stitches together music, song, dance and the interviews from Beyond the Claims: Stories from the Land & the Heart — the name of the Wabanaki REACH truth-telling initiative.
"A news release about where the river widens also describes it as a 'poetic, spare, lyrical movement through stories, place, and time” and a thought-provoking play that “not only illuminates a complex and tumultuous era, but celebrates the beauty, creativity, and resilience of Wabanaki people.'
"#Threadbare said they are excited to be working with Wabanaki REACH on the play, which features #LilahAkins, #EstherAnne, #NickBear, #WolatqinBear, #AndreaFrancis, #MariaGirouard, #DaleLolar, #GeorgeLoring, #MargoLukens, #JoshuaMcCarey, and #ErlenePaul as co-creators and performers.
"'Threadbare’s way of co-creating, not only with community members but inspired by them, aligns so beautifully with Wabanaki REACH’s values of connection and joy,' said Kate Russell, artistic director of Threadbare Theatre Workshop. 'I am grateful for the generous folks who have come together this summer to create and perform this play — they are brilliant.'
"There will be two public performances of the hour-long play on Indian Island on Sept. 16 and Sept. 17 at 5 p.m. With space limited, those who want to attend must register ahead of time to reserve seats by visiting wabanakireach.org."
https://news.yahoo.com/amid-continued-sovereignty-campaign-wabanaki-222018960.html
#IndigenousNews #WabanakiConfederacy #PenobscotNation #Maliseet #Passamaquoddy #Mikmaq #FirstNations #MaineTribes #Arts #Theatre #TruthTelling #NativeAmericans