The Mi’kmaq Nation is celebrating the acquisition of 3,400 acres near Bridgewater, the sixth project completed in an eight-year, $50 million effort to return ancestral lands to Maine’s Wabanaki tribes.
Returning lands to the five tribes — the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, Mi’kmaq Nation, Passamaquoddy Tribe at Motahkomikuk, Passamaquoddy Tribe at Sipayik and Penobscot Nation — is part of a grassroots effort to return 50,000 acres in 11 distinct parcels throughout Maine to the Wabanaki communities.
The Bridgewater land doubles the Mi’kmaq Nation’s footprint in Aroostook County. For the tribe, it means access to resources that have been disappearing for decades due to private development and ownership. More than that, it is a place to preserve and practice ancestral traditions and teach younger generations about their culture.
“The land is very important to the tribes,” said Mi’kmaq former Vice Chief Richard Silliboy, who is actively involved in tribal land return. “It gives us the opportunity to expand our medicine gathering, hunting and fishing.”
The Mi’kmaq land is the sixth completed acquisition in the Tributary Land Returns, a collaboration between the Wabanaki tribes and seven non-Indigenous organizations. It’s the second major return in Aroostook County. Houlton’s Band of Maliseet Indians acquired 1,327 acres abutting tribally owned Wilderness Pines Campground last year.
Driven by grassroots efforts, the tributary project is one of the largest returns of private land in U.S. history, according to Shannon Hill, environmental health director for the Mi’kmaq Nation.
Hill said the tribe will be “forever humbled” to be entrusted with the stewardship of the land.
The 11 parcels were affirmed by the Wabanaki Commission on Land and Stewardship, which also supports Wabanaki citizens, nonprofits and tribal governments in caring for the lands through the Wolankeyutomone Kisi Apaciyewik Fund. The name means “Let us take good care of what has returned.”
“Indigenous land return projects are a cornerstone of our conservation efforts,” Tom Duffus, vice president and northeast representative for The Conservation Fund, said in a statement. “I’m thrilled that this special place is once again managed by the Mi’kmaq Nation, whose citizens have stewarded this landscape since time immemorial.”
For eight years, the Wabanaki Commission and First Light, a group of non-Indigenous, land-based organizations, have worked in close partnership to transform conservation, build trust and return land.
First Light brings the partners together, raises the funds and completes the logistics to make the purchase happen, said Brett Ciccotelli, First Light’s core staff member who focuses on land return.
The recent $2 million Bridgewater transaction came in fully funded about a year ahead of schedule, Ciccotelli said.
“The Tributary team sees this as a significant milestone,” Ciccotelli said. “We are about halfway through.”
Silliboy said the land returns would not be possible without the help of First Light and the other non-Native organizations, including The Nature Conservancy of Maine, Trust for Public Land, Maine Coast Heritage Trust, The Appalachian Mountain Club, The Forest Society of Maine and The Conservation Fund.
The Bridgewater parcel — Mesgilg Maqamigew, or “big land” — doubles the tribe’s territory and is one of its most accessible natural areas. Its forests, wetlands and more than three miles of North Whitney Brook offer native people access to ancestral lands and a place to pass on traditions to younger generations before they are forgotten, according to tribal leaders.
It also includes several miles of a former railroad bed that connects state-owned portions of the Bangor & Aroostook Multi-Use Trail. The nation will maintain the current public ATV, snowmobile, bicycle and pedestrian access to the trail.
Silliboy said he’d like to see some walking trails and a few cabins built on the Bridgewater property for hunters or winter sledders.
He hopes they’ll be able to use wood harvested from the land, processed at a new Mi’kmaq sawmill in Presque Isle, to build the cabins.
The land will eventually be placed in a federal land trust, but that can take several years. Until that time, the tribe will likely have to pay taxes on the property, Silliboy said.
“We may have to get a grant to help with the taxes,” he said.
Two additional Aroostook acquisitions, part of the 11 parcels, gave the Mi’kmaq Nation access to land that abuts a residential area owned by the nation in Littleton, provides shoreline access to Long Lake, and provides farmland and maple sugar bush for the Nation’s farm and food sovereignty programs.
The parcels still in process include shaping the ownership and stewardship of land at the mouth of the Kennebec River; land returned to the Passamaquoddy Nation that will expand forest lands on the south branch of Penobscot River; a more than 30,000-acre parcel for the Penobscot Nation for new access to the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument; and a portion for the Passamaquoddy that is part of a traditional Wabanaki canoe route between Cobscook and Machias bays.
“Personally, I’m grateful not only for the land back, but I’m grateful for the organizations that made that possible,” Silliboy said. “The tribe itself, we would never have been able to put enough funds together to purchase it.”
