Bangor Daily News
Tom Groening
May 24, 2002
Thirty-three mile trek protests state’s control
AUGUSTA — They gather to pray in a circle around a small fire that does nothing to ward off the chill in the air, some 50 Penobscot and Passamaquoddy Indians and their friends and supporters.
It’s a little past 5 a.m. Thursday, and with a white mist hanging over the Kennebec River a few yards away, they thank their creator for life, for family, for health, for the animals and insects, for trees and for the streams, rivers and waterways.
If the words of a prayer could be underlined for emphasis, the streams, rivers and waterways part probably would be so designated in the prayer of Penobscot tribal elder Butch Phillips.
The two tribes spent the day marching about 33 miles, from the riverbanks just south of Madison — a place where the Norridgewock tribe was massacred by English settlers in 1724, Phillips later explained — to Augusta to protest the state’s efforts to take over management of the waterways from the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
The walkers thinned to a core group of about 10, with some taking rests in the vehicles that traveled behind them, but when the Augusta Civic Center was a mile away they regrouped, and more than two dozen marched under Interstate 95 to a pounding drum and chanted native songs.
Today tribal members will march from the civic center to the State House, where they will comply — under protest — with a court order to turn over internal tribal documents requested by paper companies.
The complex battle over management of the waterways has bounced from federal to state court and to the U.S. Supreme Court — which refused to hear an appeal from the Indians — and to the Governor’s Office.
Gov. Angus King — at the invitation of Penobscot Chief Barry Dana, the Penobscots hasten to point out — recently tried to broker a deal among the tribes, the state and the paper companies, but the effort unraveled in recent weeks.
The tribes want the EPA to regulate the rivers, believing the state will not have as stringent standards. The paper companies prefer for the state to be the overseer. While the Indians could seek to regulate the waterways themselves under federal Indian law, the tribe has not sought this, John Banks, Penobscot natural resources director, said.
Dana, who led the march for most of the day, is disdainful of King’s assurances that the state will protect the rivers.
“He likes to hide behind the phrase, ‘We have the toughest dioxin standards in the nation.’ But there’s no teeth” to the laws, Dana claimed.
Though he joined in with the familiar, light banter of group members as they walked, Dana seemed intense, focused.
Asked what might be found in the documents that will be turned over today, Dana chortled and said personal correspondence, such as Christmas cards and letters.
The march Thursday, however, was about an issue the Indians say is greater than the legal wrangling over which government entity manages the rivers. The march was about Indian sovereignty.
The Norridgewocks were obliterated violently, the tribes say. If they don’t draw a line in the riverbank, the Penobscots and Passamaquoddys could be obliterated bureaucratically, they worry. If internal tribal documents can be sought by outsiders under the Freedom of Information Act, Banks argues, the ability of the tribe to govern itself without outside interference is threatened.
As the sun climbed higher and the caravan of pickup trucks, cars and 20 or so walkers left the river and turned south on Route 8, Phillips explained the tribes’ view.
“We feel our sovereignty is under attack by the state of Maine,” he said bluntly, and the time has come to resist.
As the group marched, some of the young men took turns sitting in the back of a pickup, playing a large drum and chanting native songs. The marchers were escorted by a Penobscot Indian police officer in a GMC Jimmy, and other trucks followed behind with signs cautioning drivers about the walkers.
A banner, carried in turns by different tribal members, led the marchers all day. At the front most of the day was Dana, 43, walking at a clip that would leave many men his age huffing and puffing after just a few miles.
Remarkably, the banner never stopped moving from 6 a.m. until 4:30 p.m., when the group arrived at the civic center. Periodically, trucks from the convoy pulled out from behind the marchers and set up a few hundred yards ahead, offering water, Gatorade, cookies, apples and sandwiches to the walkers.
The food and drink was handed to those carrying the banner. The others grabbed what they could and jogged to catch up, literally eating and drinking on the run.
Passamaquoddy tribal member Matt Dana, 22 — no relation to the Penobscot chief — drummed and sang during the opening ceremony and in the truck. When he walked, he and two of his friends seemed to enjoy seeing the countryside, especially the river-bottom farmland near Smithfield that gives views on this crystal-clear day west to Sugarloaf Mountain. The land is different from where they live in Washington County, they agreed.
“We’re in this fight together,” Dana said, explaining his decision to travel from Indian Township near Princeton to walk side-by-side with Penobscots. “Our sovereignty and our water rights are at stake,” he said, “for both tribes.”
April Francis, 28, a Passamaquoddy, was shy about explaining her reasons for walking but mentioned future generations and her hope they will enjoy the same tribal sovereignty that now exists.
Francis Joseph, 36, a Passamaquoddy who lives in Ellsworth, expounded on how whites have destroyed the environment while native people knew how to live in harmony with nature. I haven’t walked this long,” he said, referring to the 33-mile march, “but to save Mother Earth I could walk around the world.”
Skip Fraley, a nontribal member from Mount Desert, camped out the night before with Joseph, sleeping on the ground in a field near the Kennebec River. “They’ve always taken care of this place before we got here,” he said of his Indian friends. “I realized that supporting tribal sovereignty would achieve some of my goals, such as cleaning the rivers.”
During the course of the day, the talk among the group was of the annual K-100, the 100-mile trek many tribal members make from Indian Island in Old Town to Mount Katahdin. Chief Dana, several related, has completed the trek in 24 hours, canoeing upriver for 60 miles and then running the remainder.
A rumor that opponents to the tribes’ proposed casino in Kittery would confront them in Augusta circulated, but as the group entered the capital city there seemed to be little truth to it.
Today, after a 9 a.m. press conference at the civic center, the tribes will march the four miles to the State House.