The Pejepscot Portage Walk
Date: Sunday, October 6, 2024
Time: 9:30 am - 3:00 pm
Location: Brunswick Town Mall*
We invite you to participate in a day of movement and reflection along the Pejepscot Portage, the Wabanaki portage that formed the basis for the roadway today known as Maine Street in Brunswick.
When people talk about the history of a place, they are often speaking of the history that focuses exclusively on colonial or European American perspectives. How does an understanding of Wabanaki and African American histories reframe what we understand to be the history of Brunswick?
By traveling the portage route together—from the falls at Pejepscot to Maquoit Bay—we will attempt to see the wider relationships and continuing Wabanaki and Black presences in this place many of us call home.
*Transportation and parking information will be shared closer to the event.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Join us for all or part of the day!
There are options to walk or drive the portage route.
9:30, Fort Andross: The day’s events will open at 9:30 with an optional gathering at the Pejepscot Falls end of the portage, behind Fort Andross Mill. As we convene by the Androscoggin River, we will send-off a group of portagers who will carry a Penobscot birchbark canoe the length of the portage.
10:00, Brunswick Town Mall: We then invite all participants to the Brunswick Town Mall at 10:00 for a welcome gathering with speakers and activities, as we share and reflect on the layered histories of this place. Those walking the portage will depart. A pop-up exhibit on the Brunswick Mall will illuminate stories related to Indigenous, Black, and settler-descendant populations of the area. These stories have remained largely absent from dominant narratives and from the commemorative landscape.
12:00, Wharton’s Point: Those driving will depart the mall around 11:45 - please find others to carpool with, we will help facilitate this. We will continue the portage route (by car or by foot) down Maine Street—past blueberry barrens and sandplain grasslands—to arrive at the other end of the portage, Maquoit Bay, at about 12:00. Here, the group will be guided in talks by Anthony Sutton and the portagers who will have completed their journey.
1:30, Unitarian Universalist Church: Retracing our path, the day will close at 1:30 with a shared meal prepared by Mihku Paul at the Unitarian Universalist Church. We will process the day over plates of braised venison, wild rice, and pickled fiddleheads, in celebration of Wabanaki foodways.
The Pejepscot Portage Mapping Project raises awareness of the stories of this place we now call Brunswick. We are Wabanaki and non-Native artists, activists, academics, conservationists, and interested residents. Together, we are working to better understand the ancient and ongoing Wabanaki connections to this place and reflect honestly on the colonial impacts on the land and original inhabitants. The project seeks to deepen community awareness of the rich and difficult history we share and make possible the building of a more inclusive community. Our work has focused primarily on Wabanaki history, but as participants in this WHERE walk, we also seek to highlight how Black and Wabanaki histories have both been silenced or ignored by the dominant narratives of this place called Brunswick.
What will you carry?
What will you leave behind?
The Pejepscot Portage Mapping Project will provide several materials to participants—including an illustrated map of the portage highlighting Wabanaki history and continued presence—to help guide this event and future visits to places along the portage.
As we develop new and deeper connections between the people, places, and histories of what we now call Brunswick, we may ask: How does a widened understanding of the past help us shape the future of our community?
Photos by Mia Beale
Related Resources
Midcoast Indigenous Awareness Group is a group of midcoast Maine residents working to raise awareness in ourselves and others about local and regional Indigenous cultures, histories, and current challenges through education and programming. Learn more at www.miag-group.org
The Maine-Indian Tribal State Commission (MITSC) has recently completed and published a new special report, Sea Run, which addresses the impact of Maine policies and activity on the quality and quantity of traditional tribal fish stocks and sustenance lifeways practices, spanning from the time of first contact between Europeans and the Wabanaki Nations to the present day. See also MITSC Tributaries, a series of short videos that aim to highlight content and promote discussion related to the Sea Run report.
Pejepscot Portage Countermap
A group of Wabanaki and non-Wabanaki community members have been in the process of making what we call a "Pejepscot Portage countermap" on Google Earth. Our goal is to better understand and raise awareness of the ways in which Wabanaki have shaped--and continue to shape--the place we now call Brunswick. See the current iteration of the map by clicking the image above.
Wabanaki Fisheries: What Rivers Can Teach Us About Partnerships
With Anthony Sutton, Community Food Facilitator, ME Shellfish Learning Network; Adjunct Instructor, Dept. of Communication and Journalism, University of Maine (UMaine).