51�Թ�

“It’s said that our cultural hero, Glooskap, fired an arrow into the black ash tree and our people came dancing out — it’s tied to us,” said Jeremy Frey, a 45-year-old, seventh-generation basket maker from the Passamaquoddy tribe, one of several in the Wabanaki Confederacy.

For millennia, the Passamaquoddy people used their intimate understanding of the coastal waters along the Gulf of Maine to sustainably harvest the ocean’s bounty.

The Passamaquoddy thought water quality and environmental protection should be top priority; the state emphasized forecasting models and monitoring.

For example, to harvest fish sustainably, the Passamaquoddy have begun to redeploy traditional fish weirs.

But the Passamaquoddy were never really given a seat at the table, says Ranco, a member of the Penobscot Nation, which along with the Passamaquoddy are part of the Wabanaki Confederacy of tribes in Maine and eastern Canada.