Sea Run tells story of changes in tribal food sources

The launch of the audiobook for the Sea Run report, which collects and assesses the access of traditional food sources to Indigenous people in Maine, was celebrated on October 13 at the Veazie Salmon Club, where the now‑demolished Veazie Dam once blocked access on the Penobscot River to sea‑run fish.

"An elder told me once that nobody – in the non‑Indigenous public – knows about what happened to our food. Sea Run tells that story," says Tony Sutton, a Passamaquoddy from Sipayik who is a University of Maine assistant professor of Native American Studies and Food Systems and co‑author of the report. Sea Run, which can be accessed at <www.mitsc.org/library/sea‑run>, was released in 2022; the audiobook version increases its reach.

In the early years post‑contact, the increase in the number and power of non‑Indigenous residents in what would become Maine led to an intentional separation of Wabanaki people and their traditional food and fisheries. "Many policy structures emerged when we were prevented from accessing the land. Whether it's fisheries, water or land‑based conservation, many structures were created in our absence, and these are the structures we navigate in the present," Sutton says. "Sea Run shows the different policy processes from colonial to the present that continue to shape that."

Along with diminished access, the report outlines how resources were stripped over time. While limited data exists due to a lack of fish counting methods or practices in the early years, records that do exist show that in the St. Croix River alone annual catches of salmon were averaging 18,000, shad 50,000 and alewives 30 to 80 million. Today, no salmon are caught in the river, and the annual alewife count remains under a million.

In 1980, the state passed the Maine Implementing Act (MIA), which provides that "members of the Passamaquoddy Tribe and the Penobscot Nation may take fish, within the boundaries of their respective Indian reservations, for their individual sustenance." However, this promise was "largely illusory because of the decline in the quantity of sea‑run fish and the level of pollutants that rendered any remaining fish a hazard to health if eaten in quantity," states a press release on the Sea Run audiobook from the Maine Indian Tribal‑State Commission.

Significant efforts have been undertaken on the part of the Wabanaki governments and non‑governmental organizations to bring back access to traditional food ways and fisheries, Sutton says, "whether it's restoration efforts or designing programs for people to gather again as their ancestors wanted them to." Importantly, some of the groups involved initially in limiting access are now "learning and willing to change that story." As Wabanaki caretaking resumes along the Penobscot, St. Croix and Meduxnekeag rivers and elsewhere, the waters are becoming revitalized for all Maine residents, Wabanaki and non‑Wabanaki alike.

"As told to me by an elder, food was always central to every treaty and always agreed upon," Sutton says in welcoming this change. "It's always been important because it's where we connect with our ancestors and where we provide the teachings to our youth so they will be good ancestors one day, too. It gives us life."

The audiobook version of Sea Run is narrated by four Wabanaki citizens, Dawn Neptune Adams, Penobscot; Sue Desiderio, Maliseet; Dale Lolar, Penobscot; and Dwayne Tomah, Passamaquoddy.