Reconnecting Habitat and the Revitalization of a River Culture: The Penobscot Indian Nation and the Penobscot River

2012 will be a historic year for the Penobscot River in Maine.  The Penobscot River Restoration Trust is poised to remove the second mainstream dam on the river, the Great Works dam, and is preparing for the 2013 removal of the Veazie Dam, the first dam on the river.  The removal of these two mainstem dams and the construction of a nature-like bypass channel around the Howland Dam, the first dam on a major tributary, will greatly improve access to upstream spawning and rearing locations for a dozen species of diadromous fish. The Penobscot Indian Nation, a critical partner in the Penobscot River restoration process, will also be completing a connectivity project on its own land, and collecting field data on another project to be competed in 2013.  These projects will open up additional habitat for Atlantic salmon, American eel, and the Alewife.  

All of these projects will help to restore the suite of diadromous fish to the Penobscot River and will help revitalize the fishing and river culture that has been missing from the Penobscot Nation for close to 200 years. The Penobscot Nation relied on the diadromous fish of the Penobscot River for thousands of years to help sustain their people. Dam construction on the mainstem Penobscot River, starting in the 1830’s, caused rapid and dramatic declines in the populations of diadromous fish. The social, cultural and spiritual ties the Penobscot Nation had with the river began to fade as the diadromous fish populations did the same.  It is the hope of the Penobscot Nation to restore these “refugees” of the Penobscot River, and restore the ties that historically bound the Tribe so intimately to the river that shares their name.