Learning from Land Return - Medicine Wheel

March 20, 2025

In December 2024, the papers were signed and a land return long in the making closed. Medicine Wheel, a place that abuts exisitng Mi'kmaq land and communities and offers sugarbush and forest and access to Long Lake, officially returned to Mi'kmaq Nation. This land return happened through a collective effort from Mi'kmaq Nation, the Wabanaki Commission on Land & Stewardship, non-native conservation organizations, funders, and First Light.

In March, key partners in the return gathered online to share reflections and learning about this process. We invite you to catch up on this conversation with Shannon Hill (Wabanaki Commission, Mi'kmaq Nation), Frances Soctomah (Wabanaki Commission), Gabriela Alclade (Sewall Foundation), Ciona Ulbrich (Maine Coast Heritage Trust), and Brett Ciccotelli (First Light),  moderated by Ellie Oldach (First Light).

  • When we're talking about land return, we're talking about healing in a lot of different ways...it's how we as Wabanaki people are fulfilling our responsibilities and relationships to relatives all over, to fish, to waters, to trees, to each other.

    Frances Soctomah

  • Projects do tend to pop up around water...water is life, everything starts with water. Water is so important to our culture for so many different reasons. This is really the first purchase...where we own rights, full rights, to access this water now.

    Shannon Hill

  • The efforts that we've been involved with around land return have been very long conversations. It's not a transactional thing. It's relationship-building.

    Gabriela Alcalde

  • Patience and tenacity. Something like land return is small steps, not leaps. Sticking with it, continuing to have examples and talk about it and do more as a collective-- and I think there's an exciting collective effort building in Maine-- is probably the most helpful pathway forward. 

    Ciona Ulbrich