Katahdin Kitchen, 2023. Photo by Nolan Altvater.
The Wabanaki Commission on Land & Stewardship celebrates our first grantees of the Wolankeyutomone Kisi Apaciyewik Fund. Translated from Passamaquoddy to “let us take good care of what has returned,” the Wabanaki-led fund provides resources to Wabanaki tribal governments, NGOs, and individuals to repair, rebuild, and sustain Wabanaki relationship, kinship and access to place. Our direct support helps Wabanaki people and institutions fulfill their care-taking for lands and waters across Wabanaki Traditional Territory in what is currently known as Maine.
Learn more about how the fund was created in partnership with our sister organization, First Light, here.
The Commission opened our first application period in January of this year, receiving an abundance of applications from across all tribal nations and NGOs. In our commitment to create from the community level up, our commissioners appointed two people from each tribal community to a ten-person Wabanaki advisory committee. The committee worked together to create a cohort committed to land-based healing and rematriation who engage Wabanaki languages, Wabanaki foodways, the arts, ceremony, plant-medicine teachings, camping, traditional waterways teachings, science education, and climate change resilience in their work. We are grateful for their wisdom and the opportunity to support our relatives in our shared commitment to land back and rematriation, restoring our severed connections to our territories in the dawnland.
Meet the 2025 Grantees
Tribal Governments
Mi’kmaq Cultural Department
Mi’kmaq Nation
The Mi’kmaq Nation Cultural Department seeks to create an ethnobotanical conservancy on tribal lands for community members to learn about Indigenous plant knowledge and ethnobotany. Approximately 0.65 acres of land will be home to the conservancy and will include a meadow, shade, rockery, and a small wetland area that supports the habitats of numerous plants and small animal species. The plan also includes the creation of a digital database of ethnobotanical information to house the stories of plant uses collected from members of the community for use by future generations.
Penobscot Cultural and Historic Preservation
Penobscot Nation
Penobscot Nation Cultural and Historic Preservation aims to significantly increase the Cultural Tourism Program on Sugar Island by focusing on three key values: fostering involvement around land and culture, supporting Wabanaki access to significant places, and integrating tribal language education into stewardship activities. The cultural education program will unite elders and community members from all Wabanaki tribes in cultural activities, creating a communal space where participants can share their knowledge and experiences related to land stewardship and traditional practices. A planned activity during this funding period is the collaborative building of a birch bark wigwam where participants will learn skills necessary for traditional construction and harvesting techniques, learning to process birchbark, spruce root, basswood bark, and saplings.
Passamaquoddy Cultural Heritage Museum
Indian Township Tribal Government
Over the next two years, the Passamaquoddy Cultural Heritage Museum is continuing their work in the Passamaquoddy community to implement cultural workshops, host tribal language lectures, engage community members in the annual ancestral canoe journey, nurture ceremonial spaces in the community, and host the annual Passamaquoddy Ceremonial Community Days. The museum works closely with cultural knowledge carriers to ensure teachings are reinforced across generations, from youth to adults and elders.
Sipayik Environmental Department
Pleasant Point Tribal Government
The Sipayik Environmental Department seeks to bring Passamaquoddy youth and knowledgeable tribal citizens together through canoeing and increasing involvement around traditional uses of land, waterways, and stewardship. They are working with Passamaquoddy language speakers and other cultural knowledge carriers to share histories and teachings about traditional uses of land and waterways, teaching canoe safety practices, and organizing canoe trips across Passamaquoddy homelands.
NGOs
Niweskok
Wabanaki-Wide
After completing the purchase of a 245-acre working farm in coastal Penobscot territory between December 2024 and January 2025, Niweskok plans to implement cultural and ecological-based programming at the organization. Activities for this coming year include continuing Wabanaki Rematriation School programming, traditional language learning and immersion opportunities, cultivation of traditional agricultural crops with the Mawiomi Garden and youth apprentices which are shared out to Wabanaki communities, and production of an elder interview series.
Sipayik Resilience Committee
Passamaquoddy Tribe at Sipayik
The Sipayik Resilience Committee formed in 2022 following a community resilience meeting where tribal members voted to prioritize the following goals: establish a committee of stakeholders, implement a residential weatherization initiative, implement a residential heat pump initiative, and implement a bulk purchase of solar panels and/or a community-owned solar project. The group aims to advance energy sovereignty and climate resilience for members of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Pleasant Point through citizen action.
Wabanaki Youth in Science (WaYS)
Wabanaki-wide
Wabanaki Youth in Science works to inspire and support persistence in the sciences for Wabanaki youth by providing long-term educational opportunities that integrate Indigenous ecological knowledge with western science. In addition to continuing to host the seasonal wskítkamikʷ (earth) camps and offering in-school and after-school programming, WaYS will be able to support four additional youth interns this year.
Individuals
Amelia St. John
Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians
Amelia is creating a respectful, responsible, restorative, and regenerative community harvesting and cultural education program in the form of a free cultural resource cache. The cache, which will be updated monthly, prioritizes responsible education and use about cultural resources and practices. The cache is an opportunity for community members to request already-processed resources such as cleaned and cut porcupine quills or brain-tanned deer hides. Community members will be offered the opportunity to join resource harvesting and processing and to resupply the cache.
Richard Silliboy
Mi’kmaq Nation
As a master basketweaver, Richard is devoted to preserving and passing on knowledge about traditional brown ash basketry. He first began making baskets as a child, weaving the sides of the basket to support his family’s basketmaking business. As he grew older, he learned all the different skills needed to make a basket from start to finish, including harvesting and processing his own ash. He stopped making baskets as a teenager but returned to it in his thirties to preserve the art form for future generations. Richard plans to create a new basketmaking studio so he can continue to make baskets and host workshops and demonstrations for those interested in learning more about the art.
Eric Schoppee
Mi’kmaq Nation
Eric Schoppee is working to build involvement around traditional uses of land and stewardship, especially as it pertains to the Wabanaki fishery community. He seeks to bring together traditional knowledge carriers and other community members together to learn and use traditional fishing practices that have been passed down through the generations to support sustainable fishing practices, maintaining the health of our ecosystems and by extension our human and non-human relatives.
Geo Soctomah Neptune
Passamaquoddy Tribe at Motahkomikuk
Geo is creating a space within their community that provides opportunities to Wabanaki community members to explore and deepen their connections to various cultural, artistic, and spiritual lifeways via the construction and establishment of a workshop style maker's space and the completion of a longhouse style ceremonial teaching lodge. This space will enable them to host formal apprenticeships, workshops, and classes as well as implement open community ceremony and individual spiritual services.
Matthew Dana II
Passamaquoddy Tribe at Motahkomikuk
Matthew seeks to provide Passamaquoddy tribal youth knowledge and access to traditional food and medicinal sources, ceremony, language, and history associated with these activities. Taking the collective knowledge within the Passamaquoddy communities, he is creating spaces for youth to learn through multi-generational interactions around traditional hunting, fishing, and gathering activities. He hopes to create seasonal learning opportunities for each Passamaquoddy youth to harvest up to 500 pounds of animal protein – including moose, deer, muskrat, ruffed grouse, and various fish – while also sharing their successful harvest with elders and community members during seasonal gatherings.
Jasmine Thompson-Tintor / Katahdin Kitchen
Penobscot Nation
As a leader in traditional Wabanaki foodways, Jasmine is building an outdoor kitchen that will support community and foster a place for connection, reclaiming traditional cooking and cultural practices in the Penobscot community. Through building this place of connection, the vision is to create a blueprint for what thriving foodways can look like in Wabanaki communities and beyond. The space will weave different teachings within the culture throughout her work, such as living seasonally, celebrating through feast and ceremony during the equinoxes and solstices, and the strengths of working in community.
Lisa Hall (Pardilla)
Penobscot Nation
Over the next two years, Lisa is working to connect younger generations to ancestral river and riverine culture through guided canoe trips and seasonal camping on the Penobscot River. By traveling with knowledgeable Penobscot guides, youth will have firsthand experiences and gain a deeper understanding of the interconnections of waterways, retrace the Wabanaki canoe trail, and strengthen connections to traditional ecological knowledge.