Signal Songs: Land Acknowledgement

Signal Songs was inspired by the land, water, non-human creatures, and people of Eastport. This place is full of a peculiar magic that is at times as turbid as fog and at others as clear as cold ocean. As visitors experiencing and exploring this place and its rich histories, we acknowledge the complexity of that history and the ways in which settler colonial violence has been, and is still, perpetuated against this land and its people. 

There are many thriving native communities and nations whose ancestors never ceded this land. The Maine / New Brunswick area was and is the homeland of the Abenaki people and Wabanaki Confederacy: the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, and Mi’kmaq peoples. Groups traditionally relocated on a seasonal basis, subsisting on the abundance of the land. Today in this area, Passamaquoddy tribal membership and business development is increasing, in particular through prosperous blueberry and maple syrup operations. Native artistry also continues to thrive in both traditional and contemporary formats. 

In our research for Signal Songs, many of the artifacts and resources we referenced were from the 19th century on, after the land of Maine and North America was stolen from its indigenous people. And as descendants of Europeans, our presence here is inherently charged with this history. This knowledge impacted the poetry of Signal Songs, which points toward feelings of absence or loss of connection to place and history.

We understand that this acknowledgement is an extremely humble gesture, but we hope that with growing awareness and efforts to empower indigenous peoples, we can continue to learn from them, to reckon with lingering traumas of the past and the precarious futures we face.