(water gushing) (singing in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) - [Child] Many years ago, our ancestors lived by a stream.

(water gushing) - [Narrator] For the Penobscot people, the Penobscot River is more than just one of the sacred rivers in Wabanaki.

It is a vital part of our culture, history, and wellbeing.

The river has always been a beloved relative.

And in 2019, our tribe enrolled the river as a Penobscot Nation citizen.

This river is an essential part of our community.

This river is our relative.

(people cheering and chattering) - I mean, it means everything.

You can point to any aspect of our culture from a river perspective.

It's all intertwined, who we are, we are the river, it's as simple as that.

- Everything about this water defines who my people are.

Our people come from this water.

- We're not a tribe that has been placed on these islands in this river.

This is our ancestral territory.

This river means everything to the tribe and we've been extremely spiritually connected to it, physically connected to it, and it's just part of who we are here.

- You have to understand that thousands of years ago, the Penobscot people lived in and around this river and gained all their sustenance from the river.

Everything that they had to survive was gathered either from the river or the surrounding lands.

And over time, they grew this relationship with the natural world, a relationship between the people and Gici Niwaskw, the Great Spirit, between the people and Mother Earth, and the people and the creatures of the land and the river.

- My ancestors are from this land, from this river.

I look at the river as a life force for our people.

We're one and the same, and we come from this river, we come from this land.

- The land here was called Wabanaki.

It was a dawn land, and that stretches all the way up to the Maritimes.

It comes down through New England.

And so that was like our expansive territory.

But we all kind of shared, the Wabanaki tribes and other neighboring tribes.

And when we come to here on this place is, (speaking in foreign language), is the river itself that runs all the way up.

(speaks in foreign language), this place right here.

- Yeah, we're still in our homeland, we're in our ancestral territory.

And to truly understand our history, I have to understand the geography.

I have to understand the geology.

What is going on seasonally here?

And, you know, what does that mean to people who are looking to survive in this, not not just survive, but to live, and to live well.

And it was an understanding, a very sophisticated knowledge of the landscape.

Not only the landscape and the waterways, but the plants and animals that are here.

Because we were, we're a part of that.

(dramatic percussion music) - There still exists a common reverence and a common respect for the river, and the land and all the creatures.

- We have so many traditions revolving around the river.

And you always see us out on the river.

I walk by this boat landing every day.

And there's always someone down here, either if they're swimming or paddling or fishing, there's always people down here.

- I like swimming in this river.

I like canoeing in this river.

There's just so much to do.

And there'll be like an eagle swooping down to get a fish or something, and it'll swoop back up, and it's just really entertaining.

Or I'll watch the ducks swim around on a nice beautiful day.

- It's really important.

I mean, for generations, this was our highway basically.

We didn't have, like I-95, we had this, like the Penobscot River, and we just canoe down all the way down to the coast or up to Katahdin.

- [Canoer] I canoe a lot, race each other, doing like 250 meter sprints.

- When I watch these kids canoeing, they're feeling it.

They're feeling more than just the canoe in the water.

They're feeling the ancestors, they're feeling the belonging, they're feeling the healing of the water.

They're feeling the preciousness of it all, and the powerful way it can make them feel when they're paddling in it.

And it's good.

- It's my serenity being on the river.

I mean, the minute I got in that boat today, it was like, you know, it's like, look at me, I'm tearing up because of it.

But it is, it's my serenity.

And if I didn't have this river, which I didn't for seven years of my life, and when I came home, I was home.

- I grew up afraid of the river because my parents wouldn't let us go on it.

They said, you know, it's too dangerous.

'Cause you know, you gotta know your routes on the river.

Or you're gonna be in the river.

So I had to learn, you know, the paths to go and where you can go, where you can't go with a motorboat.

I've learned a lot about the river.

How strong she is.

And she is, she's something else.

She's beautiful.

Even today.

- You know, at one time we, you know, we traveled over three quarters of the state.

You know, this was all our territory, our whole way of life was, was based on this, you know, living off this land all around us.

And 'cause gradually we had that stolen from us over the years, and it became smaller and smaller and smaller.

- [Narrator] Since the 1600s, European settlers have been colonizing Wabanaki territory.

Colonial governments imposed the doctrine of discovery to replace indigenous kinship connection with the colonial concept of ownership, which led to racial, cultural, and environmental violence across Wabanaki.

Violence against the Wabanaki people continues into the present day in Maine in many forms.

However, trauma is not the only thing passed down through the generations.

Our ancestors have gifted us with traditional epistemologies, ways of being, strength, cultural wisdom, and a powerful ability to survive and heal.

(singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (dramatic percussion music) The Wabanaki people continue to nurture ancient traditions that promote the value of all life, community responsibility, and reciprocity.

- What I try to understand about this place we live in today, which is rooted in an Euro-American Maine culture, is to strip all that away, you know, strip away the noises of cars and the highways, and look at this landscape without all the infrastructure, and you know, how do we travel to Katahdin from here?

You know, you take the river.

And so you start to look at the landscape differently and you start to see it as a Penobscot place.

- So many generations back, thousands of years, have called this home, and have lived here and died here and loved here.

And just having that connection and that feeling of belonging, and that connection, you know, to your ancestors is an amazing thing that can get you through anything, any hard times.

- The other thing that's so important for us, traditionally, growing up here was the medicines.

My grandfather knew a lot of the old medicines, and there were a lot of healing plants that grew along the river.

- So there's medicine everywhere you look.

The plants, the ferns, the shrubs, the trees, the roots.

A lot of wild edibles.

- Yeah, every year during fiddlehead season, a few people from our family will go fiddlehead picking up at camp, and will bring home loads and loads and loads of fiddleheads.

- Yeah, and then you see how that's all mulched in there with the leaves?

- Yeah.

- They come up really good in those places.

Some places you can just kind of like brush on the side like, see this right here, look at that.

So this makes it easier when you got a fiddlehead picking shirt, you just put it in the pouch.

And you can pick with both hands.

Gotta leave one in each bunch.

- It really is, you know, the relationship that you have with the plants that you use, and that's treating each plant as its own being.

It's its own sovereign thing.

It has its own right to be here and live where it lives and to be happy, and if we are gonna disrupt that, then we need to treat it with respect, and do all those things to make sure that everything is still in, you know, right relationship.

- You know, oftentimes I think man puts himself on top of this pyramid, and everything else, all creatures, animals, all, everything is below them and at man's disposal, you know.

And I don't believe that.

You know, Glooscap shot an arrow into an ash tree.

And this ash tree split open and it created all the animals of the landscape, all in that one instant, including people.

So we were created at the same time that squirrel was created, the loons were created, the moose was created.

And you know, people often say, Indians are, you know, ecological or environmental.

No, we just, I think lived more harmonious and understood our role within the ecosystem and the environments that we lived in.

- Well, part of our culture deals with learning about our ancestors' experiences, their knowledge and their wisdom.

And because there was no written history, storytelling became a very important part of the culture.

And they would sit around a campfire, probably in their wigwam, in the wintertime.

And the elders would tell stories that dealt with the past, that dealt with the environment and the spirits of the animals and the people, and so forth and so on.

But there was always a lesson to be learned from these stories.

There was always a purpose for that story.

- [Narrator] Our ancient Penobscot storytelling traditions continue into the present day, as elders teach the younger generation how to share the stories in their own voices.

For example, in 1994, the third to eighth grade classes at Penobscot Nation's Indian Island School created an award-winning animated version of a classic Penobscot story that enchanted audiences at film festivals.

(speaks foreign language) - [Child] The Frog Monster.

- [Storyteller] It is said that long ago a village of people lived near a stream.

They relied on this stream to give them life.

It gifted them food, clean water for cooking, drinking and bathing, and it was their main source of transportation.

One day the people noticed that the water had gone down.

They could walk a little further along the shore, and noticed the waterline on the rocks where the water had been before.

They felt it was a bit strange, but there was plenty of water, so they didn't think much of it, and they went on with their day.

(water trickling) - I'd love to go out there and bring some fish home, cook it, make a nice meal out of it.

- You see everybody fishing.

You see people fishing off the bridge, you see people fishing at the little bridge.

You see people fishing at the two ledges on Back Street, wherever they went, people were fishing for that meal.

- But with the pollution and now, like you can't really fish and eat it, 'cause, you know, you'll get sick from the pollution.

- There wasn't a lot of money in the community at the time.

And both my parents worked, but we were still short a lot.

So we got a lot of like our fish from the river.

Even though at the time, we didn't realize it at the time, but 'cause they were riddled with dioxins and parasites and a lot of different things.

If you wanted to have something in your stomach, there were days when we had to eat it, we didn't have any choice.

- And I think of dioxin too when I read these stories, because grandmother said in time the rivers are gonna be dangerous to us.

And that's what I think of.

I think of all the stuff in the water.

- And one day the stream got smaller and smaller, until there was just a trickle.

- [Child] A few more weeks went by, and the water in the stream had gone down to the point where there were only small puddles in the spots where the streambed was the deepest.

The tribal elders knew that they had to meet to discuss the problem, and they had to do it very soon.

- [Storyteller] The clan mothers understood that the lack of water wasn't just a problem for them, but also a problem for all the people from other villages along the stream, and for the fish, plants and animals.

The people knew they needed to solve this.

So they looked for someone to go investigate the source of the issue.

What happened to the water?

(tree branches cracking) - [Narrator] The settlers who colonized Penobscot territory had a very different way of interacting with the natural world than the Wabanaki people.

By the mid 1800s, Bangor, Maine was the largest lumber exporter in the world.

The Industrial Revolution, led by the lumber industry, paper, leather, textile mills and hydroelectric dams accelerated economic growth at the steep cost of harm to our relative, the river.

Soon after the colonial government and the tribe signed treaties that guaranteed the Penobscot nation stewardship of the river in perpetuity, settlers built dams that blocked the ancient fish migration from reaching the Penobscot nation waters, causing starvation of our people.

Loggers clearcut our relatives from the forest and sent them tumbling down the river basin, creating erosion of the riverbed and destruction of fish habitat.

Pollution from chemicals discharged by mills and factories was only the beginning of a pattern of industrial devastation that continues to the present.

As a result, the Penobscot people and the Penobscot River were struggling and in poor health.

- At that time, before the Clean Water Act, everyone was dumping, had straight pipes right into whatever water body they were around.

They had straight pipes of sewage going right in.

- You could see the foam, you could see the nastiness on top of the water.

- The Penobscot Nation Water Quality Department was established in the 1980s.

And there were paper mills in operation, and they were using elemental chlorine to bleach the pulp.

And that was the source of the dioxin in the fish.

We did tens of thousands of dollars worth of fish tissue analysis to determine the levels of dioxins and PCBs and mercury and other contaminants.

And so we wanted to make sure that we were letting our tribal members know what is in these fish and what the potential health consequences are for consuming these fish.

- And they said that we couldn't eat the fish anymore.

It was posted on all the trees.

And I didn't know what dioxin was, I had no clue, you know.

- So the dioxin is one of the strongest carcinogens there is out there.

And the problem with dioxin is it's heavy, and it gets into the sediment of the river, where it probably still exists today.

So yeah, so that's extremely concerning to the tribe.

Tribes all across America, including here, face huge health disparities in a lot of different ways.

And whether it's diabetes, hypertension, infant mortality, the disparities are almost three to one in most of those areas compared to the average American.

So it's no different here.

And when it comes to cancer, exposure to environmental contaminants, in a culture that depends on the environment, has historically and today remained a concern.

And rightfully so.

- Many of our tribal members are continuing to catch and consume fish as our ancestors have for tens of thousands of years.

And our cancer rate here on Indian Island was found to be over twice of what the rate is in the rest of the state of Maine.

- Our health is directly related to our environment from which we come.

So if we do not have a healthy environment as far as our waters and soils and plants and animals, then our health is directly affected.

So our health and the health of our land is the same.

- [Storyteller] The people in the village saw that the water had almost completely gone away, and what little was left was not safe for consumption.

So they got together as a community to decide what to do.

They gathered to discuss who from among them would go to find the water.

The brave hunters and warriors in the village all had reasons why they couldn't make the journey.

The hunters said, "If we go, who will feed the people?"

The warrior said, "If we go, who will protect the people?"

Then after much deliberation, a man from the village spoke up.

Everyone was silent, until an elder asked him why he would go.

- Without water, the plants will die.

Without plants, we will die.

- [Child] The elders granted the man permission to go and solve the problem, and bring water back to the village and the people.

- [Storyteller] So up the stream he walked.

He walked for a long time.

He saw many fish that had dried up on the shore and many birds and animals that had starved.

Every time that he passed through a village, the people there thanked him for trying to solve this problem and bring back the water.

And each village seemed worse off than the last.

He saw the truth in what the clan mother said, this was not just a mission for his people, but for everyone.

- So my great-grandmother was born on Orson Island, raised on Orson Island by her grandparents.

And she told me stories about her long canoe journeys upriver.

She would have her grandparents in each bow of the canoe, and she'd be in the middle, and she would just ladle the water for them to drink while they were canoeing.

She could drink the water right out of the river.

And then when my grandmother was born on Indian Island, she couldn't even swim in the water because of the skin rashes that would occur from the toxins from the paper mills.

- [Narrator] From the 1980s through the early 2010s, the Penobscot Nation's water quality department watched as Lincoln Pulp and Paper Mill discharged chemicals directly into the Penobscot Nation reservation waters.

- Up on Lincoln Island, I'd come in on the mill side, and I would see that pipe coming out of the river, with all that white foam and all that garbage.

Basically a pipe that was going right from the mill into the river, and watching that dump into the river.

- And the water, you could smell it, it was so awful smelling, it burned your nose kind of, and the water was really, really warm, and you could see it bubbling on the top.

And it was like really off, dark brown and poured right in.

I mean, you couldn't imagine how much came out of there in an hour, and that it just comes all the way down here.

And our kids will just swim all day in it if they could.

- [Storyteller] The man continued his journey along the dried up streambed, trying to figure out why the water was gone.

After a while, he saw somebody in the distance, somebody who wasn't human.

The man watched them for a moment before asking who they were.

One of them responded, "We are water spirits.

"We protect the water of the stream."

So he asked them, "Do you know what happened to the water?

"Why aren't you with the water?"

The water spirit answered, "No, we don't know what has happened.

"We are designated to protect only a portion of the water.

"So here we must remain until the water returns."

The man asked, "What happens to areas "Where there are no water spirits?

"You are the first that I have seen on my journey."

The water spirit answered that.

"Those areas won't be protected by us.

"They will become poisoned, not safe to drink or eat From.

"Then it is up to humans to protect them "And make those areas safe again."

The man continued up the streambed.

He was overwhelmed by how much of the water he had seen without spirits.

He thought of his village and the villages he had passed, and saw the importance of how much they would need to work together to protect the large areas where he hadn't seen any water spirits.

- We're the only entity collecting the water quality data on the main stem of the Penobscot.

We've used the Clean Water Act successfully to upgrade hundreds of miles of segments of the watershed here to give it a higher classification.

- I test the water.

I go out and I do parameters within the field, as well as we bring samples back, and we analyze the water that way.

The dissolved oxygen and the temperature.

I also do visibility on the, looking down the water column, how far.

I also do biomonitoring, which is the bugs that are in the water.

Conductivity and alkalinity.

And we do bacteria, it tells you a lot.

- We've also got very familiar with the point source discharging process so that we are able to intervene in the relicensing of the discharge permits and attempt to get higher standards put into place.

- I mean, they could keep telling you over and over this isn't gonna harm people.

You know, this is an appropriate rate.

If you can stand up and say, well, you're four times over what you should be discharging here.

That really, I think went a long ways in educating people and bringing about change.

- [Storyteller] The man walked on and on until one evening, he came to a huge mountain, a steep wall of rock in the middle of the streambed.

He decided he would rest and see what was behind the mountain in the morning.

- [Man] Hey, get outta here, you stupid-- (animals squeals) (man grunts) - [Storyteller] The man stepped back in horror and saw that this mountain was not a mountain at all.

It began to move slowly, stretching out its legs.

He looked and saw it was Aglebemu, the giant bullfrog.

As Aglebemu opened their mouth, the man finally saw what he had been searching for.

The great frog's mouth was filled with all the water, fish and animals.

- I'm the biggest living animal on Turtle Island.

The more water I drink, the bigger I get.

Until someday I will rule this world.

- You must give back the water.

It's not just for you.

- [Storyteller] The man knew he could not reason with the power-hungry frog, and he was not strong enough to fight it alone.

So he made his journey home to tell his people what he had seen, that the water was cut off because of greed.

Again he passed through the villages of the people and saw that many had died from dehydration and starved from lack of food.

Each time he came upon a village, he hurried even more, and told the people of what he had seen.

(dramatic percussion music) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (audience cheers) - [Narrator] The settler descendants' colonial capitalistic worldview that puts profit above all else has turned our relatives, the water, the land, plants, animals, and even fellow humans into commodities.

From the colonial perspective, the moneymaking capacity of these relatives has more importance than the living, interconnected, reciprocal system which we are part of, and which we have a responsibility to care for.

This culture of greed pollutes the earth, the waters and the people.

- The state, I'm not saying all the state workers, they are great people, 'cause we've worked with some of the crews, a lot of the crews.

But when it gets in the hands of the politicians, it goes away.

It's like all science is negated because it doesn't make money.

It's about that almighty dollar.

And it's gonna get us, 'cause you can't drink, you know, you can't drink a dollar bill, it ain't gonna be water for your system.

- And people are starting to understand that we're all in this together.

And people that share our vision for the future of this watershed have really stepped up.

- People in Orono, people in Brewer, these are river people that like to fish like we do.

They want to protect the water.

They see it as more than a native issue now.

- As we are seeing all over the country, most recently at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, water has become not only the center of controversy, but also is becoming the entity that is uniting people of all races with the recognition of the critical importance of protecting this resource, and what it means to not only us here today, but for the basic human rights of the yet unborn.

For the Penobscot people, water is not just some commodity that can be taken for granted or used irresponsibly.

It is an ancestral mandate to the Penobscot people that we remain steadfast in the protection of this river.

And I'm proud of the work our nation does in this arena through our water quality department, where we vigorously do sampling throughout the river, have our own laboratories, and have identified and stopped irresponsibility within this river.

- I remember meeting with Lincoln Pulp and Paper about closed loop systems, and them expressing their economic concern about putting that in.

- We were pushing them to move to what was called a TCF process at the time, that's totally chlorine free.

With the TCF system, you can actually have a closed loop system where you don't even have any discharge at all.

So we were encouraging them to go in that direction.

- [Narrator] After concerted public pressure in the 1990s, Lincoln Pulp and Paper changed their bleaching process to remove elemental chlorine.

They did not, however, fully eliminate chlorine with a closed loop system technology.

Though the facility closed in 2015, and the remaining pulp and paper mill on the Penobscot River, ND Paper in Old Town, does not currently engage in bleaching, dioxin does persist in the river.

Fish consumption advisories below Lincoln stand at one to two fish per month, none for younger children or people who may get pregnant.

Downriver in Orrington, a court-ordered study estimates that while in operation between 1967 and 2000, the HoltraChem plant discharged between six to 12 tons of mercury into the Penobscot River while making chlorine bleach for the paper mills.

In October of 2022, a federal district court in Maine finally approved a settlement requiring the plant's former owner, Mallinckrodt, to pay for remediation of contaminated sediment at the site.

Testing at the river's estuary has shown extremely elevated levels of mercury in lobsters, black ducks, eels and marsh songbirds.

- A lot of the fish that our tribal members fish for up here and have sustenance fishing rights for have to pass through that mess down there.

And there's also concerns with eagles and ospreys that consume these contaminated fish, and it gets biomagnified through the food chain and.

(water splashing) - Up the river amongst the frog, Aglebemu held back the water from these Indians.

Some even died on account of thirst for water.

(speaks in foreign language) They're looking sickly feeble.

- [Storyteller] The man, having almost died of thirst, reached the village.

He told the people about what he had seen, that greed had completely overcome Aglebemu, and that he wouldn't let anyone have the water.

He told the people of the water spirits and what would be required of them.

The people understood that they wouldn't be able to handle this alone.

They called the upon Glooscap, legendary hero of the Wabanaki people, for help.

So they had a ceremony and lit a sacred pipe.

The smoke was a message that Glooscap could see, and he knew he needed to come down to help.

- He asked them, "What is the trouble?"

They told him, "Guards of water has almost killed us all.

He is making us die with thirst, he forbids us water."

- [Storyteller] When Glooscap saw what was happening, he was very angry.

He had worked hard to ensure that all our relations would work together to live in harmony with Mother Nature.

- Over the past 25 years, the tribe has invested an incredible amount of energy building ally networks, creating relationships with all those who live, work, and recreate in that waterway.

- Someone had the vision to get a group together and start planning for the removal of several dams on the main stem of the Penobscot River.

And first I was a nonbeliever.

To raise tens of millions of dollars to take out the dams and restore the river so that the sea run fish could come back at first I thought was farfetched.

- The Penobscot River Restoration Project was a great example of what folks can do when they choose to work together for a common cause.

Really take the time that it takes to get to yes and to get to a situation where we have all of the right stakeholders at the table, and we're addressing everybody's wishes and concerns and desires.

- [Narrator] The Penobscot River Restoration Project was a shared effort to improve conditions that blocked ancient sea run fish.

These fish runs have sustained the Penobscot people for countless generations.

Between 2012 and 2016, the Penobscot Nation partnered with environmentalists, conservation groups, and state and federal agencies, who worked together to achieve one of the country's largest river restoration projects.

The project removed the GreatWorks Dam and the Veazie Dam, the two barriers furthest downriver, and built a fish bypass channel at the Howland Dam.

The project was a resounding success.

As a result, our fish relatives have returned to their ancient habitats for the first time in over 200 years.

- The work being done here today demonstrates that there can be a healthy balance between the needs and progress of mankind and the protection of Mother Earth and all her creatures.

- And so for those who say that we have to choose between taking care of our planet and conservation on the one hand, and jobs on the other hand, let's all remind them that it's a false choice, and we're proving it right here today in Maine in the Penobscot River.

- There has been numerous benefits to all concerned in the removal of those dams.

The benefit to the hydroelectric power, a benefit to the citizens along the river for the recreation and also the restoral of a portion of our culture of the Penobscot nation.

- Yeah, it's a good thing.

The fish are coming back, the sea run fish are coming back.

- There was approximately 630 odd Atlantic salmon, several thousand shad, eels, but the most impressive number was the river herring or the alewives.

2.1 million ascended the Penobscot River, whereas four or five years ago, there was none.

I mean, that is a great achievement for the Penobscot River Restoration Trust and all those involved.

And it really, really makes me happy to see the sea run fish coming back into our river and around our reservation.

- [Storyteller] Glooscap made himself as tall as he could.

- He turned into a giant, and took four big steps.

And he found the frog monster.

(water spirits chatter) (Aglebemu grunts) - [Glooscap] Give my people back the water now!

(people chattering) - We're finally getting to a point where folks are starting to recognize and support what we feel was the Creator's intent for this great watershed.

- [Narrator] The Penobscot River has come a long way.

However, there is still a lot of work to be done.

- The contaminant study shows that the resident species that are still here still suffer from high levels of contamination.

As you know, we're still under a fish advisory, fish consumption advisory here.

- [Narrator] Another ongoing source of pollution is the state-owned, privately run Juniper Ridge Landfill, located in the Penobscot River Watershed between Pushaw Stream and Birch Stream.

The landfill's liquid refuse, called leachate, is trucked to the ND paper mill in Old Town, processed, and discharged into the river, directly downstream from the Penobscot Nation.

After years of continuous activism by Penobscot tribal members and other area residents, state legislation was passed in 2022 closing a loophole that allowed out of state waste to be dumped at state-owned landfills.

That same year, leachate at Juniper Ridge was found to contain high levels of PFAS, per and polyflora local substances, known as forever chemicals, which are linked to increased cancer risk, among many other serious health problems.

The fight for clean water and a healthy riverine ecosystem is far from over.

- You know, for so long it was abused, and you know, thought of like that, the ultimate sink, just to be, dump stuff in, and it'll go to the sea.

But it doesn't, it stays.

- [Narrator] In Maine, there has been a continuous pattern of contention over who should have the authority to set and enforce water quality standards within reservation waters.

Everywhere else throughout the country, tribes set those standards for themselves, or the federal government does, working within its trust responsibility to the tribes.

Both ways give consideration for healthy fisheries, tribal fish consumption, and traditional cultural practices.

The state of Maine, however, continues to assert that the 1980 Maine Indian Claims Settlement Implementing Act gives them the authority to set water quality standards, completely disregarding tribal sovereignty.

In 2000, the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy tribes opposed Maine's takeover of pollution discharge permitting within tribal waters.

State and industry engaged in a campaign in which three paper companies sued the tribes for internal documents.

Tribal chiefs Barry Dana, Rick Doyle and Richard Stevens were ordered arrested if they defied the state court ruling.

In 2014, the Federal Environmental Protection Agency ruled that Maine's water quality standards within Wabanaki waters were not protective enough for tribal fishing rights and human health under the Clean Water Act.

They requested that more stringent standards be set.

Instead of improving standards, the state sued the EPA, prompting the EPA to promulgate federal water quality standards to protect sustenance fishing and cultural uses.

Like other tribes across the United States, the Penobscot Nation began steps toward promulgating its own tribal water quality standards within reservation and trust land waters.

As required by the EPA, a hearing was held.

Tribal members and the general public spoke in overwhelming support for the Penobscot Nation stewarding our own ancestral river.

But the process did not advance.

In 2019, after a protracted legal dispute, parties reached the current resolution, which incrementally raised water quality standards within water designated for sustenance fishing, but continues to keep the authority in state hands.

The resolution does not recognize tribal sovereignty or the existence of tribal waters.

- I'd like to know why.

I'd like to know why the state sued EPA for trying to exercise its trust responsibility to protect my tribe from getting sick.

- [Storyteller] Though Glooscap was filled with rage, he tried to reason with Aglebemu.

- He asked the frog monster if he could give back the water.

But the frog monster said, "No, this is my water.

"I don't want to share with you."

(Aglebemu laughs) - Then he said to him, "Why do you "Enfeeble our grandchildren?

"Now you will be sorry for this, "For enfeebling our grandchildren.

"Now I shall give them the water, "So that all will receive an equal share of the water."

- The state of Maine has consistently tried to diminish the tribe's territorial rights.

They have consistently tried to diminish the tribe's sovereignty.

Those things were supposed to have been resolved with the Maine Indian Land Claims Settlement Act.

But none of those issues have been resolved.

The state has never stopped trying to diminish our territorial and sovereign rights.

- [Narrator] In 2012, the Penobscot Nation was met with a shocking and existential threat.

The state of Maine abruptly asserted that the Penobscot reservation, which includes more than 200 islands in the Penobscot River, does not include any portion of the water.

The Penobscot nation was forced to sue the state to oppose this territorial taking.

The US Department of Justice joined the case in support of the Penobscot Nation, and a groundswell movement rose to support tribal sovereignty and the right to stewardship of the river.

- And you know, the tribe historically has once roamed over 12 million acres of this territory.

And you know, we're asking to govern some of the most sacred areas that remain in our territorial control.

And, you know, we don't think that's a huge ask.

And when we look at the issue nationally with other tribes, other states, other congressional leaders, I mean, people are appalled by it, and they don't understand the legality of it, and why Maine and the Maine tribes are still in this space on this issue.

- It all stems from the interpretation, first of all, of the treaties, and the interpretation of the 1980 land claims.

We did not give up any aspect of the Penobscot River or our rights to gather fish and wildlife.

- [Maria] You know, where being told that we somehow gave up our river and that the Maine Indian land claims settlement was somehow involved in that.

From where I sit, you know, as a historian, I think that that's just a ludicrous assertion.

- [Narrator] This river case spanned the terms of three state attorneys general, William Schneider, Janet Mills and Aaron Fry.

In 2022, the US Supreme Court denied the Penobscot Nation's petition to hear their appeal of lower court rulings against them, leaving no further options for a resolution in favor of the Penobscot people within the colonial court system.

- This is really another attempt in a long list, a long history of attempts to terminate indigenous rights.

- You know, this goes back to colonial times.

You know, we've been promised by the government, the state government, even before Maine was a state, the colonial government in Massachusetts promised to protect our lands and fisheries in perpetuity if we joined the colonists in the Revolutionary War, which we did, and they agreed to.

And it was just a few years after that, you know, we have records of our tribal leaders traveling to Boston to complain to the colonial government about them breaking their agreements with us.

So this has been the pattern since, you know, the late 1700s.

- [Maria] Chief Anthony Elmott had traveled with a council delegation in 1803 all the way to Boston.

And he insisted that the Penobscot never agreed to give up this portion of the river, the portions of the islands, that they were a rivering culture.

It just fell on deaf ears.

And he was so devastated that he couldn't go on anymore, and he ended up committing suicide.

He succumbed to the pressure of the sadness and the hopelessness.

We are interconnected with that river.

It's our relative.

And we have this connection and this relationship that is age old.

And so we're doing what we need to do.

We gotta fight, we can't, we can't give up.

- We are Penobscot people from the Penobscot Nation.

And we live in relationship, in inseparable relationship with the Penobscot River.

That means that we are obligated and it is our responsibility to care for that river for all of us.

- So no matter what, the court ruling is or whatnot, we have always taken care of that for thousands of years.

And we'll continue doing it no matter what they say or what they do.

- [Narrator] As Penobscot people, we remain committed to maintaining our traditional ways of being by supporting the health of our beloved relative, the Penobscot River.

- The more we talk about it and the more we educate people, the the better off we're gonna be, and better off, more importantly, the river's gonna be.

And hopefully our ancestors someday will be very happy with the work we're doing.

And I know they must be today.

And I mean, so it's something they saw the effects of in a very different way, right.

Like violence and physical removal, and discrimination, and a whole host of other things they were battling while trying to protect these basic rights as well.

So if we look at when we talk about progress and what we'd like to see in the future for the river, I'm sure if you asked them back then, they would've said what they would've liked to see.

And today we have the luxury of not having, you know, we get fought in much different ways.

It's lawyers and courts, but it's, our people are not getting shot, by and large.

And not getting shot and killed.

And people aren't getting away with those things that they once did.

And so while there's still some discrimination we're facing and racism out there, those people put us in a much better place to fight these battles today.

And hopefully our work will put future generations in a much better place as well.

- [Storyteller] Glooscap persisted and tried to tell Aglebemu that everyone would die without the water, but Aglbemu was overcome with gluttony.

He'd said he would swallow up everything.

He even tried to swallow up Glooscap.

So Glossop looked around and he saw a giant birch tree, hundreds of feet tall.

- Glooscap found the biggest birch tree he could find and smacked him right on the back.

(Aglebemu roars) (Glooscap shouts) (water trickles) - The water rushed out of the frog's shattered body, flowing down the indentations the tree made, bringing back the life source that every living thing needs.

- [Storyteller] As the water rushed down through the dry streambed, the people were so overwhelmed with happiness and gratitude at the sight of it that many jumped into the water.

- And they turned into eels, fish.

- [Storyteller] Turtles and other water animals.

The people swore that they would always do everything in their power to protect the river for all of time.

They would honor its gifts because they understood the importance of the health of the river.

- [Man] These people were transformed into water clan.

The river is still here today.

It is called the Penobscot River.

- The history of the river and the water through our stories, I mean, it ties us in.

We're both, through my father's side, we're eel clan.

That ties our family, the Neptune, directly to the water in this river.

- You know, I think that this is all part of our cultural reawakening, our revival.

You know, as we start to piece back together our language, and people are learning it and becoming fluent, you know, our river is getting reanimated.

(singing in foreign language) - A little smudge for the folks at home.

(singing in foreign language) (dramatic percussion music) - It would be great for us to get back to our state of being and knowing and empower ourselves, you know, and to be healthy, to be able to live in a healthy environment that isn't killing us.

You know, by us doing what we always did naturally for years.

- Western culture, the way that it's being lived right now, is unsustainable.

And I think the only way to cure that is to reconnect people with nature and appreciate the other beings that call this home.

And it's that disconnect that causes so many of the ills that we see.

You know, not only in our community but outside in the larger community.

- And we have left our world and corporate leaders untended for far too long.

They have lost their way.

They forgotten the teachings of the ancestors and the teachings of their own hearts.

The indigenous people are rising up to remind them of these teachings.

- We can't claim any right to anything without it being balanced by a set of corresponding responsibilities.

- We need to be able to take care of that.

Because we see that it's not just a river, it's a being.

It's got a spirit, it's alive, it moves.

It sustains us.

- It's us.

It's where our ancestors were.

And I've always had to come back, 'cause this is my home.

And I always come back to the water.

Because that's where I belong.

I'm the water and the water is me.

So it's my relative.

And I want to stay and support that relative.

- We have been speaking compassionately for the earth and all of its inhabitants since the newcomers first arrived on this land.

But no one has listened.

Now we come to you once again and we ask you to stand with us and renew your connections to (speaks in foreign language), Mother Earth, and to bring your intellect back into alignment with the wisdom of the heart, so that we can all return to a more balanced way of living, in harmony with the rest of creation.

(speaks in foreign language) Thank you all so much.

(singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language)