A private law and public policy graduate school in central Vermont is making one of its scholarships available to members of state-recognized tribes for the first time.

Yesterday (April 26, 2023) Vermont Governor Phil Scott issued his fifth consecutive Executive Proclamation of Abenaki Recognition and Heritage Week. Link here to the pdf and the full text below. Kchi wliwni Gov. Scott, from everyone!

A state-funded effort has begun to document how Vermont state laws and policies have discriminated against marginalized committees, including people with disabilities, Black people, Indigenous people, other people of color and people of French Canadian heritage.It came out of legislation passed last year that created a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to seek ways to repair harm caused by the state of Vermont.

Ahead of a major federal deadline this Friday for wrapping up settlement talks with stakeholders over the terms of its hydroelectric licenses on the Connecticut River, FirstLight Power has signed an understanding “in principle” with local tribal agents and advocates over its approach to traditional cultural resources along the river during the next several decade.

”As part of an ongoing effort to ensure that Dartmouth is in compliance and actively pursuing repatriation under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, known as NAGPRA, a visiting team of forensic anthropologists and archaeologists is working with Dartmouth to re-inventory human skeletal remains in Dartmouth’s possession. The visit comes after an ongoing internal review of the institution’s osteology collections unexpectedly discovered the inclusion of previously unreported Native American ancestral remains…”

In a unanimous vote Wednesday, the Brattleboro Development Review Board approved a site plan and a change of use to religious facility and nature park to establish an Abenaki cultural center at 25 Shore Dr. Conditions are anticipated to be outlined by Brattleboro Zoning Administrator Brian Bannon in a written decision.

The implementation of H.880, enacted as Act 174 of 2020, has begun to show its public side. After two years of work prioritizing State parks which would need new signage; research and consultation into Abenaki references that might apply; and developing templates and procedures, the first iteration was recently announced by the VT Department of Forests, Parks, and Recreation.

Jesse Bruchac recently posted an Abenaki language voice-over video of a traditional accounting originally told by storyteller Theophile Panadis. The graphics are drawn from Joseph Bruchac’s and Will Davis’s graphic novel from 2010 entitled “Dawn Land.”

“…with the US Forest Service now planning to substantially increase logging in the Green Mountain National Forest — across areas that amount to more than 10 percent of the federally managed land — local climate activists have been staging protests, arguing the agency is defying Biden’s executive order and acting hypocritically.”

The full board of trustees meeting approved a land acknowledgement statement for official University use as well as a consent agenda containing several updates for UVM on Oct. 29. The acknowledgement statement, created by the Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and members and leaders of the four recognized Abenaki tribes of Vermont and the Vermont Commission for Native American affairs, is intended to recognize UVM’s historical acts of land usage, said Amer Ahmed, vice provost of the Division of DEI.

From the webpage of the University of Vermont’s Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, this announcement was posted yesterday - October 29, 2022 - following the Board’s regular meeting. We welcome this step toward building and affirming community relationships here in this landscape, led by the Division’s Amer Ahmed and Sherwood Smith and the Office of Provost Patricia Prelock.

Abenaki, Mi’kmaq and Mohawk Nations in Quebec don’t want the federal government to list the black ash tree as an endangered species — even though it’s central to some of their cultural practices, mainly basket-weaving.

Inexplicably, promoting reconciliation with Indigenous populations seems to end at the U.S. border. On this side of that boundary, Canada has actively sown seeds of hatred and attempted to undermine, indeed to reverse, Vermont’s own attempts at reconciliation with its Indigenous population, the Abenaki.

Seasonal knowledge has been central to Wabanaki sovereignty and to collective well-being in Dawnland, but a “vernal bias” has prevented scholars from fully comprehending the importance of winters in the Native Northeast. Snowshoe trails connected Indigenous nations long before Europeans ever wintered on the continent, and winter has long been a season for education and storytelling in the region.

A poem by friend and ally Duane Sherwood, published in the Commentary section of VTDigger on June 27, 2022.

People are increasingly recognizing the history and culture of Indigenous people, Elnu Abenaki leaders said Thursday at a celebration of a National Park Service grant that will allow Rockingham and an Abenaki organization to re-evaluate the importance of the petroglyphs at Kchi Pontegok, or The Great Falls.

The town of Rockingham and the Elnu Abenaki tribe joined forces to apply for a National Park Service grant for underrepresented communities, which would correct and expand the 1980s official record, with a more accurate and sensitive description of the petroglyphs and their role in the region

It is enlightening to look back at the words of Canadian Studies Professor David Massell from the podium that day, who more recently has been speaking from a very different place, the aegis of which is still under discussion. Such an about-face begs many questions, especially given his comments not very long ago.

The town of Rockingham, which includes the village of Bellows Falls, in collaboration with the Elnu Abenaki, received a nearly $37,000 underrepresented communities grant from the National Park Service to support two years of research around the site, beginning this fall.

Roger Longtoe Sheehan, Chief of the Elnu Abenaki, said he hopes the project will increase awareness about the Abenaki and the landscape they traditionally inhabited.

The hope and focus of the group is now the establishment of a Kchi Pôntegok Cultural Center. They state that the purpose of the center is, “To teach the community about a culture through use of events, festivals, and workshops.” Jones says the exact shape, size, and location of the center itself is still in the visionary and planning stages, but some funding sources have been identified.