ORONO, Maine — A former chief of the Penobscot Nation was surrounded Monday by all the materials he, his family and members of his tribe needed to construct a domed birch-bark dwelling.
Bent maple and spruce saplings about 1 inch in diameter waited next to a pile of birch bark in strips a yard wide and about 2 feet long until they were needed. Strips of basswood bark and tree roots sat curled like rope until they were called to tie the saplings together to complete the wigwam’s skeleton.
Barry Dana could have been kneeling in a clearing on Indian Island, just as his ancestors did centuries ago, preparing to build a birch-bark wigwam for his family. Instead, Dana, 51, his wife, Lori Dana, 50, and daughter Skiwani, 17, all of Solon were building the structure at the Hudson Museum inside the Collins Center for the Arts at the University of Maine with help from a couple of engineering students.
Click on the link for the rest of this story by Judy Harrison in the Bangor Daily News.
The Hudson Museum is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays. It is closed Sundays and holidays.
For more information, call (207) 581-3756.
On the Web: www.umaine.edu/hudsonmuseum.
My name is Keith Michaud and this is “Letters From Away,” a blog written by a Mainer living outside the comfortable and sane confines of New England. The blog is intended for Mainers, whether they live in the Pine Tree State or beyond, and for anyone who has loved ’em, been baffled by ’em or both. Ayuh, I am “from away.” Worse still, I live on the Left Coast – in California. Enjoy! Or not. Your choice.
Letters From Away 