As Penobscot Indian Nation Chief Kirk Francis finished leading the crowd in prayer Monday morning, he said that celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day on the banks of the Penobscot River is special.

“[The Penobscot] is a citizen of our tribe, and we see everything in it as a relative, and try to go about how we care for the river from that perspective,” Francis said. “It’s our cultural identity and at the very core of who we are. So when we talk about things like clean water, bringing our relatives back to their homeland, all of those things, that’s not rooted in any kind of power trip or some muscle flexing of sovereignty, it’s really about a holistic approach for our future.”

That approach is how the Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission’s special report “Sea Run” came to life. The 2022 re

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