Wed, 10/28/2015 - 7:00pm

Steven Hufnagel, Damariscotta River Association

DRA Education Director Sarah Gladu engages Great Salt Bay students in a discussion of traditional uses of cattails during DRA’s Wabanaki Living Skills and Culture Program. Courtesy photos

Passamaquoddy educator and birch bark canoe craftsman David Moses Bridges explains construction of traditional dwellings to Great Salt Bay Community School students at the Damariscotta River Association as part of DRA’s Wabanaki Living Skills and Culture Program.

Great Salt Bay Community School students build a traditional emergency shelter as a component of the Damariscotta River Association’s hands-on Wabanaki Living Skills and Culture Program.

DRA Education Director Sarah Gladu engages Great Salt Bay students in a discussion of traditional uses of cattails during DRA’s Wabanaki Living Skills and Culture Program. Courtesy photos

Great Salt Bay Community School students build a traditional emergency shelter as a component of the Damariscotta River Association’s hands-on Wabanaki Living Skills and Culture Program.

Fifty-five very excited students from Great Salt Bay Community School gathered under the tent at the Damariscotta River Association Salt Bay Farm in Damariscotta on October 14 to begin the DRA Wabanaki Living Skills and Culture Program.

Over 400 children from 13 nearby schools attended the outdoor, hands-on program from Oct. 13 through Oct. 23.

DRA Director of Education Sarah Gladu welcomed the students and introduced them to David Moses Bridges, a Passamaquoddy educator who led one of the three workshops offered that day related to the history and culture of the four tribes that make up the Wabanaki Alliance: Penobscot, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, and Mi’kmaq. Bridges is a skilled artist and one of only a few remaining master birchbark canoe craftsmen in the world.

Bridges briefly spoke to the children in the Passamaquoddy language so they could hear what it sounded like. Long a spoken language, it was rendered into a written language only twenty years ago.

Seated around a large table indoors, the children learned to etch designs into birchbark while Bridges told them traditional Passamaqouddy tales, and explained how his family passed on to him the knowledge and skills developed over time by his ancestors. Wabanaki tribes, he explained, have existed in this area for 12,000 years.

Gladu led the eager youngsters on a trek through meadows and woods, pausing to talk about edible plants, native species, and uses for common plants. Small groups worked cooperatively to create emergency shelters in the woods using downed tree limbs, leaves, and moss.

DRA volunteers Tom Arter and Carolyn McKeon worked with groups of children to discuss and build a birchbark wigwam. McKeon taught the children to make grass mats, further evidence of how the Native American culture used all the natural things available to them to provide sustenance, clothing, homes, transportation and art.

For most of the schools that participate, the field trip is not an isolated experience but instead is embedded in the curriculum, as well as a highlight of the year. For example, Great Salt Bay community school third grade teacher Jennifer Gregg explains, “We have now shaped our Native American curriculum around our annual field trip to the Damariscotta River Association. It’s so great to have this resource.

“Everything we learn at DRA ties into the Maine Learning Results,” continues Gregg, “and the program allows us to make connections with the kids that we couldn’t just by reading stories and showing pictures. When they are able to create traditional crafts using the same types of materials in the very spot where Native Americans once made them . . . you can’t provide that same experience in a classroom!”

Visitors are welcome at the Great Salt Bay Heritage Center in Damariscotta as well as the many other DRA properties throughout the region. For more information call 207-563-1393, email dra@damariscottariver.org, or view their website at www.damariscottariver.org.