- Details
- By Chez Oxendine
- Real Estate
A Maine tribe has acquired 83 acres through a partnership with a national land conservation organization, adding land next to tribal housing and community space.
The Mi’kmaq Nation acquired the parcel, called Pugweliget, through a partnership with the Trust for Public Land. The land abuts four acres the tribe already owns in Connor, Maine, giving residents immediate access to forest and wetlands for recreation, foraging, hunting, fishing and cultural use.
The land acquisition will also allow the tribe to make infrastructure upgrades, including improvements to the driveway and septic systems that serve the 48 people living there. More than 1,600 Mi’kmaq citizens will also be able to use the land.
Shannon Hill, environmental health director for the Mi’kmaq Nation, said the return builds on a 3,400-acre land acquisition earlier this summer and reflects a long‑standing priority to restore ancestral lands.
Hill said that while the parcel is smaller than the tribe’s land acquisition earlier this summer, its value lies in giving tribal members the freedom to “take a walk and connect with the land as we did thousands of years ago without fear of trespassing.”
The tribe said the former landowner approached tribal leadership and offered to sell the property to the Mi’kmaq Nation before seeking other buyers. The tribe then reached out to the Trust for Public Land, which quickly raised the funds to meet the seller’s timeline and transfer the property to the Mi’mkaq Nation.
“Close to home outdoor spaces are critical to health and wellbeing,” said Betsy Cook, Maine state director for the Trust for Public Land. “Pugweliget not only provides space for neighbors to safely be outside, but also to reconnect with culture.”
The project is the seventh completed under the Tributary Land Returns initiative, a collaboration between the five federally recognized Wabanaki tribes and seven non‑Native conservation groups working to restore more than 50,000 acres to Wabanaki communities through 11 projects.
