Maine’s Acadia: Deep History

Acadia's bare granite, rounded and gouged by glaciers

Thirteen thousand years ago Bar Harbor was covered with a sheet of ice nearly a mile thick. As the ice melted the land rose and the ice-sculpted granite revealed itself. Two thousand years later evidence suggests the first post-glacial Paleo-Indians appeared. They hunted the giant mammals of the era until they both vanished, 9500 years ago. For the next 2000 years little human activity occurred.
Eight thousand years ago the Early Archaic Indians appeared with smaller spear tips indicating smaller animals. 4000 years later the Red Paint People arrived with a much more advanced culture. They went out of their way to obtain red ochre from near Mt. Katahdin to bury with their dead and had large stone chisels which they used to make ocean-going dugout boats. Thus came Maine’s first fishing people, thirty-six centuries before Europeans made landfall. Red Paint settlement excavations yield large swordfish skeletons, a fish only found in 1000 feet of water.

Eroded shore shows shell fragments from middens

Did the first European explorers encounter Red Paint People? No. There was another thousand year gap before the “Ceramic Group” appeared. Named for their use of pottery, their presence was more or less continuous until the familiar tribes were recognized. Evidence exists of these people within a few hundred feet of SeaCat’s Rest. They gathered near the shore by stream outlets and dug clams and managed fish traps during the summer months. Huge deposits of shells piled up called “midden piles” near their encampments, one of which is two doors down.

FDR's birch bark canoe

These modern Indians fashioned the famed birch-bark canoes now copied by Old Town Canoe Co. They also planted gardens and grew corn, beans and squash, using tools of shell and bone. Their lifestyle was only semi-nomadic, with regular summer and winter villages. In November they headed upriver to hunt in the forests.

European explorers describe two principle nations, the fierce Micmacs and the more passive Abnakis. Abnakis were in turn made up of the Passamaquoddy, Penobscot and Wawenocks and were the coastal tribes most encountered by Europeans. Early encounters by the two groups were quite friendly and positive reports were written by Captain George Weymouth and journalist James Rosier in 1605. Praise for their tobacco, dress, written language, homes and fishing methods flowed back to England.

In the next hundred years hostilities and acquired diseases decimated the native populations. In the 1970′s the Maine tribes sued the government and received 350,000 acres and $81.5 million. Today there are many in Maine who proudly celebrate their native heritage. I recently found out that one of my great great great great grandmothers was an Iroquois Indian, so I am 1/64 Native American, blue eyes notwithstanding.

References used: Islands of Maine by Bill Caldwell, Manitou and Providence by Neal Salisbury

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