State lawmakers are starting to take sides over a bill to let Penobscot tribe members have partial authority over Baxter State Park.

According to the Portland Press Herald, the bill seeks to add a tribal representative to the three-person Baxter State Park authority. The legislative committee has yet to hold a work session on the bill, but the idea enjoys broad political support. House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, and House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham, R-Winter Harbor, are among its cosponsors.

The Katahdin region was occupied by the Penobscot people for thousands of years before European contact. The tribe hunted, fished and prayed in the area, and the name Katahdin comes from the Penobscot word for “Greatest Mountain”. And with a recent push for Wabanaki self-governance in Maine, many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say that the tribe should have authority in the park.

“As Penobscot, we care about the management and decisions as much as the people who created the park,” said former chief Barry Dana. “As Penobscot, we had the authority here for 13,000 years and we proved what excellent management can be.”

But some people, specifically Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey, say that this change may violate the terms set up by former governor Percival Baxter. When Baxter donated the land to the state in 1931, he set up strict rules about what the state can and cannot do with the park, in an effort to keep the park wild and free of outside influence.

In those rules, Baxter laid out who would be on the Baxter State Park Authority Board: the state fisheries and wildlife commissioner, the state forest service director, and the attorney general. The board is tasked with upholding the terms of the trust.

And these measures have worked in the past. In 1967, when the nearby towns of Millinocket and Greenville tried to have the park expand the board to allow members of the towns to join, Baxter shot them down. Attorney generals in the past have shot down attempts to replace the state forest service director’s seat on the board with the commissioner of the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry. And attempts to allow hunting of have planes fly in the area have also been thwarted.

Frey told the Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry earlier this month that breaking the deeds of trust could land the issue in court. Under a worst-case scenario, ownership of the donated lands could revert to Baxter’s heirs.

But Frey and others aren’t necessarily opposed to Wabanaki voices influencing park decisions. Frey said the authority would welcome the Maine tribes to attend their meetings and provide them with counsel. He said no member of the public is turned away from what he described as intimate meetings where ideas are freely exchanged.

John Neff, a historian and former Methodist pastor who co-authored a book about the park and still hikes the area at the age of 93, said he applauds the bill’s intent but believes it would violate Baxter’s wishes and set a dangerous precedent for the future.

“The trust was Baxter’s way of protecting the park from a great many groups – not the Wabanakis, but others – that might do it harm if their wishes were allowed,” Neff said. “Now having said that, I believe they should have a voice, a real voice. I think it would be welcomed.”

To read the original Press Herald article, click here