"Mount Kathadin from Millinocket Camp," Frederic Edwin Church

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Frederic Edwin Church (United States, 1826–1900), Mount Katahdin from Millinocket Camp, 1895, oil on canvas, 26 1/2 x 42 1/4 inches. Gift of Owen W. and Anna H. Wells in memory of Elizabeth B. Noyce, 1998.96. Image courtesy of Luc Demers

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At the turn of the 20th century, the population of Maine’s Wabanaki people had reached its lowest point from the impacts of colonization. Yet Frederic Edwin Church’s painting, Mount Katahdin from Millinocket Camp reminds us that some aspects of Wabanaki homeland remained the same. The iconic outline of Katahdin (meaning “greatest mountain”) stirs our imagination and quickens our hearts. The brilliant array of colors shows us there are things in this world more powerful than humans. Despite centuries of surveyors and recreationists summiting its peaks, Katahdin remains a revered mountain for the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, and Maliseet people, a place where mountain spirits and beings, including Pamola (meaning “comes flying”) and Red Rose live and require respect and appropriate behavior. While many European Americans have aimed to conquer mountain tops, Wabanakis strive to maintain their relationship with Katahdin, where the woodland caribou retreated over a century ago. Is that a birchbark canoe paddled by a Penobscot guide?

—Micah Pawling, Associate Professor of History and Native American Studies, University of Maine