Penobscots vote for cultural center

MILLINOCKET – The Penobscot Nation has taken the first step in developing a cultural and learning center in the unused space at the former Stearns High School.

The tribal council voted unanimously last week to begin planning the project’s scope and determining its feasibility, according to Bonnie Newsom, the tribe’s director of cultural and historic preservation. Along with helping Maine teachers incorporate Native American history and culture into curriculums, the center also will serve as an economic generator for the tribe, Newsom said.

A museum, a native art gallery, a resource library for teachers and a cafe have been among the ideas discussed for the more than 15,000 square feet of available space in the Katahdin Avenue building. Nothing has been set in stone, and it’s likely a steering committee will be formed to help give the project some direction, Newsom said.

Also during last week’s meeting, the tribal council said the Stearns project should be approached simultaneously with the creation of a cultural and learning center on Indian Island in a way that both spaces would complement each other, Newsom said.

“We’ve got some planning to do to create something that works for us here and works for Millinocket as well,” Newsom said Thursday.

The tribe is looking into a rural planning grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture with a focus on both entities, Newsom said.

After months of looking for an additional use for the former Stearns High School building, which currently houses Stearns Assisted Living, developer Joe Cloutier is ecstatic about the Millinocket project’s potential impact. Each year, more than 100,000 people visit Baxter State Park and the northern Maine woods by way of downtown Millinocket, many of whom pass by the front of the former high school, Cloutier said.

“This is capitalizing on the best asset the town has, which is its tourism capacities,” Cloutier said. “The limit of the imagination is going to be the only hindrance in this project.”

That imagination could possibly connect the project to the nearby Penobscot River through what’s known as an “eco-tour,” Cloutier said. In the Florida Everglades, the Seminole Indian tribe’s educational center uses large swamp boats to give tours of the native lands while describing different parts of Seminole culture, Cloutier said.

On a local scale, the birch-bark canoes the tribe might create at the center could be used for single- or multi-day trips on the Penobscot River to be guided by tribe members and include stays at authentic Penobscot dwellings, Cloutier said.

“If this was properly marketed, there would be people flying in from Europe and across the United States to come here,” Cloutier said.