Wabanaki festival of arts and ideas returns to Bar Harbor for US’s 250th
The Dawnland Festival of Arts and Ideas is returning in its illustrative splendor.
The festival is a nexus of ideas, a convergence of artistic expression and social revelry, an incubator for scholarship, and an art marketplace, all wrapped up into one.
The Abbe Museum will host the event, a festival centering Wabanaki and native thought leadership, July 11 and 12 at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor.
The museum, also in Bar Harbor, celebrates the art and culture of Indigenous tribes in Maine and offers a wide array of contemporary and historical perspectives on Wabanaki life.
Dawnland’s organizers expect around 2,000 people to descend on the festival this year, a bump from last year, thanks in part to a partnership with the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
The Smithsonian is taking its annual folklife festival on the road this year in honor of the country’s 250th birthday and partnering with festivals across the country. Dawnland is the only such partner in New England.
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Passamaquoddy artist Geo Neptune will perform at the Dawnland Festival on Sunday, July 12, at 10 a.m. (Nolan Altvater/Courtesy of the Abbe Museum)
But that particular national milestone sits amid a greater context for Wabanaki people, Abbe Museum Executive Director Betsy Richards is quick to point out.
“250 years is a number that the United States has, but it is not a Wabanaki number per se,” Richards said.
Smithsonian Folklife partnered with Dawnland to produce two panels and a performance at this year’s festival, including a panel honoring Wabanaki veterans, which highlights that Wabanaki people have fought in every American war since 1775.
Dawnland was, for many years, an artisans’ event known as the Native American Festival and Basketmakers Market. This year marks the third iteration of the “arts and ideas” event hosted by the Abbe Museum.
On Saturday, the festival will offer a 2:30 p.m. panel titled “Water is Life,” moderated by Jennifer Neptune (Penobscot), and featuring Samuel St. John (Maliseet), Billy Longfellow (Passamaquoddy), and a 4 p.m. panel, “Native Freedom of Expression” moderated by Esther Labrado (North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians), featuring Daniel French (Mohawk) and Mikhu Paul (Maliseet).
The Dawnland Festival is a nexus of ideas, a convergence of artistic expression and social revelry, an incubator for scholarship, and an art marketplace, all wrapped up into one. (Nolan Altvater/Courtesy of the Abbe Museum)
Passamaquoddy weaver Jeremy Frey, who won a MacArthur “genius grant” last year, will sign books from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
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Sunday’s schedule includes an 11 a.m. panel titled “Native Photography as Self-Determination,” moderated by Jeremy Dennis (Shinnecock) with Maya Attean (Penobscot/Passamaquoddy) and Nolan Altvater (Passamaquoddy), and a 2:30 p.m. panel honoring Wabanaki veterans moderated by Donald Soctomah (Passamaquoddy) Donna Loring (Penobscot), Darren Ripley (Passamaquoddy) and Shane Hill (Mi’kmaq).
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Read coverage of last year's Dawnland Festival
A full schedule of the festival’s performances and events is available on the Abbe’s website.
“What the Abbe is doing is bringing together all these experiences to make something that is very powerful in that everyone involved is going to benefit from,” said Paul, a Portland-based artist and panelist this year.
It supports the notion that Indigenous people ought to be fairly compensated for their art, she added.
The festival is a sort of public square-meets-Santa Fe Indian Arts market.
“Most of the folks that we have are not afraid to speak truth, but also have a solutions-oriented and bringing-people-together approach about it,” Richards said.
Dawnland is free to attend, but the Abbe asks that people register in advance because seating and parking are limited.
Reuben M. Schafir is a Report for America corps member who writes about Indigenous and rural communities for the Portland Press Herald.
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Tagged: Abbe Museum, bar harbor maine, featured, wabanaki nations
Reuben, a Bowdoin College graduate and former Press Herald intern, returned to our newsroom in July 2025 to cover Indigenous communities in Maine as part of a Report for America partnership. Reuben was. More by Reuben M. Schafir
