BANGOR DAILY NEWS • December 20, 2021
The Penobscot Nation has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decide if its boundaries include the Penobscot River waters that flow near its reservation islands. The tribe is appealing a 3-2 decision issued in July by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that found the 1980 Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act gave ownership of the land but not the river to the Penobscots. That ruling upheld a decision by a federal judge in Maine. The appellate court in Boston upheld the tribe’s right to sustenance fishing in the river and authority over the nation’s islands in the river, but not the river itself. That authority belongs to the state of Maine, the courts have ruled.