All National Parks in the US are on lands that were taken from Indigenous Peoples. In Maine, Acadia National Park was established in 1916, and from that moment, the Wabanaki cultural practice of sweetgrass gathering was not permitted. Sweetgrass is a culturally significant species that is understood through cultural worldviews to be a species relative. Through colonial land practices, access to sweetgrass gathering sites across Maine have been significantly reduced affecting cultural practices across the Wabanaki Homelands.
In 2016, Acadia National Park and a collective of Wabanaki Sweetgrass Gatherers initiated a project to assess the environmental impact of traditional harvesting practices on sweetgrass in a designated marsh in the National Park. The project was led by Suzanne Greenlaw (Maliseet), University of Maine and Michelle Baumflek, US Forest Service with Rebecca Cole-Will, Acadia Cultural Resources Specialist. It conclusively demonstrated that the traditional and contemporary Wabanaki cultural practices of harvesting supported the health of the sweetgrass and of surrounding species. The outcomes of the scientific study confirmed what Wabanaki gatherers always knew to be true.
To support this work, Jane worked with the Sweetgrass Gatherers to develop a specific cultural protocol for the care of sweetgrass and three accompanying films that share intimate relationships around sweetgrass. The Sweetgrass Cultural Protocol was created to help start a new practice of protecting Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous cultural and intellectual property, Indigenous data and Indigenous expertise shared within research projects in Acadia National Park. The Protocol makes clear some of the obligations and responsibilities that Acadia National Park has to support the Wabanaki Sweetgrass Gatherers, the sweetgrass itself and for all the non-human relatives that live in and depend upon the saltmarsh as culturally and environmentally significant places. The Protocol sets out guidance and directions for current and future research on these traditional Wabanaki Homelands.
Alongside the Sweetgrass Cultural Protocol and in collaboration with Suzanne Greenlaw (Maliseet) and Andreas Burgess, Jane made three short documentaries to share Gatherer voices regarding Sweetgrass stewardship and cultural understandings: