It is a foggy morning on Lookout Mountain as the first visitors of the day arrive at the Tekαkαpimək Contact Station. With light wood inside and out, the building appears open to the surrounding forests and offers a direct view of Mount Katahdin, which has spiritual significance to the Wabanaki Nations. The building’s architecture features a double-curved design – a significant element to the Wabanaki Nations.

The Burnurwubskek Singers, a drumming group from the Penobscot Nation, are the first to welcome them to the Eastern Gathering Circle. This project has taken years of planning and construction, slowed by the pandemic, and advanced through a unique partnership with the Wabanaki Nations.

“It’s great to have been a part of this from the beginning, and to see it all come to life after so much hard work and passion is just incredible,” said Jennifer Neptune, a Penobscot Nation citizen and lead exhibit writer for the station.

She helped select some of the traditional Wabanaki stories that will be told on the exhibit walls inside the station – some of which are accompanied by audio recordings of the same stories told in Penobscot, while others include videos of the surrounding area.

“You know, we really had to narrow it down to what best represents this place, the rivers and the land and the events here and what you can experience here as a visitor,” Neptune said.

It is just one element of the exhibits that detail the Wabanaki nations’ connection to this land.

The original designs of the contact stations were very different from what stands on the land today – the originals resembled a farmhouse and a silo. But James Eric Francis Sr., director of cultural and historic preservation for the Penobscot Nation, said Wabanaki Nations representatives objected, pointing out that the design erased the area’s indigenous history and instead emphasized colonization of the region.

“We recognized early on that we needed to protect our Wabanaki expressions,” Francis said. “So this was an important step. It happened so early that it felt like a real collaboration rather than this last-minute consultation that often happens.”

Francis is one of the Wabanaki Advisory Board representatives who worked on the project. The group worked not only on the building but also on the exhibits within it and commissioned several works from Wabanaki artists.

The result is a building that is deeply rooted in the culture and history of the Wabanki people.

The building is designed to offer visitors a variety of views in all directions through its tall windows and balconies, which extend to the floor, where Francis designed a map of the Penobscot River basin that is engraved into the concrete tiles.

“Well, one of the things we really wanted to do was to convey to visitors where they are in the landscape,” he said. “We wanted them to be really grounded. It’s a very important place where we’re sitting here.”

An essential component of the project is that the Wabanaki Nations retain intellectual property rights to the information shared and its use by the National Park Service.

Overall, this is a unique undertaking, said US Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, the first Native American woman to hold a cabinet position. Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna, traveled there herself on Saturday to see the station.

“It is extraordinary, not only in terms of the what – a beautiful place – but also in terms of the how – this is the result of a conscious and collaborative effort with tribal nations to fully honor the traditions, languages, images, kinships and ancestral representations of the original custodians of these lands,” she said.

This collaboration extends to the name, too. In Penobscot, Tekαkαpimək means “as far as the eye can see.” And Jennifer Neptune says that’s a perfect description.

“Because throughout this process, we have looked as far back as possible to honor our ancestors who were here before us, and as far forward as possible to make sure that what we do, what we create and what we leave behind can mean something to future generations,” Neptune said.

The National Park Service will announce normal visiting hours in the coming months, but the station will remain closed for now while finishing work is being done. However, the Wabanaki Advisory Board will continue its work and plans to hold training sessions for park rangers and begin an ethnographic study of the history of the Wabanaki Nations in the area.