Niweskok is happy to be partnering with Permatours, Birds Nest Builders and Cedar Grove Sauna to design, fundraise, source materials, and build a community sauna here at our Wabanaki farm & education center in Penobscot territory (so-called midcoast maine).

Rematriation requires rest & dreaming with the land, and this sauna will be important for actualizing that. We need community support in raising the funds (and donating materials) to bring our community sauna to life! We are scheduled to begin the build mid November 2026 so we can begin using it this winter.

Description of what we’re building: A wood fired sauna with Hemlock frame and Cedar interior & roofing. There will be no plastic wraps or insulation in this naturally built 10x12 sauna- including a 5x10 changing room and 300 square foot entry deck. It will be outfitted with rainwater collection system & solar power system.

🔥 Big Love to these Sauna Project Partners🔥

🌠Birds Nest Builders

🌬 Cedar Grove Sauna

🌳Permatours

🪵Dara Forestry and Maritime Timber

💖Bijou Build

✨️ROVE Sauna, Washington Baths, Waterstruck Wellness, Village Sauna Maine✨️

LEARN MORE ABOUT NIWESKOK'S REMATRIATION WORK

Mission

Niweskok, a collaboration of food and medicine providers, rematriates Wabanaki lifeways through engaging with our kinship responsibilities and reclaiming traditional foods & healing. We prioritize restoring the Penobscot Bay region as a Wabanaki foodhub.

Seasons of Growth

In January 2025, Niweskok marked a historic homecoming with the rematriation of a 245-acre coastal farm in traditional Penobscot territory. After years of tending borrowed and leased land, Niweskok has returned home, securing the farm without conservation easements where we can practice our Wabanaki ethics of care, reciprocity, and relationship as the strongest form of conservation.

Through the seasons we have been co-living with the land and learning its rhythms. We have welcomed Wabanaki families, elders, artists and organizations to the land. The former horse and cattle farm with its organically managed soils, open fields, wetlands, forests, and ponds along the Goose River now offers safe access for Wabanaki people in Penobscot territory that has been deeply impacted by removal and erasure.

Our Purpose and Values

Niweskok is responsible to our communities, the peoples of the Wabanaki Confederacy: Penobscot, Wolastoqiyik, Mi’kmaq, Passamaquoddy, and Abenaki of Odinak and Wolinak. We are Wabanaki farmers, social workers, doctors, public health professionals, nutritionists, and educators who have been leading land-centered food, healing and educational work in our communities for decades. We are grounded in our values of məsitte-kətalənαpemənawak (all our relations in Penobscot), Msit No’kmaq (all our relations in Mi’kmaq) that embody connection, belonging and balance. We are rooted in our purpose of envisioning and practicing Wabanaki survivance with the land.

Our Work and Vision

Niweskok’s vision is a world where matriarchal values guide us in our life ways and our pαkatəkkʷéwehla - our echo, our impact into the future. We tend the land with reciprocity, adapting to a changing climate, and create space for learning, restoration, and community connection.

The Wabanaki Rematriation School now has a steady home for foodways education, lifeways teachings, and language immersion through workshops, camps, and hands-on land-based learning. Through Alihpəwάkanal (our agricultural program), we tend our plant relatives, adapt growing practices to the climate crisis, and support new Wabanaki farmers through the Soil Builders cohort. Our ecological restoration work focuses on caring for waterways, planting native species, and strengthening biodiversity. Renovations to the farmhouse and barns are creating a welcoming community center for co-living, shared meals, and intergenerational connection. Infrastructure development is Rematriation!

Through this work, we participate in both the broader Wabanaki network and the local food web, strengthening relational care, learning, and community connections in coastal Penobscot territory as we continue to grow the farm into a long-term Wabanaki-centered food hub.

Niweskok: From the Stars to Seeds is a Wabanaki nonprofit. Donations are tax-deductible. EIN: 99-0753144

Support Wabanaki Rematriation: Niweskok Community Sauna

Support rematriation through rest with the land