Welcome center to open at Katahdin Woods and Waters
South wing interior of Tekαkαpimək Visitor Contact Station. RENDERING BY ALEKSEY MOKHOV AND WESHOULDDOITALL
By June Donenfeld
A NEW WELCOME CENTER in the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in northern Penobscot County opens to the public August 17, 2024. Visitors will be greeted by remarkable architecture, stunning vistas and rich cultural context, all designed to deepen their experience of an area where the Wabanaki people have lived continuously for thousands of years.
Located near the eastern edge of the national monument’s 87,000 acres at the top of Lookout Mountain, the aptly named Tekαkαpimək Visitor Contact Station (meaning “as far as one can see” in the Penobscot language and pronounced “de gah-gah bee mook”) provides stunning views of Katahdin and the Wabanaki homelands that encircle Maine’s highest peak and the northernmost point of the Appalachian Trail.
Visitors enter the building from the east to honor the rising sun, as do the Wabanaki, which translates as “People of the Dawn.” The building features panoramic views toward Katahdin, or “greatest mountain,” named by the indigenous people who hold it sacred. Inside, 7,900 square feet of interpretive exhibits tell the story of the Wabanaki people and lands, alongside indigenous symbolic design elements like the Wabanaki-designed and -crafted door handles and clay tiles. According to the Elliotsville Foundation, a major funder and organizer of the project, Tekαkαpimək “incorporates cultural narratives, languages, images, kinship relations, ancestral representations, contemporary practices, and native materials of these lands and waters.”
The contact station is the remarkable achievement of a visionary cross-cultural partnership that included advisors from the independent Native Nations that constitute the Wabanaki Confederacy—Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, Mi’kmaq Nation, Passamaquoddy Tribe at Motahkomikuk and Sipayik, and Penobscot Nation—the National Park Service and a small army of architects, landscape architects, artisans, construction engineers, exhibit designers and philanthropic leaders.
Along with a focus on the Wabanaki people, the center places the environment front and center. Native plants have sprouted from seeds found in the existing topsoil of disturbed areas, for example, and, because the center is constructed mainly of wood and mass timber, the building locks in more CO2 than it emits. Stone from the excavation site or nearby was transformed into roadbuilding material, boulders moved for construction now do duty as outdoor seating, and embankments shelter parking spots. And those big, beautiful windows? Bird-safe, every one.
On the cover: Sebago Lake is a giant among Maine’s lakes and the deepest, too. With coves and forested inlets and opportunities to sail, angle, swim and camp, the lakes region is a favorite for summer adventures.