'Coming Home' to Wabanaki

Quill Canoe, in the "Coming Home'' show at Abbe Museum, in Bar Harbor, Maine, through next Dec. 19.

The  show consists of collections of Wabanaki objects from museums across the Northeast.

The Wabanaki are group of tribes concentrated in Maine, Quebec and the Maritime Provinces 

''From baskets to beadwork, woodcarvings to birchbark canoes, many pieces of Wabanaki material culture have ended up in museums far away from the Wabanaki homeland,  where it is difficult for community members to see these pieces of their history and culture. In recent years, the Abbe has spoken with several Wabanaki people about Micmac, Maliseet, Penobscot and Passamaquoddy collections residing in museums outside of Maine, and whether it would it be possible to bring pieces 'home' for a while so that community members could study them more closely. '' Thus this show.

Bar Harbor is beautiful in the winter,  in an elemental way, and  easier to get around  than blizzard-bound Boston. It surprisingly culturally rich and has such energizing institutions as the College of the Atlantic.