NEARA 2025 -Kchi Pôntegok Akiôtloka: The Land Speaks Its Story

The Fall 2024 NEARA Conference was held at the Falls Event Center in Manchester, New Hampshire, on the first weekend of November. The Abenaki know this notable fishing place as Amoskeag (Namaskik - the fishing place). Atowi director Rich Holschuh shared a presentation about the National Park Service’s Underrepresented Communities-funded Kchi Pontegok Petroglyph Project.

Kchi Pôntegok - the Great Falls - is a highly significant place on the upper Connecticut River between today’s settlements of Bellows Falls, VT and Walpole, NH. The location is marked by one of the few notable petroglyph sites in the northern part of our region. The Kchi Pôntegok Petroglyph Project received a National Parks Service Underrepresented Communities Grant in 2022 to amend the National Register listing of the Bellows Fall petroglyph site. Team co-director Holschuh led a discussion on the cultural context, disparate interpretations colored by divergent values, and the ongoing meaning and purpose of these persistent messages.