The authenticity of Vermont’s Abenaki tribes was once again rejected by a Canadian sociologist on Thursday evening at the University of Vermont.
Professor Darryl Leroux said his research using an extensive Canadian genealogy database has shown the families in Vermont originally claiming to be Abenaki were “clearly French-Canadian.”
“There’s such obvious and compelling evidence these groups do not represent Abenaki people in any way and have no Abenaki ancestry,” Leroux said. “How did the state of Vermont recognize them as such and why did they recognize them after writing a report saying they were not Abenaki? That’s something I still don’t understand.”
Leroux said he has met with “a couple of” Vermont legislators about the issue but couldn’t get answers to his questions.
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Pretendians threaten sovereignty of Native American nations in the U.S. and Canada
An audience filled the Livak Ballroom at the University of Vermont’s Davis Center Thursday evening for the third in a series of three presentations contending Vermont’s four Abenaki tribes are fake.
There were similar presentations in 2022 and 2023 at UVM.
Professor David Massell of UVM’s Department of History introduced the speakers for the event, which included Gordon Henry, professor emeritus at the University of Michigan’s English and American Indian and Indigenous Studies departments; Pam Palmater, a podcaster and documentary filmmaker who advocates for indigenous issues; and Leroux, an associate professor at the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa.
Palmater is citizen of the Mi’kmaw Nation and member of Eel River Bar First Nation in Canada. Henry is an enrolled member of the White Earth Anishinaabe Nation in Minnesota.
Palmater and Henry kicked off the symposium by discussing how widespread the problem posed by so-called “pretendians” − non-native people who claim to be Native Americans − is in both the United States and Canada.
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“It’s literally a threat to our sovereignty, our nationhood/citizenship, our culture and political standing in the future, so I feel passionately about the topic,” Palmater said of Native American imposters.
Vermont Abenakis can’t show they actually descend from Abenakis, according to Canadian professor
Leroux, speaking last, addressed the issue of Vermont’s four Abenaki tribes, which have received state recognition, but failed to achieve federal recognition, a decision that was initially backed by the state of Vermont.
“One of the primary reasons that really stands out in both the federal decision and state’s research is that the group wasn’t able to demonstrate they actually descend from Abenaki people,” Leroux said. “That’s the key. You have to demonstrate that at some point in time you actually had Abenaki people in your lineage. They have not been able to demonstrate that.”
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Three of the four Abenaki chiefs in Vermont held a press conference earlier this week to denounce Thursday’s event at UVM and the ongoing effort by the Abenakis of Odanak in Canada to convince the state of Vermont to rescind its recognition of the Vermont tribes.
Canadian Abenaki chief says Vermont is ancestral territory
Rick O’Bomsawin, chief of the Abenakis of Odanak in Canada, was not scheduled to speak, but he stood up at the end of the event to say his tribe is willing to work with anyone to “bring the truth out about our real history and the important history of Vermont.”
“Vermont is our ancestral territory,” O’Bomsawin said. “We left this land in the hands of the good people of Vermont to take care of, to watch over, not to become us, not to take over our history.”
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O’Bomsawin and a delegation from Odanak recently made their case against Vermont’s Abenakis at the 23rd session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
Contact Dan D’Ambrosio at 660-1841 or ddambrosi@gannett.com. Follow him on X @DanDambrosioVT.
PAWLET — The Pawlett Historical Society and Rupert Historical Society will co-host a talk, “The Great Bennington Battle and Vermont,” with acclaimed historian Howard Coffin, at 1 p.m. on Sunday, July 5, at the Pawlet Town Hall, 122 School Street, Pawlet.
The surrender at Saratoga of a British army under John Burgoyne, now almost 250 years ago, has long been called the decisive battle of the American Revolution. But perhaps Burgoyne was doomed after the Battle of Bennington, a bloody day of fighting along the Vermont border that happened two months before Saratoga?
Coffin will discuss the history-changing Burgoyne campaign, focusing on the dramatic battle of Great Bennington—a Vermont battle as well as a New York one. He will also review heroes John Stark and Seth Warner and the Vermont Constitution, itself about to turn 250 years old.
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A seventh-generation Vermonter, Howard Coffin is the author of four books on the Civil War: “Something Abides: Discovering the Civil War in Today’s Vermont;” “Full Duty: Vermonters in the Civil War;” “Nine Months to Gettysburg; and The Battered Stars,” as well as “Guns Over the Champlain Valley,” a book on military sites along the Champlain Corridor.
This free event starts at 12 p.m. with a display of the first coinage minted in the United States, and works by noted photographers Neil Rappaport and John Pelton from our towns’ Bicentennial events in 1976. Be sure to mingle after Coffin’s presentation for an ice cream social with Stewart’s Ice Cream. This event is accessible to all, and made possible by the Vermont Humanities Speakers Bureau. For details on the event, contact Rose Smith at 802-645-0306 or roseksmith1925@gmail.com. For information on Vermont Humanities, visit vermonthumanities.org.
QUECHEE, Vt. (WCAX) – Crews worked across the White River Valley on Friday to restore power and clean up debris after two EF-1 tornadoes touched down in Vermont, including one that swept through Quechee.
Joe Haynes stared over his yard in Woodstock, with chunks of his roof scattered across it, wondering about the next steps.
Reporter Connor Ullathorne: How long will this all take to clean up?
Joe Haynes: Oh, I have no idea.
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He said he’s lucky he and his nearby neighbors are safe and are not blocked in.
“Some of the trees were down. They’ll be down for awhile but they can make their way out,” Haynes said.
Crews in Woodstock continued clearing trees and downed power lines along Route 4. That’s where Tiffany Miller was working inside the Mountain Creamery when the tornado passed right over the store. Nobody was injured, but their new walk-in storage ended up in the trees.
“It’s definitely a big setback for us. We were getting ready to have it wired up tomorrow. So I mean we definitely have a lot of elbow grease and hours to put in to get back up to where we were,” Miller said.
She said she was happy to see how many customers have checked in on them.
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“It’s nice to see that no matter what, in some bad case– storms or indifferent– that we can still come together and be there for each other,” Miller said.
Farther east in Quechee, workers hacked away at trees and swept away debris along the golf course and roads.
“It’s crazy they want to see. Everybody cares about their community and all their assets and amenities, so it’s nice to see everybody come together,” Quechee Club General Manager Brian Kelley said.
Kelley said they were out early Friday, and many residents were shocked at the damage. He’s still hopeful the area can come together and support each other.
“We normally do about 200 rounds a day going into one of our peak weekends. We’ve got the balloon festival this weekend, so we have that population in town, so a little bit of disappointment but people have been great and supportive, and we’ll be back at it tomorrow,” Kelley said.
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Kelley said it should be a few days until they are back to full force in Quechee.
Many others across the region told us they’re now focused on getting back to normal.
Click here for the latest forecast from the WCAX First Alert Weather Team.
Members of the Vermont Packing & Trading team stand with the owners of Vermont Family Farms. Photo provided
NORTH SPRINGFIELD, Vt. – For years, limited meat processing capacity in Vermont has forced many farmers to sell their livestock out of state. A recent ownership transition at a meat processing plant in North Springfield aims to change that by helping ensure locally raised meats can continue to be processed, packaged, and sold in Vermont.
The Vermont Packinghouse (VPH), located at 25 Fairbanks Road in North Springfield, was recently sold in two subsequent transactions to a new ownership group led by longtime food service and distribution leader Louis Helbling.
The 50,000-square-foot United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) facility processes and packages beef and pork from small- and medium-sized farms across New England. The sale of both the business and the building marks a new phase of growth and stability for a key regional meat processing operation that has been managed by multiple entities in recent years.
Longtime Springfield businessman Mark Curran, of Curran-Birge, purchased the former Ben & Jerry’s manufacturing plant in 2013 with the goal of easing a major bottleneck for Vermont meat producers by expanding much-needed processing capacity. Curran and his former business partner Steve Birge worked with Temple Grandin, a renowned designer of humane livestock facilities, to develop a slaughter facility that minimizes stress on the animals.
The facility was operated by Minnesota-based Lorentz Meats from 2014 to 2020, and later by Walden Local Meat Co. from 2023 to 2026. Throughout that time, Curran maintained ownership of the building, carefully stewarding an asset he believed held long-term potential for the region.
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On May 29, Curran sold the property to a new ownership group led by Helbling, a veteran of food service sales, operations, and senior management. Under the newly formed Vermont Packing & Trading, Helbling is focused on expanding market opportunities for locally grown meats while creating jobs and supporting local farms. With a passion for the food industry, Helbling was drawn to Vermont’s specialty food culture and deep agricultural heritage.
“With Louis’ decades of work in the New England food industry, there is real opportunity to open more markets for local beef and pork producers outside of Vermont,” Curran said. “Another initiative will be to retain more of Vermont’s dairy culls from leaving the state and keep more value-added processing here.”
Helbling and his team will continue to work closely with Curran, Black River Produce – a distributor with deep ties to the operation – and the owners of Walden Local Meat Co. to ensure a smooth transition of both building ownership and day-to-day operations.
“We have all worked very hard over the past six months to keep VPH open and in a position to rehire a very talented and dedicated workforce as quickly as possible,” Helbling said.
With a new management team in place, the facility is entering its next phase of operations focused on future growth.
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Upgrades to the USDA facility are already underway, alongside efforts to expand cold storage capacity to meet growing regional demand. “Adding to the existing footprint with additional freezer and cold storage will give us the capacity we need to grow as a business and add to the local workforce over the next five years,” Helbling said.
He added that he and his team will continue working with Curran to revitalize the landmark facility and restore it as a source of pride for families, employees, and local farms.
“All of us involved in this journey are excited to be working and relocating to the great State of Vermont,” Helbling said. “We are operating and moving quickly to bring business from all over the Northeast to Springfield.”
Vermont Packing & Trading was formed after the April 2026 sale of the Vermont Packinghouse business and is seeking new partners and producers across the Northeast.
