Pokanoket tribe members seek Nubble beach access for healing

Treaties promised beach access but Nubble, other beaches blocked by parking rules

By Bruce Burdett
Posted 8/15/18

Treaties promised beach access but beaches blocked by parking rules

Westport waterways and beaches were long a special place of healing for people of the Pokanoket tribe and some members want o be …

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Pokanoket tribe members seek Nubble beach access for healing

Treaties promised beach access but Nubble, other beaches blocked by parking rules

Posted

Westport waterways and beaches were long a special place of healing for people of the Pokanoket tribe and some members want o be able to resume that tradition.

The problem is, said Walgwam Gamnamum of the tribe’s Bear Clan (the healing clan, she said), that town parking restrictions block their access to the Nubble and other town beaches.

Ms. Gamnamum asked selectmen last week to provide her family and a few other tribe members with the parking permits they need to access town beaches. Most of those tribe members are not Westport residents so don’t qualify for town beach passes.

The Nubble, at the end of Beach Avenue, is the place they are most interested in visiting, she said.

“The Westport River, the Nubble and the sea have always been a natural healing place for our people and we have very little access to it,” she told selectmen.

The Nubble has small tidal pools where people, especially the elderly, can sit and soak their feet without fear of the surf, she said.

Beach Avenue parking has been a contentious topic in recent years. Space is limited and restricted and visitors regularly report finding out-of-state cars parked there or cars without beach stickers, blocking access to residents with stickers.

“There are not many of us left and most of us don’t live (in Westport).”

If she was leading a healing, it would not involved more than ten people, she said, and a few cars. “We are only asking for a few spaces,” she said. Her people “are respectful of the land and the ocean.”

Ms. Gamnamum, who said she grew up on River Road in Westport but now lives about eight miles away, said there would be only a few healing sessions in the summer and that they favor weekdays when the beaches are less busy and more quiet.

She added, though, that she believes she ought to be able to park there and visit the beach any time since this is traditional Pokanoket land.

Treaties signed long ago “gave us access to the beaches.” That access was promised but since then parking rules in most places have effectively blocked them from visiting beaches, including in Westport. “We have lost access to many of our beaches.”

Selectmen were generally supportive but said they could not vote that evening because the matter was not on the agenda.

They also said they need to figure out how to handle such permits. A beach permit on an out-of-state car would likely prompt suspicion and complaints, one said.

“We would like access to our beaches,” Ms. Gamnamum concluded.

“For a long time we hid,” she said — in the years after King Philip’s War, Pokanoket boys over age 14 could be killed.

“We are waking up to our identities.”

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