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A view of the gallery

Photo by Darel Gabriel Bridges, courtesy of Hilda Lewis
David Moses Bridges in his element, Passamaquoddy Bay, the home where he grew up.

He won awards in Santa Fe and Arizona for
his baskets, another art passed down from his
great-grandfather. He created handmade birch
bark etchings, and Hilda says he was a prolific
writer who sent her letters about his adventures
and kept a log of his travels. Among other
awards, in 2006 he received the First People’s
Fund Community Spirit Award, given to “excep-
tional artists who have worked selflessly through-
out their lives to weave their cultural knowledge
and ancestral gifts into their communities.”
“He always had an intense love of this land
here,” Hilda said. This led him into his role as
an activist against the proposed liquefied natural
gas (LNG) project on Passamaquoddy land near
Split Rock. Quoddy Bay LNG wanted to lease
land from the Passamaquoddy people, which the
tribal council of 2004 approved. Some people
believed it would bring money to the tribe, but
David and others thought it would destroy the
Photo by Santa Fe Indian Market, beauty of the area. A long battle followed, with
courtesy of Hilda Lewis. three different LNG corporate entities proposing
David with his wife, Patricia, at the Santa Fe Indian Market 2016, where he was terminals at locations including Gleason Cove –
awarded Honorable Mention in Diverse Arts for this scale model birch bark canoe. tribal land – and near Calais and Robbinston.
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