Phenomenal: Spring 2025
Our Seasonal Story Slam Featuring Scientists, Naturalists, and Cultural Knowledge Sharers
Back by popular demand! We are thrilled to announce the return and the developing slate of presenters for Phenomenal: Spring 2025. Join us for a cozy and entertaining evening of live storytelling to celebrate the return of Red-winged Blackbirds, the lengthening days, and the shedding of winter layers.
By late March, the change in both the duration and the angle of the sun’s light becomes quite pronounced. It’s impossible to miss the phenology around us this time of year, with early birdsong, swelling buds, ice out, and mammals emerging—all cues that we’ve likely made it through another Maine winter. Our storytellers are professional biologists, ecologists, naturalists, poets, boat captains, and Wabanaki educators. Each of them has chosen two stories which connect them, and which they’ll share to help connect us, to spring in Maine.
We’ll hear from leaders we revere as they each share personal stories to help us relate and reconnect to the ways wildlife prepare for the breeding season, including the amazing phenomenon of migration. Our special guests will tell stories around our evening’s theme, with time for questions afterward, in this hybrid program. For folks attending in person, we’ll have time to mingle, and beer, wine, non-alcoholic beverages, and snacks will be provided.
We are excited to introduce the lineup of storytellers for Phenomenal: Spring 2025.
Check back here often as we’ll be rolling out our full slate of speakers.
Join us on Thursday, March 20, 7-8:30 pm. to hear from:
Minquansis Sapiel (she/her) is a citizen of the Passamaquoddy Nation from Sipayik. She is from the Seagull Clan and grew up playing on the shoreline overlooking the waters of Passamaquoddy Bay. She has a master’s degree (the first in her family) in Social Work and three wonderful daughters. She also earned her Captain’s license and plans to guide historical boat tours speaking about the Passamaquoddy people and their relationship with the waterways. Minquansis has an adventurous spirit and loves to travel and explore and is currently taking scuba lessons to learn more about the ocean. She has spent the spring teaching Portland-area youth about Wabanaki culture and indigenous knowledge, and fishing for elvers in the waterways of what is now Southern Maine.
Samaa Abdurraqib, Ph.D. (she/her) is an avid birder, a Maine Master Naturalist, and currently serves as the Executive Director of the Maine Humanities Council. She loves to spend her time exploring the woods, waterways, mountains, and birds of the unceded territory of Wabanakik. Since 2017, Samaa’s creative life has been focused on writing and sharing her poetry. Prior to working at Maine Humanities, Samaa held positions at the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence, the ACLU of Maine, and was a Visiting Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies at Bowdoin College. She has served on the board of several Maine-based nonprofits, and has worked with many nonprofits and organizations as a contract consultant, a leadership coach, and a facilitator.
Nathaniel “Nat” Wheelwright, Ph.D. (he/him) is Bass Professor of Natural Science, Emeritus, at Bowdoin College. He is a lifelong naturalist, champion of phenology, and the author of The Naturalist’s Notebook (Storey Publishing, 2017), which he co-wrote with another famed Maine naturalist, Bernd Heinrich. Nat is also the producer of the “Nature Moments” video series. He graduated from Yale University in 1975, earned his PhD at the University of Washington in 1982, and taught at the University of Florida and Cornell University before moving to Maine. In 2015, Nat won the Ecological Society of America’s Odum Award for Excellence in Ecology Education. He has conducted long-term research on the ecology of tropical trees and boreal birds, and was the director of the Bowdoin Scientific Station on Kent Island, New Brunswick from 1987 until 2004.
Danielle Frechette, Ph.D. (she/her) is a Marine & Freshwater Ecologist with a focus on endangered & protected species, human dimensions, and impacts of climate change. She grew up playing in the woods, streams, and vernal pools and is still amazed to have found a career where she can get muddy and be outdoors as a Marine Resource Scientist with the Bureau of Sea-Run Fisheries and Habitat for the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR). She serves as coordinator for Rainbow Smelt Spring Spawning Survey, a coastwide community science effort to track presence and absence of this shiny little fish in coastal streams and rivers to inform restoration and management. Danielle is part of the team working to recover federally endangered Atlantic Salmon in Maine and has recently begun a research collaboration with the University of Maine on Atlantic and Shortnose Sturgeon, which includes a new community science effort. She is a salmon biologist by training and worked on endangered Coho Salmon and threatened Steelhead in California and Atlantic Salmon in Quebec before landing at DMR in 2019.
Phenomenal is a hybrid program. Come in person to enjoy snacks, drinks, and mingling, or tune into the online livestream. Click here to register >
