Climate and Wabanaki signs to return to Acadia

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to return educational signs to national parks and monuments, stopping a government campaign to erase climate science and Indigenous history from places like Acadia National Park.

The ruling on Friday requires federal officials to restore dozens of Acadia’s displays on warming oceans and Wabanaki heritage by July 3. This legal victory ensures that the millions who visit Maine’s coast this summer will receive an unvarnished look at the state’s changing environment.

For months, hikers reaching the summit of Cadillac Mountain have found spectacular views but empty pedestals. The signs that once explained the summit’s Wabanaki origins or how a warming world is changing the park were gone, replaced by a silence that critics called political censorship.

“It was a kick in the teeth,” said former Acadia superintendent Sheridan Steele, who oversaw the park from 2003-15. “The public puts its trust in the park service. They want truth. The parks want to give it to them. It would be such a shame to lose that.”

In a 63-page decision, U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley said President Donald Trump’s Restoring Truth and Sanity policy was trying “to rewrite the Nation’s history with a white-out pen” by removing federal signage that it deemed “disparaging” to American history.

The impact in Maine was immediate. Last September, the Department of the Interior ordered Acadia rangers to remove signs from some of the park’s most popular sites, including Cadillac Mountain, Great Meadow wetland and the Sieur de Monts Nature Center.

Among the casualties: a sign atop Cadillac that asked “Is there refuge from a changing climate?” Other signs shared the history of the Wabanaki, four Native American tribes that for 10,000 years lived, hunted and gathered on land that is now known as Acadia National Park.

These signs were put up after Steele left, but had been years in development, he said. Acadia is what Steele called a “poster child” for climate change, with its shores, roads and trails in danger from rising seas and the Alpine habitat at the top of Cadillac at risk from rising temperatures.

Jill Thompkins, a citizen of Penobscot Nation, was heartened by Kelley’s ruling, but noted it was only a temporary injunction.

“Given the trend of the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the expansion of executive branch powers and willingness to set aside congressional legislation, such as the Voting Rights Act, intended to address discrimination of minorities, I am not celebrating yet,” Thompkins said.

Thompkins said it broke her heart to see the Department of Interior remove the Wabanaki informational panels. The signs were a “critical tool” in teaching Mainers and visitors alike about the Wabanaki people’s continued existence, she said.

“While the removal of the signage was painful, it will not eradicate us,” she said. “The Wabanaki people’s presence in what is now called Maine dates back more than 13,000 years, so I think we can persist for another 31 months.”

State Rep. Gary Friedmann, D-Bar Harbor, said people who live and work in his district felt a combination of disbelief and outrage when the Trump administration ordered the Wabanaki heritage and climate change signs removed from Acadia.

He said he considered that level of federal interference an attack on history, science and truth.

“I am thrilled that the courts have affirmed the value of (the) historical, cultural and scientific interpretive signage,” said Friedmann, who last fall wrote a letter of protest signed by 10 other state lawmakers.

In that letter, Friedmann warned that removing the signs was an “attempt to stifle science and whitewash our country’s history” that left visitors in the dark about the land beneath their feet. Friedmann said his letter went unanswered.

On Monday, the Department of the Interior signaled it wasn’t yet ready to give up on Trump’s plan. “This ruling is from a Biden appointed judge,” a department spokesperson said by email. “The Department is looking at our appeal options.”

The scope of the debate reaches from coast to coast. The administration had scrubbed exhibits on those enslaved by George Washington in Philadelphia, sea-level rise at South Carolina’s Fort Sumter and suffragettes at the Bunker Hill Monument in Massachusetts.

The legal challenge was brought by a coalition of historians and park advocates who argued the removals violated federal laws that require the government to provide high-quality education to the public.

The administration’s policy has also had a staggering toll on the people who wear a ranger’s hat, said Todd Martin, the Northeast senior program manager at the National Parks Conservation Association, the lead organization in the lawsuit trying to overturn the removal policy.

“Park rangers are public servants who work hard every day to protect our amazing landscapes and fascinating history,” Martin said. “Forcing them to censor factual information at our parks is a direct violation of the National Park Service’s mission.”

The agency lost 25% of its workforce—more than 4,000 employees—in 2025 alone, Martin said. Acadia is currently operating with more than 60 full-time staff vacancies, even as it prepares for record-breaking summer crowds, he said. Acadia typically logs 4 million visitors a year.

“The park rangers and staff that remain are stretched thin,” Martin said.

The park staff is doing its best to help park visitors learn about Indigenous culture and climate science even as the administration makes the jobs harder, Martin said. Acadia holds monthly programs where Wabanaki tribes share their art, music, stories and culture with park visitors.

The court has given the government 21 days to return the signs documenting Acadia’s Wabanaki past and its fragile future. The National Park Service must file weekly progress reports to ensure compliance by the time the U.S. begins to celebrate its 250th anniversary.

“History cannot be faithfully told while excluding the experiences of communities whose contributions, struggles and achievements form an important part of our Nation’s story,” Kelley wrote.