Full Circle: Native American Tour of Plymouth Wins Award

On a walk near Plymouth Rock in 2010, Tim Turner, 38, and his twin brother Tom, both life-long Plymouth residents, realized there was a deafening lack of the Native American’s voice and perspective in the area. Were people aware that Route 3 and Interstate 95 were once Native trails? Did anyone really know the history of the original Thanksgiving? Other tours had a distinct point of view, but it was not quite that of the Wampanoags.

The brothers brainstormed. They jogged the steps up Cole’s Hill, they studied the Massasoit statue and his oxidizing accuracies and inaccuracies, they followed Town Brook to the Grist Mill, Watson’s Hill, and the unmarked Hobbamock home site up to Burial Hill and back down Leyden Street, discussing the historical significance of Pilgrim and Wampanoag landmarks along the way. When they were back at the Rock, they saw that while they were distracted, mapping a potential tour route, they had traveled in a circle, a powerful symbol in Native tradition.

“Perfect,” Tim said.

In April 2010, nearly 390 years after the first Pilgrim is said to have made contact with New England’s shore, the groundbreaking and now award-winning Native Plymouth Tours was born. Only in its second season, the tour was recently recognized by Yankee Magazine in the May/June 2011 “Travel Guide to New England” with an “Editor’s Choice” award in the “Best of New England” issue. It is the first organized walking tour of Plymouth presented through the eyes and perspective of Native American guides.

Tim and Tom: their beginnings

From a young age, the Turners were nurtured to have a keen interest in their Native heritage. Their father, James Russell, was a member of the Cherokee Nation. Their mother, Jacqueline Turner, who was of German descent, did all she could to keep them involved in the Native community after their father passed. They moved to White Horse Beach when the twins were 7, and on weekends, Jacqueline pulled on their red T-shirts that read “Tim” and “Tom” and brought them to the Plantation to have a chance to talk with other indigenous peoples.

At 12, they received jobs as volunteers at the Plantation. At 13, they gained work permits and worked weekends and summers there. They did special events, role-playing, weddings, and festivals.

“Everybody said we were now honorary Wampanoags,” Tim said with a laugh.

For more than 20 years, Tim has performed his own research as an interpreter and manager of the Wampanoag Indigenous Program at Plimoth Plantation. He owned Native Way, a company that provided educational programs for schools, camps, historical societies, Council on Aging facilities, and the Boy and Girl Scouts.

After a short time living in Florida as an adult, Tim said he returned to Massachusetts and in 2010 rededicated himself to education and research. That year also marked the 15th anniversary of the death of Anthony Pollard, or Nanepashmet as he was more widely known, a brilliant, self-taught interpreter in the Wampanoag Native American group at Plimoth Plantation and director of the Wampanoag Native American program who greatly inspired Tim when he was younger. In December 1995, Nanepashmet danced three days at the Pequot Schemitzun Festival, and after winning high praise, was rushed to the hospital where he collapsed into a diabetic coma. He passed away soon after. In 2010, Tim cut and shaved his cascading black hair into a mohawk to honor him. That was the style that Nani, as he was nicknamed, always donned. No one at the Plantation had had that hairstyle since he passed.

“Nanepashemet really inspired me,” Tim said. “The mohawk helps remind me of him and the work he did.”

The tour

On the tour, either Tim or Tom talks in-depth about the lives of the Pilgrims and Wampanoags prior to the Pilgrim landing in Plymouth, their lives after the landing in the 17th century, and significant happenings like the suppressed speech of Frank James in 1970 till events of today.

To create the historically accurate script, Tim drew from years of interpreting at the Plantation, he researched in the archives and incorporated knowledge learned through his relationship with local historian Jim Baker, who has known both Tim and Tom since they were 12.

“There has never been a separate Native tour [in Plymouth] because for years the Native story has been considered to be subsumed in the Pilgrim narrative, and there was no one locally who wanted to do something more,” Baker said in an email. “Thankfully, Tim stepped up and added this valuable addition to what is on offer in Plymouth.”

Tim hopes that in the future he may have Wampanoags tell the story of their people. But for now, he and his brother engage each group in a fun, casual, enlightening way and are not afraid to go out in drizzly weather or with small groups.

“Each tour is different, despite the script,” Tim said. “Every trip we see different plants and animals. Really, each tour is an individual one.”

The walk is approximately 90 minutes and begins at Plymouth Rock on Water Street at Plymouth Harbor. It is scheduled to run from April 1, 2011 to Nov. 27, 2011 with walk-up tours Friday and Saturday at 5:30 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, reservations are required. Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for children (5 – 18 years), free for under 5 years and $10 for seniors (60 years and up). To reserve a spot, call (774) 454-7792 or email at nativeplymouthtours@gmail.com. More information is located on the Web at www.nativeplymouthtours.com.