of poverty and create a large numbers of jobs. Today on the Passamaquoddy reservation, the most vivid legacy of the 1980 victory is dubbed "Land Claim Day," an event each December when the 2,500 tribe members line up in alphabetical order to pick up a check for about $200, their annual dividend from the tribe's investments.Some things have improved at Pleasant Point since the mid-1970s, when many of the remaining Passamaquoddy lived in wood shacks with bare floors and outhouses in the back. The reservation's streets today are lined with government built ranch houses and capes. Brick faced or cedar, they are crammed onto the land helter-skelter, some with a view of the ocean, others with decks overlooking the sewage treatment plant.Inside they are warm and clean, with all the appliances of any modern suburban household. Outside things are not as tidy. Built by the low bidder, these homes have no garages to hide the firewood, tricycles and junked cars that, left on front lawns, can make a neighborhood look cluttered. In the middle of the day, adults walk along the roads and stop for sundaes or cigarettes at the tribe's Wabanaki Mall on Route 1. This is a Texaco mini-mart partitioned to make room for a convenience store, a luncheonette and a video rental business. At Pleasant Point, half of the 386 working age adults are unemployed, said Rick Doyle, the tribe's director of planning. Some can't find jobs in these remote, economically depressed regions of the state. Others have persistent alcohol and drug problems and simply can't hold on to their jobs (Ballen 2). In 1993, the Passamaquoddy asked the Maine Legislature for permission to build a casino in the town of Calacis, a depressed Canadian border city almost exactly halfway between the reservation at Pleasant Point and Indian Township. Unlike the Pequot or the Mohegan Indian tribes in Connecticut, the Passamaquoddy tribe cannot build casinos, without legislative approval beca...
