WILLIAMSBURG — Chuck Loring Jr. drops the shifting arm of his GMC Sierra into reverse and pulls a three-point turn.

Roads like these cut for timber extraction often surrender to forest overgrowth in just a matter of years without continued maintenance. Although at least two decades have passed since there was active logging here, this road bears the recent marks of a grader and other heavy machinery used to clear brush.

That’s the first thing that Loring, the director of the Penobscot Nation’s Department of Natural Resources, notices as he stands on the land for the first time.

It’s a welcome surprise. The land has been out of Penobscot control for centuries, and Loring hadn’t expected to encounter cleared roads in advance of its return to his tribe.

This 1,700-acre parcel of wetlands and forest, striated by former logging roads, was transferred to the Appalachian Mountain Club on Tuesday as part of a larger acquisition. And in short order, the AMC will hand the land back to the Penobscot Nation.

It’s a small but nonetheless important step, Loring says, in the slow repatriation of land to the Penobscot Nation.

The Appalachian Mountain Club is returning 1,700 acres from the Barnard Forest to the Penobscot Nation. That land will eventually be put into a trust and owned by the federal government, along with an existing parcel of fee land, which is currently owned by the tribe but not formally considered “Penobscot Indian territory."

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