The Wabanaki homeland spans northern New England and southeastern Canada, and the federally recognized Wabanaki peoples in Maine are the Penobscots, Passamaquoddies, Micmacs, and Maliseets, while other communities in western Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont are known as Abenakis. About 10,000 years ago, as the glaciers melted, the ancestors of the Wabanakis began studying this land and how to live with it, and caribou hunters camped near today's Auburn-Lewiston Airport. As the climate warmed, the Wabanakis hunted moose, gathered acorns, and paddled birchbark canoes. By adapting first to climate change and later to the challenges of colonization, they have continued to inhabit the Dawnland they call home.