Tag Archives: katahdin

Katahdin and Acadia National Park holiday gift ideas for all

Making your list, checking it twice, and looking for special Katahdin or Acadia National Park holiday gift ideas for someone nice?

Whether you start your holiday shopping on Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday or Giving Tuesday, here’s a special selection to help raise funds for charity, support local business and bring memories of Maine home for the holidays.

2019 acadia pass

Southwest Harbor photographer J.K. Putnam shot this winning image for the 2019 Acadia annual pass, available for “almost-half-price” most of this month. He sells prints of these barred owls at his website. (NPS image)

And as we’re co-sponsoring the 2019 Acadia to Katahdin Virtual Race that connects participants and supporters of the Mount Desert Island Marathon & Half (held every October) and Millinocket Marathon & Half (being held Dec. 7), we also include ideas for the runner, hiker and all-around outdoor enthusiast on your list.

Acadia National Park annual pass – If you happen to be in the Bar Harbor area in December, you can get an annual pass for “almost-half-price” beginning Dec. 6 during the Bar Harbor Midnight Madness event, from 8 p.m. to midnight at the park’s Village Green visitor center, and throughout the rest of the month at regional chambers of commerce, town offices and the Schoodic Institute. Normally $55, the $28 special annual pass price is less than a one-week in-season pass at $30. For more details, see the Facebook group that we host about Acadia National Park hiking.

Friends of Acadia gift membership – By giving a gift membership, you would provide a year’s worth of membership benefits to a family member or friend, including a subscription to the Friends of Acadia Journal, six note cards depicting Acadia at night, and a window decal. Gift membership starts at $40, and also helps support the nonprofit that does so much for Acadia National Park. And if you want to donate independent of a gift membership contribute on Giving Tuesday, Dec. 3, any time between midnight and 11:59 p.m. and up to $20,000 will be matched by the Grace family (and you get a chance to win a pair of Leki trekking poles).

moose 2020 calendar

You’re more likely to spot a moose in Baxter State Park and Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument than in Acadia  National Park, but you’ll see a moose every month of the year no matter where in the world you are with this calendar by wildlife photographer Mark Picard. (Photo courtesy of Moose Prints Gallery & Gifts)

Moose calendar – Few things say Maine like moose, but while you’re unlikely to see the ungulates in Acadia, you can easily find them in the Katahdin region, as Millinocket wildlife photographer Mark Picard shows in his iconic moose calendar, which has been featured by BBC and PBS. Mark and his partner, Anita Mueller, are welcoming racers to Millinocket for “Fuel Up Friday” at their Moose Prints Gallery, 58 Central Street, 4 to 8 p.m. Dec. 6, and taking donations for the Millinocket Regional Hospital Oncology Department. A copy of this calendar is one of the giveaways for participants in the Acadia to Katahdin Virtual Race, see below for details about how to enter the race to help raise funds for Acadia and Katahdin region charities.

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Virtual race links 26 Acadia peaks, Magic City, Stephen King

On your marks! A new Acadia to Katahdin Virtual Race is open now, to help raise funds for charity, connect fans of Acadia National Park hiking, Millinocket and Stephen King, and jumpstart training for real-life runners, hikers and fitness walkers.

virtual race with medal

Sign up now for the Acadia to Katahdin Virtual Race, to help raise funds for charity, and earn some bling! While the real-life tree on Sargent Drive on MDI lost some of its limbs this year, it lives on virtually. (Image courtesy of racery.com)

Participants can earn a medal or two for logging their running, hiking or walking miles anywhere in the world, and see their avatar move on the virtual race map from the top of Cadillac, along the real-life Mount Desert Island and Millinocket Marathon & Half Marathon routes, to the top of Katahdin, the highest mountain in Maine. Register now.

New this year, the virtual race route includes:

  • the 26 peaks of Acadia
  • Schoodic, the mainland part of Acadia
  • part of the Down East Sunrise Trail and East Coast Greenway
  • Google Street Views of the offices of the 3 charities being supported by this race – Friends of Acadia, Millinocket Memorial Library and Our Katahdin
  • and at least 6 sites connected to the King of Horror, including a hiking trail in Acadia featured in the movie “Pet Sematary”

And to make it even more fun this year, aside from earning a virtual race medal or two, participants will be automatically entered in a giveaway of $25 gift certificates from:

virtual runs

The medal for the Acadia to Katahdin Virtual Race features a raised profile of the Bubbles and Katahdin. (Image courtesy of Ashworth Awards)

  • Gift MDI, an online seller of gift cards to Mount Desert Island businesses
  • Moose Drop In, a Millinocket gift shop that specializes in custom T-shirts and handmade gifts
  • SK-Tours of Maine, which offers private narrated tours of Stephen King sites and sells T-shirts
  • or a copy of our Hiking Acadia National Park guide, which won both the National Outdoor Book Award and the Independent Publisher Book Award

And anyone who lands on the virtual race map and gets a Google Street View of Friends of Acadia, Millinocket Memorial Library or Our Katahdin, or of one of the Stephen King sites embedded in the map, gets an extra entry in the giveaway.

The virtual race runs from July 20 through Dec. 8, and includes the entire real-life route of MDI Marathon & Half that’s happening Oct. 14, and the Millinocket Marathon & Half that’s happening Dec. 8. You can backdate running, hiking or walking miles to July 20, if you happen to join after the start. And you don’t have to complete all 338 miles of the virtual race route to earn your medal or enter the giveaway.

Co-sponsored by Acadia on My Mind and organizers of the real-life MDI and Millinocket races, the Acadia to Katahdin Virtual Race is also the virtual edition of the Sea to Summit Series, where runners who participate in both the real-life MDI and Millinocket races can earn a special Sea to Summit finisher’s medallion. Register now.

virtual race

Don’t worry – even if you can’t go the full distance of 338 miles in the Acadia to Katahdin Virtual Race between July 20 and Dec. 8, everyone is a winner! You’ll earn the Acadia to Katahdin Medallion, have a chance to win MDI, Millinocket or Stephen King-themed gifts and see your virtual race avatar move from Cadillac to Katahdin. (Image courtesy of racery.com)

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Virtual runs from Acadia to Katahdin mark amazing journeys

In memory of her husband Michael, who died in a kayak accident off the coast of Maine in 2016, Jennifer Popper journeys north from New Jersey to Maine, raising more than $15,000 for charity, and logging her miles on a virtual race route from Acadia National Park to Katahdin along the way.

jennifer popper

A surprise welcome party greeted Jennifer Popper, second from the right, in Boston last week. On the far right is her friend Rachel Hanks, carrying the handmade sign. And from the far left, Jennifer Petruccelli, Tim Hillier and Larry Kelley, who all worked with Michael Popper at CDM Smith (Photo courtesy of Jennifer Popper)

As she arrived in Boston last week, more than halfway through her 800-mile walk, she was surprised and overjoyed to be greeted by an old friend with a handmade sign, three former co-workers of her husband’s, and two fellow virtual racers she’d never met before. “It’s overwhelmingly awesome,” Popper said.

Like so many of the participants in the Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Run and other virtual runs, Popper has found meaning and camaraderie in logging walking, running or hiking miles. Popper, who goes by the virtual race name @jennsjourney, has appreciated comments on the race message board from fellow virtual racers, especially @Keefa and @FL2ME.

“I don’t know who Keefa is, or Flamethrower,” Popper said, but the support has meant a lot as she’s on her trek to raise funds for the two nonprofits that have meant a lot to her and her husband, the East Coast Greenway Alliance and FreeWalkers.

Since last August, the more than 150 participants from around the country in the Cadillac to Katahdin race have helped raise $800 for three official charities benefiting from the race: Friends of Acadia, Millinocket Memorial Library and Our Katahdin. At the same time, they have collectively logged more than 59,000 miles on the virtual race route, back and forth between Cadillac and Katahdin; made real and virtual friends along the way; and accomplished other personally meaningful goals, whether raising funds for other causes or meeting a health and fitness goal.

virtual runs

The more than 150 participants in the Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Run have collectively logged more than 59,000 miles. You can still sign up through July 16 to try out a virtual race, backdate miles to August 15, 2017, and get the collector’s edition medal featuring buffalo-plaid ribbon. At least 5% of gross proceeds go to benefit Acadia and Millinocket-area charities. (Image courtesy of racery.com)

The Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Run is winding down this month, and to mark Acadia’s 102nd birthday on July 8, we’re announcing a new race, the Acadia to Katahdin Virtual Race, that will include the 26 peaks of Acadia, the Schoodic section of the park, parts of the Down East Sunrise Trail, and other new features.

We’re proud to once again co-sponsor the race with Mount Desert Island Marathon & Half and Millinocket Marathon & Half, as the virtual edition of the 2018 Maine Sea to Summit Series, to help benefit charities in the Acadia and Katahdin regions. Details of the new race and registration information will be available here later this month, as the finishing touches are put on the new virtual race route, and the new finisher’s medals.

Even if participants in the virtual runs never meet, they are bound by some connection to the Acadia or Katahdin regions or the Mount Desert Island and Millinocket Marathons & Half Marathons, or by a charitable impulse or interest in health and fitness.

Among the virtual racers and some of their stories: Continue reading →

Maine virtual run helps make new year resolutions, friends

Starting 2018 new year resolutions with a bang, nearly 200 runners, hikers and walkers with a connection to Maine have committed to log at least 1 mile for 100 days in a row, or virtually race 200 miles from Cadillac to Katahdin, wherever they are in the world.

virtual race with medals

Log 1 mile a day on foot for 100 days in a row and you, too, could join the ranks of the “streakers.” Members of Crow Athletics who are in the 2018 Streak-100 can add on the Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Run for a limited-edition medal with buffalo-plaid ribbon.

Whatever their reason – to train for a marathon; recover from cancer treatment; earn a limited-edition medal in the shape of Maine; raise funds for charity; or do something fun to get through winter – they’re united by some link to either the Acadia or Millinocket regions.

For example, the runners who’ve committed to log at least 1 mile for 100 days in a row – 2018 Streak-100 as the effort is called – belong to Crow Athletics Club, the Mount Desert Island-based group that sponsors the MDI Marathon & Half and Millinocket Marathon & Half, as well as the Boston New Years Run (which follows the Boston Marathon route), the Robert Burns 10K in Westbrook, ME, on Jan. 28, and other races.

And participants in the Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Run might have run MDI or Millinocket last year, fallen in love with Acadia National Park at first sight, thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail in Maine, or grown up in the old mill town that now serves as a gateway to both Baxter State Park and Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument.

To deepen the connections even more between people and place, real-life marathoners and virtual racers, fun competitions and charities, we’re announcing a virtual edition of Streak-100, co-sponsored with Crow Athletics. Streakers can add on the Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Run and log their daily entries on the virtual route, and earn a limited-edition Maine-shaped medal featuring a raised lobster claw and pine tree, and a special buffalo-plaid ribbon.

virtual races with medals

Whether you’re part of team #hipster or #lumberjack, this is the buffalo-plaid-beribboned version of the Cadillac to Katahdin Medallion you can earn, while helping to raise funds for Acadia and Katahdin-area charities, and keeping those new year resolutions.

In addition, we’re announcing the continuation of the virtual run beyond its original end date, to April 10, 2018, to make it easier for existing Cadillac to Katahdin virtual racers to keep new year resolutions, whether they log a mile a day for 100 consecutive days as the Streak-100 participants are aiming for, or have some other fitness goal in mind. The virtual race, which first began Aug. 15, includes nearly 150 participants from across the country – many of whom have become virtual friends and cheerleaders for each other.

The virtual race raised  $750 by the end of 2017 for the nonprofit Friends of Acadia, Our Katahdin and Millinocket Memorial Library, and with the race’s continuation, even more funds can be raised in 2018. At least 5% of gross proceeds from race registrations and medallions go to support charity.

New for 2018, to make winter more bearable, and the virtual race more fun – and to play off the buffalo-plaid-ribbon theme first launched in October 2017 with the MDI Marathon & Half medals – we’re creating two Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Run teams, effective Jan. 1:

#hipster

#lumberjack Continue reading →

Last-minute Katahdin and Acadia gift ideas for the holidays

Whether it’s a gift certificate to a Mount Desert Island business or a selection of Millinocket-made herbal soap, there’s no shortage of special Katahdin and Acadia gift ideas for the holidays for park lovers on your shopping list.

acadia gifts

Just in time for the holidays, a new partnership with Gift MDI, an online source for gift certificates, featuring more than 100 businesses and organizations in the Acadia region. Use coupon code ACADIAONMYMIND to get 10% off. Gift certificates can be mailed, or picked up locally. See Gift MDI Web site for details about shipping and handling, and bottom of this blog post for some of the certificates available. (Image courtesy of Gift MDI)

And just in time for the holidays, we’re announcing a new partnership with Gift MDI, an online source of gift certificates to more than 100 Mount Desert Island businesses and organizations, from lodging establishments to restaurants, gift shops to local services.

You can even get an annual Acadia park pass. By using the coupon code ACADIAONMYMIND while making your purchase through Gift MDI, you get 10% off. See bottom of this blog post for complete listing of certificates available as of this writing. (PLEASE NOTE: See sidebar about affiliated partner links)

And for those of you who are also fans of Millinocket and the Katahdin region – which we were even before our co-sponsorship of the Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Run this year with Mount Desert and Millinocket Marathon & Half – we’ve connected with Tricia Cyr, one of the “2 Broke Moms” who run Moose Drop In, a local gift shop that was a central gathering place during the Dec. 9 Millinocket Marathon & Half, to bring you the following gift ideas:

acadia gift ideas

A limited supply of this specially roasted Millinocket Blend coffee is available from Moose Drop In. (Photo courtesy of Quality Hill Coffee)

  • A special Millinocket Blend medium roast coffee, either the beans or pre-ground, made by Chris Lowe of Quality Hill Coffee, husband of Valerie Silensky-Lowe, a real-life Millinocket racer and one of the Cadillac to Katahdin virtual runners, going by the name of @Mamaof7Dogs. (More coffee is on order, as the first shipment is just about sold out.)
  • Boogah Monster Soap, Millinocket-made herbal soap and lotion; custom T-shirts and hoodies; and other unique gifts available through Moose Drop In’s Web site. Cyr says it’s best to call to place your order this time of year, (207) 723-4442, with the latest US Priority Mail shipment date of Dec. 20 in time for Christmas. Also, as Moose Drop In’s Web site says, “Advice 5 cents.”

For fitness fans on your holiday shopping list who love both the Acadia and Katahdin regions, how about signing them up for the Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Run, which lets them log running, hiking or walking miles anywhere in the world; see their race avatar move along the virtual race map, including the real-life routes of the MDI and Millinocket Marathon & Half and the summits of Cadillac and Katahdin; and earn the special Cadillac to Katahdin Medallion? They can backdate miles to Aug. 15, and log through at least 11:59PM EST on Jan. 1, 2018 (we’ve asked for an extension until 11:59PM EST on April 10, 2018, 100 days into the new year). Contact us at the bottom of this blog post no later than 10 p.m. EST on Dec. 19, if you have questions about the virtual race and mailing of medallions in time for Christmas.

virtual race with medals

The 3″ Cadillac to Katahdin Medallion in the shape of Maine features a raised lobster claw and pine tree. (Photo courtesy of Ashworth Awards)

virtual races with medals

The Cadillac to Katahdin Medallion goes to all who sign up for the virtual race to help benefit Friends of Acadia, Our Katahdin and Millinocket Memorial Library. It’s made by Ashworth Awards, the same company that makes medals for Boston and MDI Marathons.

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Real-life, virtual runners – and toy moose – aid Maine library

Chalk it up to Maine humor, or truth being stranger than fiction: When as many as 2,000 real-life racers come to town next month, and thousands of miles get logged in the Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Run, to help raise money for the Millinocket library, a star fundraiser will be a stuffed toy moose.

virtual runners

Maxwell the Millinocket Marathon Moose is hitching a ride on a human marathoner, to raise funds for the local library. (Photo courtesy Millinocket Memorial Library)

Maxwell the Millinocket Marathon Moose, who will be hitching a ride on a human marathoner on Dec. 9, has already raised more than $300 in pledges, according to the Millinocket Memorial Library, which is trying to get up to $250,000 in matching funds from the Next Generation Foundation of Maine, for a major library renovation, with a “Sponsor a mile” campaign.

On the brink of closing its doors forever in 2015, with the old mill city’s financial woes, the library got a new lease on life when the community rallied to raise $30,000 – including $10,000 from the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation – and volunteered to keep the doors open. The current fundraising effort is just the latest chapter in the struggling institution’s revival.

Racers – real, virtual or stuffed – who raise $500 or more during the “Sponsor a mile to save Millinocket Library” campaign will get their name on a plaque at the library.

If “Maxwell Moose” is in the running for a real-life plaque for helping the library, as well as participants in the Millinocket Marathon & Half who raise at least $500, we thought, why not “Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Runner”?

virtual races

First a one-room library when it opened on Nov. 11, 1919, the Millinocket Memorial Library is now in this building, dedicated on Dec. 11, 1963. But it’s in need of a major overhaul, and the “Sponsor a mile” campaign is going 100% to help reach the $1M “Future Library Project” goal. (Photo courtesy of Millinocket Memorial Library)

With this blog post, we’re announcing the extension of the Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Run to Jan. 1, 2018, to allow more participants to sign up and existing racers to log more miles, so that the collective “Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Runner” can help raise more funds for charity. The race was originally slated to end on Dec. 9, the same day as the running of the Millinocket Marathon & Half, but racery.com, the host of the virtual race, approached us with the Jan. 1 extension so that it could promote the race to others interested in joining a challenge before the end of the year.

virtual runners

Print out this form to sponsor “Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Runner” and help raise $500 to get a real-life plaque in the library acknowledging the contribution. (Image courtesy Millinocket Memorial Library)

Since Aug. 15, more than 130 participants in the virtual race have cumulatively logged more than 27,000 miles from Bar Harbor to Millinocket, from Florence, Italy, to Baltimore, MD, and elsewhere around the world. The virtual race route, from Cadillac to Katahdin, is 200 miles, and some runners are already onto their 2nd, 3rd or even 4th lap.

That means our pledge, made in our last blog post, of a penny per virtual mile, puts the amount raised so far at more than $270 – more than half way to a real-life plaque for “Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Runner”!

You can help put “Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Runner” over the top by signing up for the virtual race (register as late as Dec. 31 and backdate miles to Aug. 15); logging more miles if you’re already enrolled; or printing out and sending in the pictured pledge form with your contribution, specifying “Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Runner” as the runner you’re sponsoring.

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A new page: Real-life, virtual race miles aid Millinocket library

In a new chapter to keep the Millinocket Memorial Library open, a “Sponsor a Mile” campaign is aiming to raise as much as $500,000 for a major library renovation, when as many as 2,500 racers from around the world come next month to run 26.2 or 13.1 miles in the Millinocket Marathon & Half, to help the old mill city.

virtual races

First a one-room library when it opened on Nov. 11, 1919, the Millinocket Memorial Library is now in this building, dedicated on Dec. 11, 1963. But it’s in need of a major overhaul, and the “Sponsor a Mile” campaign is going to help reach the $1M “Future Library Project” goal. (Photo courtesy Millinocket Memorial Library)

“The ‘Sponsor a Mile’ fundraiser came about because we realized we have all the pieces in front of us to make something magic happen: 2,500 runners visiting our town to help give us a boost, a generous partner that would match our fundraising efforts, and an amazing story of perseverance, generosity, and community,” said Matt DeLaney, library director, in an e-mail.

And to mark the 98th anniversary of the library’s opening on Nov. 11, 1919, we’re announcing today that miles logged in the Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Run can also be part of the effort to raise matching funds for the major building renovation.

For each dollar raised per mile in the real or virtual races, the Next Generation Foundation of Maine is matching, dollar for dollar, up to $250,000, to go 100% toward a $1M “Future Library Project,” which DeLaney calls a “state-of-the-art community center / digital learning lab / youth hangout / learning hub / imagination lab in Millinocket!” He added, “If we have 2,500 marathon runners and each of them finds just 4 people to donate $1 / mile for 26 miles, that will result in $260,000 towards the Future Library Project! When you add in the matching funds, that is over $500,000!”

The library was on the brink of closing forever in 2015, with the old mill city’s financial troubles. But a campaign to raise $30,000, including $10,000 from the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation, helped keep the library doors open, as a starting step. And the last 2 years, runners in the Millinocket Marathon & Half have helped raise funds online for the library, with the campaign cumulatively raising more than $9,000 so far.

stephen king

Margie King, who goes by the Cadillac to Katahdin virtual race name of @mak321, shelves a Stephen King novel as a volunteer at the Millinocket Memorial Library. There is a real-life connection between the novelist and the library, as the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation donated $10,000 to the Friends of Millinocket Memorial Library to help keep the doors open. (Photo courtesy Margie King)

“Next Generation is supporting us because we told them our story about losing almost all funding due to an economic crisis in the region, and then having the community rally together and reopen the library on an almost completely volunteer basis,” said DeLaney. “We have told our story to many partners and have experienced profound generosity from our community and from around the state.”

In announcing the up to $250,000 dollar-for-dollar matching grant under the headline, “Sponsor a mile to save the Millinocket Library,” the library suggests a $1 to $10 pledge per mile for the 13.1-mile or 26.2-mile real-life races. But DeLaney said that isn’t set in stone. If a virtual racer completes the 200-mile Cadillac to Katahdin route and finds a sponsor for 10 cents a mile for $20, for example, that can qualify for the Next Generation Foundation of Maine match as well, he said.

“There is no minimum or maximum. If they can find sponsors for 200 miles, that’s even better! The goal is to raise as much money as possible and leave no matching funds on the table,” DeLaney said. And if you want to sponsor virtual racers but don’t know their real names, that’s not a problem, either.

More than 130 participants have been logging miles from around the world on the virtual Cadillac to Katahdin route, to help raise funds for the nonprofit Friends of Acadia, Our Katahdin and Millinocket Memorial Library. Racers can sign up for the Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Run through Dec. 9, the date of the real-life Millinocket races, and they can backdate their running, hiking or walking miles anywhere in the world, to Aug. 15. Participants or volunteers in the real-life MDI or Millinocket events get special pricing for the virtual race.

So far, the virtual racers have logged more than 25,000 cumulative miles. Today, we pledge at least 1 cent per mile for all miles logged on the virtual race route by Dec. 9, 11:59 p.m. EST, as part of our Millinocket Memorial Library donation. That means anyone who is already in the race will be helping to raise funds for the match, even if they’ve already finished the 200-mile route and are onto the second lap. And that means anyone new signing up will add to the pennies per mile commitment as well.

And if you’re a virtual racer who wants to pledge so much per mile that you’ve run or walked, or you want to sponsor a virtual racer whose real name you don’t know, you can do so by printing out this form. While the Millinocket Memorial Library has an online pledge form, it’s more designed for sponsorship of real-life Millinocket Marathon & Half Marathon racers, as the drop-down menu for number of miles is capped at 26.2 miles, even though, as DeLaney said, there is no minimum or maximum pledge per mile, or number of miles.

virtual races

The line of virtual racers stretching from Cadillac to Katahdin on Nov. 11, 2017, on the 98th anniversary of the Millinocket Memorial Library’s opening. You have until Dec. 9 to sign up, and can backdate miles to Aug. 15. (Image courtesy racery.com)

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Cadillac to Katahdin virtual national park race boosts charity

When Millinocket Memorial Library was on the brink of being closed forever in 2015, with the old mill city’s financial troubles, Margie King and others stepped up to raise $30,000 and volunteer to keep the doors open.

stephen king

Margie King, who goes by the Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Run name of @mak321, shelves a Stephen King novel. There is a real-life connection between the novelist and the library, as the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation donated $10,000 to the Friends of Millinocket Memorial Library to help keep the doors open. (Photo courtesy Margie King)

Now, King’s still stepping up – literally and virtually – to benefit her beloved community institution. In between volunteer shifts at the library, helping to shelve books and staff the front desk, she’s walking around Millinocket to log miles in the first-ever Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Run, to help raise funds for the library and 2 other nonprofits, Our Katahdin and Friends of Acadia.

“I became interested in the race when I heard about the charitable giving aspect and it sounded like fun to follow my progress on a map, from one beautiful place to another. The medal is pretty cool too,” said King, in an email.

More than 100 participants have signed up for the virtual national park race so far, including:

  • King’s daughter, Tracy King Daniell of Orono
  • Holly Todd, a beekeeper, massage therapist and Maine Guide in Millinocket
  • Rebeccah Geib, a long-distance runner from Bar Harbor and member of Crow Athletics, who was the first to finish the 200-mile virtual route, in 15 days
  • Maine Running Hall of Famer Robin Emery, who has a trophy named after her, awarded to the top female finisher in the Bangor Labor Day 5-mile race
  • Acadia National Park Ranger Maureen Fournier
  • Tim Henderson of Castine, one of the Acadia National Park volunteers known as Waldron’s Warrior, helping to maintain the Bates cairns
  • Jim Linnane of Bar Harbor, who’s been logging some of his miles for the race while volunteering on Acadia’s trails for the Friends of Acadia

We’ve also invited Chris Popper of WDEA AM 1370 to join, and hope to develop a Dream Team of celebrity virtual racers with Popper as the first to be drafted.

virtual race

The 3″ Cadillac to Katahdin Medallion features a raised lobster claw and raised pine tree. You don’t need to finish all 200 miles by Dec. 9 to earn your medal. (Image by Ashworth Awards)

What’s a virtual national park race, you ask? It lets people from anywhere in the world sign up to run, hike, walk or log other forms of miles, whether to raise funds for charity, earn a finisher’s medallion or just set a fitness goal. Races can include technology-driven virtual routes that allow participants to see their progress, get a Google photo of their virtual location and check out the competition online, such as in the Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Run. Or it can be as simple as allowing people to record their mileage via the honor system in order to get a medal in the mail. There are different themes for virtual races, and even Disney runs them. Check out what a Cadillac to Katahdin virtual racer experience can be like in this short video by Racery.com, which hosts the race on its online platform.

Co-sponsored by Acadia on My Mind and organizers of the real-life Mount Desert Island Marathon & Half and Millinocket Marathon & Half, the Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Run continues until Dec. 9, and participants can register at any time and backdate daily miles to Aug. 15, the start of the race. It is also the virtual edition of the first-ever Sea to Summit Series, where runners who participate in both the real-life MDI and Millinocket races can earn a special Sea to Summit finisher’s medallion.

Gary Allen, director of the real-life MDI and Millinocket races, and Sea to Summit Series, likens the impact of the races he’s launched as “a pebble tossed into still water,” with ever-widening rings of positive influence and inspiration. The rings have spread so far and wide, especially with his starting the free Millinocket Marathon & Half in December 2015 to provide an economic boost to the old mill town, that Allen has been profiled in Runner’s World, Down East Magazine and elsewhere.

Just as the real-life MDI Marathon & Half have extended the Acadia area’s season beyond Columbus Day, and the Millinocket Marathon & Half have brought a boost just before the holidays to what has been an economically challenged Katahdin region, we hope this virtual race can be like another one of Allen’s pebbles tossed in still water, to help bring more funds and recognition to these two very special parts of Maine.

And just as more real-life visitors to Acadia are heading inland as part of their vacation, with the addition of Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument last year, may our blogging about the new Cadillac to Katahdin virtual national park race spur people to learn more about both regions, whether they’ve ever set foot in Vacationland or not.

And may our blogging, and the virtual national park race, help deepen the connections between the Acadia and Katahdin regions, the people and the place.

cadillac to katahdin

The more than 100 participants so far in the Cadillac to Katahdin Virtual Run stretch along the 200-mile route. Join us! (Image courtesy Racery.com)

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Ties that bind Acadia, new Maine Woods national monument

BAR HARBOR – Pulled up to town at 1:30 a.m. Thursday, because we just had to be in Acadia on the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, to celebrate the park and the new Maine Woods national monument inspired by it.

maine woods national monument

You’re more likely to see moose in the new Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, than you are in Acadia. (Photo by Mark Picard all rights reserved)

As we hiked the trails of Acadia throughout the day, wishing strangers “Happy 100th” and joining up with friends, we not only commemorated the gift of Acadia, but also the latest addition to the National Park Service, the new Maine Woods national monument.

Since the spring, we’d suspected President Barack Obama might do what Woodrow Wilson did 100 years ago: Use the Antiquities Act to create a new Maine Woods national monument, just as Wilson had in creating the monument that became Acadia on July 8, 1916.

At an Acadia Centennial Trek meet-up we hosted in Bar Harbor in early June, a couple of well-connected locals told us that it was going to happen. One source even thought President Obama might come back to Acadia to make the announcement, since he and his family seemed to enjoy their vacation here in July 2010.

George B. Dorr is father of Acadia National Park

George B. Dorr, pictured along the shores of Jordan Pond in 1926, far right, fought to protect the lands that would become Acadia. A critical tool in that effort was the Theodore Roosevelt-signed Antiquities Act, saving it first as a national monument. (NPS photo)

Obama vacationed at national parks out west instead, but in a speech at Yosemite last month about his administration’s record of land protection, he said, “We are not done yet.”

In an article we wrote on his speech, we speculated that he might have been referring to the national monument in Maine.

Sure enough, on Aug. 24, the eve of the National Park Service’s Centennial, President Obama created the new Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. So far, the Obama administration has protected more than 265 million acres, more than any other president, from the North Woods of Maine to the San Gabriel Mountains in California, using the same 1906 Antiquities Act that Theodore Roosevelt wielded to protect Grand Canyon as a national monument first. Continue reading →

Q&A with Lucas St. Clair on Maine Woods monument

Lucas St. Clair is the president of Elliotsville Plantation, a private nonprofit organization that owns 87,500 acres in Northern Maine just east of Baxter State Park. Elliotsville is seeking to donate the land to the federal government for creation of a Maine Woods National Monument. St. Clair is the son of Roxanne Quimby, the wealthy philanthropist who purchased the land and created Elliotsville Plantation. St. Clair discussed with Acadia on My Mind the bid for a national monument, how Acadia National Park inspired the proposal, as well as the foundation’s plans to donate more than 60 acres on Mount Desert Island to Acadia this year. St. Clair is among those invited to speak during  a U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources hearing at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, June 1, at the East Millinocket Town Office, according to a memo by the committee. The committee is chaired by U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, a Utah Republican. [Livestream hearing]

What makes the land special that it qualifies for national monument status?

maine woods

Lucas St. Clair, president of Elliotsville Plantation, was born in Dover-Foxcroft and grew up in a hand-built log cabin. (Photo courtesy of Lucas St. Clair)

Lucas St. Clair: There’s many, many things. The ecosystem has lots of flora and fauna that only live in this part of Maine. It is a unique part of the national landscape. It is a Northern Hardwood Forest and is not well represented in the National Park System. This landscape influenced the birth of America’s conservation movement through Henry David Thoreau and Theodore Roosevelt. The understanding of plate tectonics from a geologic standpoint was proven on this landscape by a USGS geologist in the 1950s. It has three incredible watersheds – the east branch of the Penobscot River, Seboeis Stream and the Wassataquoik Stream. And incredible views of Mount Katahdin. It acts as a climate refuge and it is also a very important piece of landscape for the Wabanaki people.

What are the main reasons you want to create a national monument?

St. Clair: To protect a resource that offers all of the things I just described and beyond that, to bring economic benefits to the Katahdin region, a region that needs economic revitalization and a diversified economy. National parks have been proven to do that all across the country.

Are we at a crucial time in the process with President Obama leaving office at the end of the year?

St. Clair: It’s the centennial of the National Park Service and these communities are not getting any better. From an economic standpoint, we are at a very crucial time. We are at a crucial time to revitalize the economy of the Katahdin region. Continue reading →