Jim Turner, an Island Explorer bus driver this year, said he is impressed with his site at Acadia National Park’s new RV camp, called White Birches and built partly to help attract seasonal
workers at Acadia during a shortage of such workers at the park.

“This camp is fantastic,” said Turner, a retired optical network engineer and Army veteran who has stayed at RV places around the US while volunteering or working at national parks, a national forest and other sites. “They did a great job laying it out,” said Turner, who is working for the first time as a driver for the fare-free bus that services Acadia.

Amid scarce affordable housing in communities around Acadia, the new RV camp and a string of other new housing projects are aimed at lowering housing costs for seasonal workers at Acadia and thereby boosting services for visitors. With more economical rents, the number of seasonal employees at Acadia should eventually increase from the low numbers each of the past several years that have hurt some services for visitors, officials said.

 Friends of Acadia helped pay for new RV camp

Turner, who works for the operator of the shuttle service at the park, and other RVers hailed the workmanship and amenities at the 13-site camp, including, they said, excellent Wi-Fi, water with great pressure, sewer and first-class electrical hookups, a driveway at each site and common laundry.

“We have to pay for the site,” said Turner, whose wife, Terry, works as an ambassador for the Island Explorer. “It’s not cheap. It’s cheaper than being anywhere else in the area. They gave us a big discount.”

Eric Stiles, president and CEO of Friends of Acadia, said he loves the new White Birches Camp off Seal Cove Road in Southwest Harbor. If the camp was constructed by an outside construction firm, it would have cost $2.5 million, he said.

Instead, staff at Acadia National Park did most of the work, amounting to a $2.1 million “in-kind” contribution. FOA contributed $400,000 for highly specialized work by private companies, such as installation of a septic system and the electrical system, Stiles said.

“We could not have afforded $2.5 million,” Stiles said. “They didn’t have the $400,000 for the septic and electrical. We are far stronger together.”

Many RV campgrounds look almost like parking lots, but there is a lot of natural vegetation at White Birches, he said. When people pull in with their RVs, they feel like they are staying at a national park, he added.

“It looks great. They did an amazing job.”

New affordable housing is big boost for Island Explorer employees

Paul Murphy, executive director of Downeast Transportation, which operates the fare-free Island Explorer, hailed the new RV camp and town homes purchased by the Friends of Acadia to provide more affordable rents for Island Explorer and other seasonal workers at Acadia. The Island Explorer has three sites at the RV camp.

“It’s been a huge help,” Murphy said. “Housing is hard to come by and what’s available is very expensive.”

Murphy said 100 Island Explorer drivers were hired for this season. “That’s enough,” he said. “Our goal was 100 and we made it.”

The Island Explorer’s passengers totaled 495,374 in 2024, up about 10 percent from 2023. Ridership was still down about 23 percent from the pre-pandemic high of 643,374 in 2019, a decline consistent with other public transit systems in the US post contagion. Even though the bus is fare-free, visitors need to pay for an Acadia entrance pass.

Seasonal staff shortage continues to hamper Acadia National Park

Overall, the NPS each year attempts to hire between 150 to 170 seasonal workers at Acadia but has only hired 115 each of the last two years with a top reason being a lack of affordable housing near the park, according to Amanda Pollock, Acadia’s public affairs officer. That’s caused some cuts in services to visitors.

Kevin Schneider, superintendent at Acadia National Park, suggested the park is seeing similar numbers of seasonal workers at Acadia this year.

“In all likelihood, we are going to be short staffed this coming summer, as we have in previous summers as well,” Schneider said.

Employees at Acadia will still be servicing near-record number of visitors. Visits to Acadia are likely to be “very comparable” to recent years, he said. Visits were a little more than 4 million in 2021 and then averaged a little more than 3.9 million in the last three years, per NPS stats.

Schneider said there is also a hiring freeze for permanent year-round workers at Acadia, except for law enforcement, the fire department and handful of other categories. The Trump administration, as part of a larger effort to downsize the federal workforce, had also earlier this year fired 1,000 probationary employees at the NPS, including eight at Acadia, who were later ordered reinstated by a federal court.

Lack of seasonal workers at Acadia hurts visitor services

The shortage of seasonal workers at Acadia in recent years has delayed or prompted cuts in important projects that benefit visitors such as trail maintenance, facilities upkeep, habitat preservation and programs for visitors, according to Friends of Acadia and park officials.

Schneider said construction of the park’s new $32 million maintenance building at McFarland Hill headquarters took up space that was used by the park’s previous RV camp for volunteers and other staff. That necessitated the new RV camp, he said. The maintenance building was funded by the Great American Outdoors Act, signed by Donald Trump in 2020 and designed partly to pay for deferred maintenance at national parks and national forests.

Employees at Acadia worked overtime beyond their day jobs to build the White Birches Camp, Schneider said at the Acadia National Park Advisory Commission meeting this month.

“Our team worked really hard to make it happen,” Schneider said.

Progress cited in housing for seasonal workers at Acadia

Schneider said an additional 28 bedrooms for the NPS staff is well under construction on Harden Farm Road off Kebo Street in Bar Harbor and a solicitation for bids for another 28 units was expected this month.

“It has been extraordinary to see how much we have been able to expand our housing portfolio,” Schneider said. “It’s so critical to have the staff that we need.”

In 2023, Stiles, the FOA CEO, said that the National Park Service offered 78 units for seasonal employees but required 165.

Since then, in addition to the 56 NPS apartments on Harden Farm Road, Friends of Acadia helped fund the White Birches Camp, constructed eight bedrooms at Dane Farm in Seal Harbor, acquired six 2-bedroom town homes in Trenton, occupied by several Island Explorer employees this year, and the 10-bedroom Kingsleigh Inn in Southwest Harbor for seasonal workers at Acadia.

Dean Clifton, a volunteer at Acadia National Park who has a site at White Birches, said he loves the new camp for RVers like himself and his wife and that he likes working with the public at Acadia. Clifton has volunteered the past two years at the Maine National Park, after driving up from his home in Titusville, Fla.

“We really enjoy it,” said Clifton, a retired handyman from Florida, said of White Birches. “It benefits everyone including the visitor.”