Category Archives: News

News about Acadia National Park.

Party with the stars on Cadillac in Acadia National Park

Perhaps you’ve seen sunrise or sunset atop Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park. But have you seen the stars that make up the Milky Way or the constellations of Sagittarius and the Teapot?

Summer Triangle constellation

Map of the Summer Triangle constellation (via Wikimedia Commons)

Party with the stars on Cadillac on Saturday, Sept. 27, from 8-10 p.m., and you’ll see that and more as part of the 6th annual Acadia Night Sky Festival.

Your guides to the stars – Acadia National Park rangers and local astronomers – will offer 20-minute laser-pointer shows, and staff dozens of telescopes set up on the summit.

Fiana Shapiro, an Acadia National Park ranger who is serving as one of the guides at the Star Party, says she will be showing visitors some of the constellations that can only be seen this time of year, pointing up to the dark skies with a laser pointer.

“The Summer Triangle is a big one,” says Shapiro, and once you can identify those three stars of Altair, Vega and Deneb, visible this time of year, you can identify the constellations known as the Swan (Cygnus), the Eagle (Aquila) and the Lyre (Lyra). Continue reading →

Look, up in the sky – endless stars over Acadia National Park!

The days are glorious in Acadia National Park, but so are the star-filled nights.

Acadia Night Sky Festival

The official poster for the 6th annual Acadia Night Sky Festival. (Photo by Nathan Levesque)

Acadia, with the darkest skies along the US eastern seaboard, is where the thousands of stars making up the Milky Way can be seen, something that two-thirds of US residents can’t view at home because of city lights.

All you need to do is look up on a dark, clear night, and you’ll be starstruck in Acadia, as our nieces were in recent visits, Stacey at Thunder Hole, and Sharon and Michelle at the ranger-led Stars Over Sand Beach program.

To celebrate in celestial style, Acadia National Park, the Friends of Acadia, Schoodic Institute, local chambers of commerce and more than a dozen businesses and organizations, are holding one big party Sept. 25 – Sept. 29, the 6th annual Acadia Night Sky Festival.

Among the more than 30 events planned: Star parties, night hikes, kid-friendly activities, a boat cruise, movies and scientific and literary presentations, and bioluminescent canoe paddles.

But it’s not just another festival to help boost the Downeast Maine economy in between the busy summer and peak foliage seasons.

It’s also an important reminder of how dark skies are a dwindling resource around the world, affecting astronomy, ecosystems and even human circadian rhythms. And it helps highlight the estimated $2 billion a year being wasted with unnecessary lighting in the US alone, a statistic publicized by the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA), a non-profit founded in 1988 to reduce light pollution. Continue reading →

Photographer QT Luong puts focus on Acadia National Park

The grandeur of America’s national parks so inspired QT Luong, he quit a career in computer science, and embarked on a decades-long project to photograph all 59 parks, from Acadia National Park to Zion.

QT Luong and Acadia National Park fall foliage

One of QT Luong’s most popular Acadia National Park images is of what he calls “some of the most beautiful fall foliage on the East Coast.” (Photo by QT Luong/terragalleria.com all rights reserved)

Like Ansel Adams before him, Luong has lugged his heavy large-format camera to some of the wildest and most scenic spots in the country, at times carrying a 70-pound backpack, scaling cliffs or kayaking through frigid waters.

And long before Ken Burns featured him in “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” in 2009, as the first person to have photographed all the parks in large format, Luong has been sharing his finely detailed photographs on his Web site.

With photography, Luong tells us, he aims to “convey my feelings of wonder and passion, to inspire people to go and seek the experiences that I had.”

QT Luong at work

QT Luong with his large-format camera. (Photo by Buddy Squires, courtesy of QT Luong/terragalleria.com all rights reserved)

In Acadia, he finds wonder not in the immensity of the scenery, as in Yosemite, his sentimental favorite. Rather, Luong writes us in an e-mail, “I always find the compactness of the park remarkable, that you can find such a variety of landscapes in such a small area.”

Among his favorite landscapes from the variety that is Acadia: The pink granite along Ocean Drive; the fall colors on top of Cadillac; the rugged coastline of Isle au Haut; and sunset skies over Jordan Pond, as seen from the top of North Bubble.

The park’s beauty lends itself well to large-format photographs because they “have such fine resolution that the prints show details that are usually lost to the human eye,” says Luong. “Acadia’s landscapes have a tremendous amount of texture, down to the single leaf, which are best revealed by this approach.” Continue reading →

Acadia National Park to hold hearing on Otter Creek trails

UPDATE Sept. 16: Since the original public hearing notice, Acadia National Park expanded the agenda to include update on the boat launch in the inner cove, and use and access to the outer cove fish house, as shared by Otter Creek Hall’s Facebook page.

Here’s the original story:

As part of a grand design to connect villages to Acadia National Park via footpath, two old Otter Creek trails slated for upgrading could be a boon for residents, campers and hikers, and may also address some of the long-standing tension between community and park.

Acadia officials will air the proposal to improve the trails at a hearing on Sept. 16, 6 p.m. at Otter Creek Hall, 82 Otter Creek Drive. Also likely to be discussed: The state of Otter Creek-park relations, which at times have been strained.

Otter Cove

Otter Creek residents hope to get improved trail access to Otter Cove.

The historic trails, long used by residents, would be rehabilitated and better marked, and would allow residents and visitors to walk from the village of Otter Creek, to newly opened park trails that connect to Gorham Mountain, Otter Cove and Blackwoods Campground.

The network of trails would create many long day-hiking opportunities, limited only by one’s imagination, map, or guidebook.

And it may also help ease some of the old conflicts between the park and the Otter Creek community, which was cut off from the waterfront after John D. Rockefeller Jr. bought land along Otter Cove in the 1930s, as part of his vision for the park. Continue reading →

Acadia National Park eyes Sept. 5 deadline for Isle au Haut comments

Time is running out if you want to have a say on the future management of Isle au Haut, a spectacular part of Acadia National Park.

Goat Trail on Isle au Haut in Acadia National Park

The contrasts are dramatic along the Goat Trail on Isle au Haut.

The National Park Service has set a Sept. 5 deadline for people to comment on a draft “Visitor Use Management Plan” for park-owned land on Isle au Haut, a 6,500-acre island off the coast of Stonington. Comments can be made over the Internet on the site established by the park service.

In the draft, the park service proposes to keep intact a “non-promotion” policy for the roughly half of the island it owns and administers on Isle au Haut. According to the longstanding policy, which is aimed at helping protect the fragile island from heavy use, visitors to the mainland sections of Acadia National Park generally will receive no information about Isle au Haut unless they ask for it. Continue reading →

Of puffins, wilderness and Acadia National Park

See Sept. 3 legislative update at bottom of post

Here is the original story:

People love puffins so much that visitors to Acadia National Park often ask rangers where they can see them, even though the seabirds with the colorful beaks are too far offshore to be visible.

It seems Atlantic puffins are to Maine what polar bears are to Alaska.

Atlantic puffins are listed as threatened in Maine

Atlantic puffins are listed as threatened in Maine. (US Fish and Wildlife Service photo)

Yet despite the public interest in puffins, and with Sept. 3 marking the 50th Anniversary of the Wilderness Act, a bill to extend wilderness protection to some of Maine’s puffin islands has languished in Congress for years.

When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Wilderness Act on Sept. 3, 1964, the United States became the first country in the world to define and protect wilderness. Among the wilderness definitions embodied in the act: “…an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”

In Maine, from Acadia National Park to the North Woods, from Kittery to Caribou, and even along the so-called 100-Mile Wilderness of the Appalachian Trail, there’s very little federally designated wilderness, a fraction of 1 percent.

Since 2005, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed that 13 Maine coastal islands, some near Acadia, become part of the National Wilderness Preservation System, the strongest form of federal protection. This would better preserve some puffin habitat, but Congress has yet to act. Continue reading →

Visit Acadia National Park for free Aug. 25, other select times

Acadia National Park – already one of the best vacation bargains around at the normal entry fee of $20 for 7 days – gets even better on Aug. 25.

That’s the day Acadia is free, in honor of the National Park Service’s 98th birthday, along with more than 100 National Park-run units that normally charge an entrance fee.

Acadia National Park visitor center

Hull’s Cove Visitor Center in Acadia National Park

Every year on Aug. 25, the National Park Service celebrates Founders Day, marking the United States as the first country in the world to create national parks.

The National Park Foundation, a non-profit chartered by Congress in 1967 to partner with the National Park Service, has set up a Web site to allow people to wish the park service “Happy Birthday”, and to make a tax-deductible gift to help support what has been called America’s best idea.

In 2016, the park service will mark its Centennial, as will Acadia. And as the park service approaches its second century, the issue of federal funding and fee structure will be a continued source of debate, according to a recent article by National Parks Traveler. Continue reading →

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell shares agenda, personal notes at Acadia National Park

It didn’t receive a lot of attention, but U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell revealed some nuggets about her agenda for National Parks — and her personal life – during a sweeping speech at Acadia National Park.

US Interior Secretary Sally Jewell

US Interior Secretary Sally Jewell. Department of the Interior photo.

In her remarks at the Schoodic Education and Research Center on Aug. 15, Jewell touched on a wide range of topics, including the challenges of stingy federal spending on parks, the need to start preparing a new generation of potential rangers and other National Park personnel, the scary effects of global warming on federal lands and the important role of the parks as science classrooms for youths.

Jewell, 58, the former CEO of REI, a national outdoor retail company, started on a personal note.

She said that her visit to Acadia National Park on Friday brought back memories of the first time she traveled to the Maine park 37 years ago. Continue reading →

Sally Jewell to boost youth program at Acadia National Park

A youth program at Acadia National Park will receive a boost during a visit by Secretary of Interior Sally Jewell and National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis.

Jewell and Jarvis will speak during an event at 3 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 15 at the Schoodic Education and Research Center.

Blueberry Hill on the Schoodic Peninsula in Acadia National Park

Blueberry Hill offers fine ocean views from the Schoodic Peninsula in Acadia National Park.

It will be the first visit to Acadia National Park by Jewell in her official capacity as Interior secretary, a spokeswoman said.

Jewell and Jarvis will promote a program between the park service and the Schoodic Institute involving youth and science research, according to a release by Acadia National Park. Continue reading →

Peregrine falcons cap great year at Acadia National Park

A biologist with Acadia National Park said it was “a great year” for nesting peregrine falcons at the park.

peregrine falcon chick

Park wildlife biologist, Bruce Connery, holds a peregrine chick that has just been lowered from its scrape, or nest, for banding. Acadia National Park photo and caption.

Bruce Connery said peregrine falcons raised chicks that fledged at four sites including Jordan Cliffs, the precipice on the east face of Champlain Mountain, Valley Cove cliffs above Somes Sound and privately-owned Ironbound Island in Frenchman Bay, an island where the park holds a conservation easement.

“It’s great to have that kind of recruitment into the overall Maine population,” Connery said. “We had a great year. We have to be thankful for that.”

Connery attributed the success to a spring with low amounts of rain or snow. Damp or wet springs can be a problem for the eggs of birds that nest early including falcons and eagles, he said.

It might be the first time that particular combination of four sites was home to peregrine fledglings, he added.

“It seems to vary year by year,” he said. Continue reading →

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell to speak at Acadia National Park

UPDATE: Emily Beyer, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of the Interior, confirmed that Sally Jewell will be making her first visit to Acadia National Park as secretary. In an e-mail, Beyer said to stay tuned for further details on the secretary’s upcoming visit to the park.

Here is original story:

US Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis and David Rockefeller, Jr. are all scheduled to speak on Aug. 15 during a special event at the Schoodic Education and Research Center at Acadia National Park.

This is apparently the first time that Jewell will be visiting Acadia as Secretary of the Interior. She previously visited the park in October 2012 in her former role as a member of the board of trustees for the National Parks Conservation Association. A message has been left with the Department of the Interior’s press office to find out more about Jewell’s visit.

Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell celebrating National Park Week

Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell celebrated National Park Week in 2013 with a student studying nature. Department of the Interior photo.

According to a special message from the president of the Schoodic Institute, officials at the event will be celebrating Acadia’s recent No. 1 ratings in a couple of separate polls by two giant media outlets.

“It is a testimonial to the success of superintendent Sheridan Steele, the National Park Service, and everyone who contributes to making the Acadia region such a great place to visit,” said Schoodic Institute President Mark Berry in the institute’s August newsletter. Continue reading →

Acadia National Park proposes to keep Isle au Haut primitive

UPDATED 12/13/14: Final management plan released, see link at bottom of story.

Acadia National Park in July released a 30-page draft report that shows the reasons Isle au Haut is such a special place and spells out efforts to keep it that way.

The National Park Service’s draft “Visitor Use Management Plan” for Isle au Haut recommends only a minor increase in the longtime daily cap on the number of visitors to the island, the first such increase in more than 30 years.

Eben's Head is a spectacular rocky promontory on Isle au Haut

Eben’s Head, a rocky promontory, can easily be climbed and is great for watching a sunset on Isle au Haut.

The draft, which will be discussed at an Aug. 5 public hearing, includes a plethora of other important, but so far little-noticed, points:

— Shush! Stay quiet about this island 6,500-acre paradise, half of which is owned and managed by the park service. In order to protect the island from too much use, the draft says the park service will continue a so-called “non-promotion” policy for Isle au Haut. Tourists on Mount Desert Island and the Schoodic Peninsula, the two other sections of the Maine national park, generally will not get information about Isle au Haut unless they ask. Continue reading →

Artist in Residence offers lesson in Acadia National Park

Update on Wednesday, July 23:

Robert Dorlac has posted some watercolor paintings of Acadia National Park that he completed while in residence at the park.

Over the next year or two, Dorlac will add studio-made monotypes and oil paintings.

Here is original story:

With watercolors in hand, Acadia National Park Artist in Residence Robert Dorlac walks the dramatic coast looking for the right light.

Artist Robert Dorlac at Acadia National Park

Acadia National Park Artist in Residence Robert Dorlac with some of his watercolors in progress.

“I’m trying to make as honest a response to the place as I’ve experienced,” said Dorlac, 60, professor of art at Southwest Minnesota State University, in Marshall, Minn., during an interview along the shore of Schoodic Peninsula, the base for the residency program and the only section of Acadia on the mainland.

Dorlac’s two-week stay at Acadia continues a long tradition of artists responding to nature and sharing their experiences with the public. Landscape painters Thomas Cole and Frederic Church helped make Mount Desert Island famous in the mid 19th century, while writer John Muir and photographer Ansel Adams were important in revealing the beauty of the American West.

On Thursday, July 17, at 1 p.m., on Schoodic Peninsula, Dorlac is leading a two-hour sketching workshop with charcoal and colored pencil. The workshop is open and free to the public. Continue reading →

Sargent Mountain in Acadia National Park gets new protection on peak

Sargent Mountain in Acadia National Park is benefiting from an important project aimed at protecting the fragile terrain on its peak.

Using rocks and stones mostly from a massive cairn on Sargent Mountain, workers are completing a new 50-foot causeway on the Sargent South Ridge Trail. The work is being done to encourage hikers to stay on the trail instead of venturing to the subalpine zone around the mountaintop.

Members of Youth Conservation Corps swing sledge hammers to bust rocks as part of project on Sargent Mountain

From left to right, Liam Hassett, 16, of Cleveland, Ransom Burgess, 18, of Bar Harbor and Billy Brophy, 15, of Hyattsville, Maryland swing sledgehammers to bust stones into tiny pieces for creating a new 50-foot-long causeway atop Sargent Mountain in Acadia National Park. The three are members of the Acadia Youth Conservation Corps.

The new causeway is being constructed with two layers – rocks and stones on the bottom and gravel stones on top, along with a stone border on each side. The work is shoring up a section of the trail that was deeply eroded, said Acadia Trails Foreman Gary Stellpflug on the peak on Tuesday.

“It’s really a good project,” Stellpflug said while he and other workers moved dozens of stones and rocks into the new trail section. Continue reading →

An e-commerce way to help National Parks in honor of July 4

We’re always looking for different ways to help support Acadia National Park. Being a member of Friends of Acadia is one way. So is educating through this Web site and our hiking books.

Eastern National bookstore at Acadia National Park's Hulls Cove Visitor Center

Eastern National runs the bookstore at Acadia National Park’s Hulls Cove Visitor Center

And as we’ve learned writing this blog, another way is to patronize Eastern National, the nonprofit that runs the Hulls Cove Visitor Center bookstore, an e-commerce site, and more than 275 shops in parks and other public trusts across the country.

The organization, founded by park rangers in 1947, has donated more than $107 million to National Parks and other sites from Maine to South Dakota.

In honor of Independence Day, Eastern National’s e-commerce site is offering a discount of 17.76% – get it, 1776? – through July 10. See the Affiliated Partners ad on this page. That’s beyond the recent 15% sitewide discount that they’ve been offering. Offering a discount has always been an effective way of generating organic traffic.

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