Tag Archives: qt-luong

Give the gift of art or photos of Acadia for the holidays

For centuries, the scenery of Mount Desert Island has captured the imagination of artists and photographers alike, from Frederic E. Church of the Hudson River School of painters, to QT Luong, the first person to take large-format photographs of all 59 national parks.

where in acadia

Guess “Where in Acadia?” See the bottom of this blog post for the photo that’s the basis of this ReallyColor, LLC, page.

Maybe you’ve got fans of art or photos of Acadia – or perhaps even budding fine artists – on your holiday shopping list. Here are some gift ideas to celebrate the long tradition of art and photography in Acadia, and perhaps to inspire a new generation.

There’s even a gift in this round-up of holiday ideas to turn your own photos of Acadia into coloring pages or coloring books, to tap into the latest coloring-as-meditation craze, enjoyed by children and adults alike, using the technology of our new affiliated partner, ReallyColor, LLC. (NOTE: Please see sidebar about affiliated partner links in this blog)

Books on art or photos of Acadia, and photographic technique

  • art of acadia

    “Art of Acadia” surveys art of the region, from the 17th century all the way through 2015. (Photo courtesy of Carl Little)

    Art of Acadia – Going beyond the traditional treatment of art history of the region both temporally and geographically, this 280-page book goes back in time to the 17th century and all the way up through 2015, adding the art of Cranberry Isles, the Porcupines and Schoodic to the usual compendium of MDI works. Published in the year of the Acadia Centennial by Down East Books, this beautifully illustrated book is by brothers David Little and Carl Little. As Acadia Centennial Partners, the Littles have given a number of talks about their book throughout the Centennial year. (NOTE: Please see sidebar about Amazon.com links in this blog)

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Special Acadia holiday gift ideas to ring out Centennial year

For the Acadia National Park fan on your shopping list, or for a year-end charitable donation, the Centennial offers a once-in-a-century set of Acadia holiday gift ideas.

Plus we’re announcing 2 new merchants to our blog’s affiliated marketing partnerships on this Cyber Monday, to make coming up with special Acadia holiday gift ideas even easier: REI, where you can buy gear for an Acadia lover, and ReallyColor, LLC, where you can turn photos of Acadia (or anything else) into coloring pages, tapping into the latest coloring-as-meditation craze. (NOTE: Please see sidebar about affiliated partner links in this blog)

acadia calendar

This Acadia Centennial calendar, by ranger naturalist Bob Thayer, can be purchased directly through his photography Web site, or at local businesses such as Sherman’s. At least 5% of gross proceeds will go to Centennial efforts and other Acadia projects. (Image courtesy of Bob Thayer)

How about official Centennial products for Acadia holiday gift ideas, such as a calendar, fleece blanket, magnet, embroidered patch or baseball cap? You might also be interested in something similar to these custom bobbleheads as a gift idea.

These and other items are produced or sold by Acadia Centennial partners, who’ve promised to donate at least 5% of gross proceeds to support Centennial projects and other Acadia National Park efforts.

A central list of products and services is on the Acadia Centennial Partners Web site, which provides links to where you can make purchases, whether through a local business or online. Not all officially sanctioned products or services may be on that site.

As official Acadia Centennial Partners ourselves, we’re donating at least 5% of gross proceeds from the sale of autographed hiking books (including “Hiking Acadia National Park,” which this month won the National Outdoor Book Award) and Acadia Centennial Holiday Ornaments.

acadia holiday gift ideas

Acadia Centennial Holiday Ornaments are available on the online Acadia on My Mind Shop.

And as announced earlier this month, under an Acadia Centennial Trek Challenge, we’ll be donating 10% of gross proceeds from the sale of the Acadia Centennial Trek Medal made by the end of the year to benefit Acadia. And for every mile being logged by participants in the free 100-mile virtual Acadia Centennial Trek between now and the end of the year, we’ll be making an extra donation of 2 cents per mile to the cause.

Or perhaps you’d rather make a direct, potentially tax-deductible, gift to benefit Acadia in the name of family members or friends, as your way of marking the Acadia Centennial? Here are some ways to do that:

  • Gift membership to Friends of Acadia – 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. A bargain with membership starting at $40.
  • A tribute gift to Friends of Acadia or Schoodic Institute at Acadia National Park – Not limited to the holidays, such a gift can commemorate a birthday, anniversary or any other special occasion. Such a gift to the Friends of Acadia would be recognized in the Friends of Acadia Journal. Or perhaps you might want to make a gift to the Friends of Acadia’s Second Century Campaign. The Schoodic Institute, which provides environmental research and education and such citizen science programs as HawkWatch, can notify the person you’re honoring with the gift.

Need more Acadia holiday gift ideas? Continue reading →

Acadia fall foliage just one focus of rest of Centennial year

The days are shorter, the nights chillier, and Acadia fall foliage is getting ready to put on its spectacular color show. The season to visit Acadia National Park has been gradually getting longer, and this year, Centennial events promise to make the fall – and even winter – busier than ever.

With about 100 days left in the Centennial year, and Acadia fall foliage still to peak, among the major events and projects featuring the park still on the calendar:

treasured lands

QT Luong, whose large-format photographs of all of America’s national parks was featured in Ken Burns’s and Dayton Duncan’s PBS series, has a new book coming out on Oct. 1 in celebration of the National Park Service Centennial. The book includes a section on Acadia. Pre-orders placed by Oct. 1 eligible for special offers. (Image courtesy of QT Luong)

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Of diversity, Acadia and the National Park Service

When President Barack Obama hiked Cadillac Mountain with his family in 2010, he made news not only because he was the first sitting president to visit Acadia National Park, but also because it’s uncommon to see African Americans and other minorities in this country’s national parks.

President Barack Obama hikes Acadia National Park

President Barack Obama and family hiked Cadillac Mountain in July 2010 (White House photo)

When Dr. Amanda McCoy, 29, and Dr. Kristin Alves, 28, both orthopedic residents at Harvard, took a trip to Acadia for the first time last month, they caught the sunrise over Cadillac and hiked the Beehive, Gorham, South Bubble and the Ladder Trail, but they also noticed the lack of diversity in other visitors to the park.

acadia national park

Dr. Amanda McCoy, left, and Dr. Kristin Alves, on their way to South Bubble. McCoy, an African American who grew up outside Pittsburgh, and Alves, a Scottish American who hails from North Carolina, both noticed the lack of diversity while hiking in Acadia.

When Derrick Z. Jackson, Boston Globe columnist and co-author of a new book,
“Project Puffin”, and his wife honeymooned in Acadia more than 30 years ago, and went there on 2 other vacations, they enjoyed the challenging hikes and bird watching, but also lamented not seeing other African Americans on the trails.

“The thing my wife and I wish we would see more of” is African-American families “truly hiking, truly backpacking. That part is really, really white,” said Jackson, who’s also hit the trails in Yosemite, Death Valley, Great Smoky Mountains and other national parks, and written about them.

The lack of diversity in Acadia and elsewhere in the national park system, both in visitors and employees, has been a persistent issue, prompting studies to understand why, and initiatives to bring more people of color into the 59 national parks and nearly 350 other national park system units, from seashores to historic sites.

A 2011 report, “The National Park Service Comprehensive Survey of the American Public,” found African Americans the most “under-represented” visitor group, with Hispanic Americans not too far behind. The “2014 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government®” survey ranks the National Park Service 261st out of 314 agencies when it comes to support for diversity.

Derrick Jackson

Boston Globe columnist Derrick Z. Jackson on the hiking trail in New Mexico. (Photo courtesy of Derrick Z. Jackson)

With the Centennial year coming up in 2016 for both Acadia and the National Park Service, and America’s population and workforce more diverse than ever, those aren’t exactly welcome statistics. Efforts to address the glaring disparity have stepped up.

This weekend, coinciding with National Trails Day(R), marks the 3rd annual African American National Parks Event, to encourage African Americans and other minorities to visit a national park unit, take a photo and post it on Facebook or other social media. Last month, the Acadia National Parks Community Facebook page posted a series of articles about the need to diversify both national park visitors and employees. Continue reading →

The gift of Acadia National Park for the holidays

For the fan of Acadia National Park on your holiday shopping list: How about a membership to Friends of Acadia; a purchase from eParks®, The Official Online Store of America’s National Parks®; an annual park pass; or any number of other Acadia- or national-park-themed gifts?

Acadia National Park annual pass

Acadia National Park annual pass is $20, half off this year’s price, if purchased in December. The pass, good for 12 months from date of purchase, is proposed to go to $50 in 2015. (NPS photo)

There’s no need to fight the crowds at a shopping mall with any of these ideas for the holidays, whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa. Plus you get the convenience of our doing some of the legwork for you with our research and links, and the satisfaction of knowing that some of your purchases may help support the park, certain non-profits and area businesses.

Here are gift ideas broken down by category:

Support the park directly or indirectly
– Annual Acadia National Park pass – If you buy the pass in December, the cost is $20, or half off this year’s price. The discounted annual pass is available at the park headquarters and winter visitor center on Eagle Lake Road, open daily in December from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., except for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The discounted pass is also available Friday Dec. 5 at the Village Green park information center, during the Bar Harbor Midnight Madness Sale, from 8 p.m. until midnight. The fee for the annual pass is proposed to go up to $50 in 2015, while the 7-day pass is proposed to increase from $20 to $25. A public meeting to discuss these and other proposed fee increases, the first since 2004, was held Nov. 12. The park is taking public comments on the proposed fee increases via e-mail or US mail through Dec. 8. The increased revenue would allow the park to enhance services for the upcoming Acadia Centennial in 2016, according to the park service.

Acadia magnet

Part of the America’s National Park Series, this comes as either a pin or a magnet in this design, at eParks(R). See holiday sale details in sidebar. (Photo courtesy of eParks(R))

– Shop at eParks® – The online store for Eastern National, a nonprofit founded by park rangers to help support national parks, is offering special holiday discounts of 25% to 35%, plus free shipping on orders of $25 and up. Eastern National runs the bookstore at the seasonal Hulls Cove Visitor Center at Acadia, and also offers a virtual Acadia shop at eParks®. See sale details and links to eParks® in the sidebar and throughout this blog post. eParks® is an affiliated partner of Acadia on My Mind. A certain percentage of some purchases made via click-throughs from this Web site helps cover costs of this blog, but prices are no more than if you went directly to eParks®, and possibly less with special affiliated partner codes. Since 1947, Eastern National has donated more than $107 million to national parks and other federal sites, from Maine to South Dakota.

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Fall foliage in Acadia National Park a leaf peeper’s delight

SEE 2015 FALL FOLIAGE POST HERE

UPDATE 10/8/14: It’s official, peak foliage is arriving in the Acadia region, according to the latest weekly report on the state’s foliage Web site. See the link to the report, below, as well as links to some new live Web cams with views toward foliage on the Bubbles and elsewhere.

The brilliant fall foliage of Acadia National Park puts it at the top of many a list, for everyone from renowned national parks photographer QT Luong to domestic diva Martha Stewart, from Backpacker Magazine to National Parks Traveler to the Wilderness Society.

Otter Cove in Acadia National Park

The fall colors of Acadia National Park contrast with the dark tidal flats exposed at Otter Cove. Cadillac and Dorr are in the background. (All photos by QT Luong/terragalleria.com all rights reserved)

Luong called Acadia’s autumn colors “some of the most beautiful fall foliage on the East Coast,” in an online magazine, The Active Times. Stewart featured an October hike up Parkman Mountain on her Martha blog a few years ago and described the views as “amazingly beautiful!”

Backpacker Magazine last month listed Acadia as No. 1 out of “12 amazing fall foliage destinations,” while National Parks Traveler has included Acadia in a list of top 10 contenders for best foliage in all of the national parks and featured the park in this fall’s “Essential Park Guide.”

And just a couple of weeks ago, the Wilderness Society included Acadia in its “15 national parks for fall color.”

QT Luong and Acadia National Park fall foliage

Fall colors shine through even on a rainy day in autumn in Acadia National Park.

If you feast your eyes on some of the Acadia fall foliage photos taken over the years by Luong and republished in this blog post, you’ll see why this national park is on everyone’s favorites list.

Luong, who was featured in Ken Burns’ “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” as the first photographer to capture all the parks in large format, includes 46 photos of Acadia fall colors on his Web site, www.terragalleria.com. And he recently updated his blog post, “Guide to Fall Foliage Color in the National Parks,” which includes a section on Acadia.

Is it peak yet?

When’s the best time to get peak fall foliage in Acadia National Park? Usually mid-October, although it can range from the first to the third week of October, according to the park’s answers to frequently asked questions. The official Maine foliage Web site shows a 5-year history of when the peak occurred in various parts of the state, and features weekly foliage updates this time of year. This week, according to the Maine foliage site, Acadia is close to peak.

You can check an official Acadia Web cam on McFarland Hill for how far along the foliage is. While the cam is to help monitor air quality, it does include the top of some trees in its view. There are also links to Bar Harboar area live Web cams for a peek at foliage toward the Bubbles, around Bar Harbor and other locales.

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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 →