Something about the bracing smell of salt water, the plaintive cry of gulls, and the crashing of waves against rocky shores opens all my senses to the joy at hand: exploring Maine’s famous coastline and Acadia National Park. It may be one of the smallest in our national park system, but Acadia is also one of the most visited and beloved. What’s so special about Acadia National Park becomes abundantly clear as I delve into its history, explore wildly different habitats, and see first-hand its unique features.
Most of all, I think Acadia National Park arouses the ruggedness in the inner me, the yearning to have been one of the first to wander Mount Desert’s pristine coniferous and deciduous forests, canoe its lakes and wetlands, and climb its granite mountains. But even though fame, a massive 1947 fire, and climate change have radically transformed the region from what it was a mere 150 years ago, natural beauty always has its way with me. I’m just glad to be one of the four million people who visit the park annually, making Acadia one of the top 10 national parks in the country.
What’s special about Acadia National Park’s natural wonders
Acadia National Park encompasses 38,000 acres, with another 12,500 acres set aside as conservation easements. The vast majority of the park is spread on the island of Mount Desert, pronounced, deliciously enough, “dessert,” and shaped, appropriately for Maine, like a lobster claw. Ancient glaciers, fierce ocean winds, surging waves, and erosion have left their marks on rugged, craggy coastlines, granite cliffs, lakes, streams, meadows, and wetlands, creating habitats ranging from inter-tidal shores and marshes to sub-alpine rocky summits.
Acadia National Park is home to about 60 land and marine mammals and attracts more than 300 sea, shore and land birds, including ospreys, cormorants, bald eagles, loons, peregrine falcons, yellow warblers and Eider ducks. It has more than 1,000 different kinds of plants, from the stately fir and spruce to delicate lichen and moss.
Acadia National Park was not only the first eastern national park; it was also the first national park with land donated entirely by private citizens.
In addition to natural wonders like the 1,530-foot-high Cadillac Mountain, the highest mountain on the US Eastern Seaboard, and thunderous Thunder Hole (see below), it has a 27-mile scenic loop road, 158 miles of hiking trails and 45 miles of historic carriage roads closed to vehicles.
What’s special about Acadia National Park’s history
Unsurprisingly, indigenous people were here first, long before European explorers arrived in the 1500s. Mount Desert Island’s natural resources enticed settlers in the 18th century, who farmed, fished, felled trees, built ships, and quarried granite.
It wasn’t long before landscape painters discovered Maine’s beauty, and, like social media influencers of today, broadcast their discoveries to those eager to see it for themselves. Wealthy vacationers like the Fords, Astors, Vanderbilts, Pulitzers, and Rockefellers came for the fresh air and a rustic lifestyle. Not that they were particularly rustic. Although known as the “rusticators,” they built splendid summer “cottages” that were more like mansions, transforming the island’s quiet villages into tourist hotspots. By 1880, Bar Harbor, the largest town on the island, had 30 hotels. Timber companies were cutting down huge swaths of forests.
And so it might have gone on, with more and more people crowding the island and joyriding its roads with their newfangled motorcars. While it can be argued that Mount Desert had already been compromised with the arrival of the wealthy and their summer homes, they didn’t want to see further degradation through mass tourism.
And so, in 1901 a handful of wealthy philanthropists worked together to acquire and present 5,000 acres of donated land to the federal government. In 1916 it was set aside as Sieur de Monts National Monument, became Lafayette National Park in 1919, and, with more donated land, was named Acadia National Park in 1929.
John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the Carriage Roads
Of all the philanthropists who contributed to the park, no name stands out like millionaire industrialist John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who first visited Mount Desert in 1893 and ended up building what became a 100-room mansion known as The Eyrie. Not only did he donate more land than anyone else–10,000 acres– but he also envisioned a system of carriage roads that would traverse the interior of the island but forever be closed to automobiles.
From 1913 to 1940, Rockefeller oversaw 45 miles of 16-foot-wide gravel roads connected by 16 bridges made of local granite and cobblestones. These were not roads that were bulldozed through the landscape. Rather, his system of carriage roads followed the natural contours of the land and provided scenic views. Large sections of the roads were designed by famous landscape architect Beatrix Farrand, who also designed The Eyrie’s garden, now know as the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden.
Even Frederick Law Olmstead, who designed New York City’s Central Park, was so taken by the carriage roads after his 1932 visit that he wrote Rockefeller that “Driving in horse-drawn vehicles along narrow, winding woodland roads amid beautiful and varied scenery, completely free from the annoyance, and even the dread of meeting motor cars, is so real and extraordinarily rare today that systemic provision for it may reasonably be expected to develop into one of the most unique attractions of the park and the island.”
Today, Rockefeller’s carriage roads are considered the best and most extensive network of broken stone carriage roads in the United States and are open to hikers, joggers, cyclists, cross-country skiers, horse-drawn carriages and equestrians.
Managing climate change
Acadia National Park is not the same park as when it was founded, with climate change, pollution, and tourism all playing roles. Still, climate change is the biggest factor, with warmer temperatures bringing longer growing seasons, more rain, and bigger storms. Sea level has risen by eight inches since 1950, threatening not only ecosystems and coastlines but also wonders like Thunder Hole, which might become entirely submerged.
Although the 1947 fire, which took out 17,000 acres on Mount Desert and fostered the growth of birch, maple and aspen over slow-growing evergreens, changed the island’s landscape, the biggest environmental challenge today is the decline of native plants and the threat of invasive species. One of every six plant species that existed when Arcadia National Park was founded are no longer on the island. Nearly a third of the park’s plant species are non-native. About 16% of the vegetation on Cadillac has disappeared only in the last few decades.
Rather than frantically try to preserve Acadia National Park as it was, staff acknowledges inevitable change by trying to protect rare species where they can and manage the arrival of new plants that thrive in warmer environments.
Signboards in the park address climate change and tell visitors what it might mean for the future. One signboard told me that Acadia’s forests will probably shift from boreal trees like spruce and fir to trees that can grow in warmer climates, like oak and hickory. Staff is already experimenting with native trees better suited to warmer temperatures.
Like the rest of the planet, Acadia National Park must adapt to a changing environment. The park I experienced is not the one that existed before my time and will not be the same 100 years from now. Change is inevitable. But I will say this: it’s happening too damn fast.
For more about the Abby Aldrich Roosevelt Garden, with displays not only of floral garden but also Asian sculpture, read my article published in gardendestinations.com.
For more on our nation’s national parks, see my posts on Rocky Mountain National Park and Mesa Verde.
Excellent Beth. Thanks.
Have you been there? It was my first trip to Maine