Acadia National Park

Acadia National Park, United States

The granite summit of Cadillac Mountain at sunrise, overlooking the Maine coastline.

Come for granite shoreline, glacier-carved hills and miles of carriage roads, and plan around crowds and changeable coastal weather.

The place

Acadia National Park is a national park on the rocky coast of Maine, in the north-east of the United States. Most of its land sits on Mount Desert Island, which is reached by road, and the park also takes in part of Isle au Haut, the tip of the Schoodic Peninsula and a scatter of smaller islands offshore. The coast here is a tangle of granite, spruce and inlets. Acadia National Park is home to Cadillac Mountain, the highest peak on the United States' Atlantic seaboard. Many people hike up it at sunrise or sunset, when the light is at its finest and the summit road is less busy.

The landscape is more varied than the headline peaks suggest. Smooth granite domes were shaped by ice, U-shaped valleys hold lakes, and cobble beaches sit below wooded slopes. Mountains, lakes, streams, wetlands, forests, meadows and shoreline support a wide range of plants and animals, so a single morning can take in bog, seashore and high rock. Running through it all is a network of carriage roads, closed to cars and built with money from the philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. The park covers 49,075 acres as of 2017, which makes it large enough to fill several days but small enough that its best parts are reachable on foot.

Crowds are the main thing to plan around. Summer weekends and the autumn colour season bring heavy traffic onto the Park Loop Road, and popular trailheads can fill by mid-morning. Cool, damp weather is common even in midsummer, and sea fog can roll in and hide the view entirely, which is part of the place's character when it lifts.

Its story

Acadia National Park sits on land that Native people have known for at least 12,000 years. The Wabanaki Confederacy, whose name means People of the Dawnland, is made up of five related nations, and several of them still call Mount Desert Island Pemetic, meaning range of mountains. The island has stayed at the centre of the Wabanaki homeland and of the stewardship responsibilities that go with it. Wabanaki people sailed out to the island in canoes made of birch bark, where they hunted game, caught fish, picked wild berries and dug up clams. They also cut sweetgrass, which they wove into baskets. Camps near Somes Sound show how the coast was used through the seasons.

The name Acadia has its own history. It comes from a Mi'kmaq word, akadie, meaning something like piece of land, which French explorers wrote as l'Acadie before English speakers settled on Acadia. In the early seventeenth century the island district was led by a chieftain named Asticou, part of a wider alliance called Mawooshen under a grand chief known as Bashaba. The place called Castine, Pentagoet in the native language, was a favoured meeting point for the Wabanaki nations at the mouth of the Bagaduce River, just west of the island.

In the nineteenth century the island changed character as summer visitors arrived and wealthy families built estates along the shore. Conservation-minded residents then pressed for protection, and George B. Dorr, often called the Father of Acadia National Park, was central to that effort. President Woodrow Wilson first set the land aside in 1916 as Sieur de Monts National Monument. In 1919 it was renamed Lafayette National Park, and it became the first national park in the United States east of the Mississippi River.

What to see

Culture

Acadia National Park is a landscape with a long Wabanaki presence, and the Wabanaki Confederacy still regards Mount Desert Island as part of its ancestral homeland. Visitors meet this history through museums, interpretive signs and ranger talks rather than through ceremonies that expect outsiders to take part. The park is managed by the National Park Service, and its paths and carriage roads are shared by walkers, cyclists and horse-drawn carriages, so good manners matter. Many people come for the quiet of the trails, which makes loud conversation and music better kept for the car park. Stay on marked trails, leave birch bark, sweetgrass and plants where you find them, and keep well back from cliff edges.

What to wear

Acadia National Park lies on land where the Wabanaki people have made clothing, tools and containers for many generations, although the sources here say little about everyday dress. The craft most closely tied to the region is basketry. Sweetgrass was gathered and woven into baskets, and birch bark was shaped into canoes, containers and shelters. A birch bark wigwam built by a Penobscot family near the Abbe Museum shows that the material is still worked today.

Visitors now dress for the outdoors rather than for any local tradition. Fleece, wool and a waterproof shell are common on the trails and carriage roads, and most people in the surrounding towns wear ordinary coastal clothing.

For a visit, pack in layers. The average July temperature is about 19.9 °C (67.7 °F), but the weather can turn cool and damp at short notice, and winter is cold enough to be severe. Granite and wet roots call for shoes with proper grip, and a rain jacket matters because fog arrives quickly. Modesty norms are relaxed, so the practical rule is to stay dry and warm.

What to eat

Plan it

Best time. October suits most visitors, with mild air and autumn colour, though the Park Loop Road is busy in leaf season. July and August are the warmest months, averaging about 20 °C (68 °F), but summer is also the busiest time. January averages 22.3 °F (−5.4 °C) and brings the heaviest snow, so winter suits only prepared visitors.

How long. 2–3

Getting there. Most visitors drive, about six hours north of Boston on the interstate to Augusta, then east along the state highway through Ellsworth to Mount Desert Island. The final leg is by road onto the island, so a car makes the park far easier to explore.

Budget. mid

Tips

Etiquette

Nearby

Sources