Page 12 - Volumer 13 Number 7

Looking northeast during a morning hike along the Great Head Trail. Egg Rock Lighthouse (circa 1875) warned mariners of the dangers of entering Frenchman Bay via the Mt. Desert Narrows (site of many shipwrecks). Acadia National Park’s Schoodic Peninsula in the background.
their passengers at the harbor; cruise ships, tour boats and scheduled ferries to the out-islands and peninsulas are big business here.
The downtown area is walkable from nearly any of the public parking vicinities. Agamont and Grant Parks, plus the Village Green, all beckon you to just lie in the grass and relax, enjoying the view of Frenchman Bay’s islands and the various vessels coming and going. At low tide, a wide land bridge provides walking access to Bar Island and the many sandbars and shallow areas you can wade to or from, if you can tolerate the chilly water temperatures. On Bar Island, you can explore via beach combing and wooded hiking trails. Caution should be taken not to overstay your welcome, lest the tide return, trapping you on the uninhabited island overnight!
10 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
The Heart of Acadia
Acadia was the first national park set aside from exclusively private lands. Wealthy benefactors established a public land trust in 1901 in response to threats of overlogging and other environmental scourges feared by the prominent families who’d established vacation homes on MDI. In 1916, the 5,000-acre Sieur de Monts National Monument was created through cooperation between the trust and the U.S. and French governments. When national park status was granted in 1919, it was renamed Lafayette. A decade later, another renaming labeled it Acadia, a native word meaning “Land of Plenty” and also the name of the first permanent French settlement in North America. Today, it has grown to over 49,000 acres of protected lands.
Armed with some knowledge of the area’s history and a good night’s rest, we embarked upon a full day of touring the park’s better-known areas via the 27-mile Park Loop Road, which meanders through the more visited eastern half of the park. The famous Precipice Trail is
JULY 2019