Acadia National Park

Acadia National Park is one of the most beautiful and celebrated national parks in the United States. The picturesque coastline and sprawling forests have been attracting nature-lovers and romance-seekers for generations.

Guests to the Jeweled Turret Inn will find that we make an excellent home base for exploring MidCoast Maine, and although Acadia National Park is 55 miles to the Northeast, the drive around Penobscot Bay is truly stunning.

This area of Maine was originally inhabited by the Wabanaki people, composed of 5 principle Native America Tribes. The island was first acknowledge by Europeans in the journals of Samuel de Champlain:

“… we also passed near an island about four or five leagues in length… The distance from this island to the mainland on the north is not a hundred paces. It is very high and cleft in places, giving it the appearance from the sea of seven or eight mountains one alongside the other. The tops of them are bare of trees, because there is nothing there but rocks. The woods consist only of pines, firs, and birches. I named it Mount Desert island.”

Many years later (in 1916), the island was designated a national monument by President Woodrow Wilson, and became Lafayette National Park three years later. In 1929 the park was renamed “Acadia” in honor of the former French colony of Acadia which once included the state of Maine.

The wealthy philanthropist, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. took particular interest in Acadia, financing, designing, and directing construction of a network of roads throughout the park. And when a forest fire burned a large portion of the trees on the island in 1947, the Rockefeller family financed much of the restoration effort.

Acadia National Park is a place of stunning natural beauty, including 73 square miles of mountains, forests, inland lakes, and a rugged ocean shoreline. The panoramic views from top of Cadillac Mountain are simply breath-taking

Acadia is also is home to some 40 different species of mammalian wildlife. Among these are red and gray squirrels, chipmunks, white-tailed deer, moose, beaver, porcupine, muskrats, foxes, coyote, bobcats, and black bears. And although the park comprises less than 1% of Maine’s total land area, Acadia boasts more than 50% of the state’s vascular plants!

Official National Parks Page: nps.gov/acadia

• Hours & Seasons
• Fees & Passes
• Things to do

National Geographic: nationalgeographic.com/acadia
Wikipedia: wikipedia.org/acadia
Acadia Magic Travel Site: acadiamagic.com
Acadia National Park Tours: acadiatours.com
Bar Harbor and Acadia Travel Site: visitbarharbor.com
Friends of Acadia: friendsofacadia.org