A letter from a local
An island with a national park for a backyard.
Acadia isn't near Bar Harbor; it wraps it. Cadillac Mountain — first sunrise in America half the year — is a fifteen-minute drive or a morning's hike from downtown. The 45 miles of carriage roads, car-free crushed stone under stone bridges, start five minutes out and were built for exactly the life we live on them.
Frenchman Bay fills the front view: sea kayaking among porpoises off the town beach, the Porcupine Islands scattered like stepping stones. Otter Cliffs gives sea-cliff climbing above crashing swell — belay ledges with lobster boats for scenery — and the Precipice's iron rungs handle the vertical hiking.
Winter empties the island down to us few thousand, quiet and salt-aired. Summer hands it to the world. Both versions are worth it.
— Gil