NPS - Acadia National Park Traditional Cache
Hidden : 5/15/2017
Difficulty:
2 out of 5
Terrain:
3 out of 5

Size: Size: small (small)

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Geocache Description:


Acadia National Park is a national park located in the U.S. state of Maine. It reserves much of Mount Desert Island, and associated smaller islands, off the Atlantic coast. Initially created as the Sieur de Monts National Monument in 1916, the park was renamed Lafayette National Park in 1919, and was given its current name of Acadia in 1929. Over three million people visited the park in 2016. Acadia is the oldest designated national park area east of the Mississippi River.

While he was sailing down the coast of what is now Maine on 5 September 1604, Samuel de Champlain observed a large inshore island. He wrote: "That same day we also passed near an island about four or five leagues in length, off which we were almost lost on a little rock, level with the surface of the water, which made a hole in our pinnace close to the keel. 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." He named it Mount Desert Island. Over four centuries later, the area remains essentially the same.

The first French Missionary colony in America was established on Mount Desert Island in 1613. The colony was destroyed a short time later by an armed vessel from the Colony of Virginia as the first act of overt warfare in the long struggle leading to the French and Indian Wars. The island was granted to Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac by Louis XIV of France in 1688, but ceded to England in 1713. Massachusetts governor Sir Francis Bernard, 1st Baronet assumed control of the island in 1760. In 1780 Massachusetts granted the eastern half of the island to Cadillac's granddaughter, Mme. de Gregoire, while Bernard's son John retained ownership of the western half.

The first record of summer visitors vacationing on the island was in 1855, and steamboat service from Boston was inaugurated in 1868. The scenic Green Mountain Cog Railway was built from the shore of Eagle lake to the summit of Cadillac Mountain in 1888, and in 1901 the Maine Legislature granted Hancock County a charter to acquire and hold land on the island in the public interest. The first land was donated by Mrs. Eliza Homans of Boston in 1908, and 5,000 acres had been acquired by 1914.

The landscape architect Charles Eliot is credited with the idea for the park. George B. Dorr, called the "Father of Acadia National Park," along with Eliot's father Charles W. Eliot (the president of Harvard), supported the idea both through donations of land and through advocacy at the state and federal levels. It first attained federal status when President Woodrow Wilson established it as Sieur de Monts National Monument on July 8, 1916, administered by the National Park Service. On February 26, 1919, it became a national park, with the name Lafayette National Park in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette, an influential French supporter of the American Revolution. Jordan Pond Road was started in 1922 and completed as a scenic motor highway in 1927. The park's name was changed to Acadia National Park on January 19, 1929, in honor of the former French colony of Acadia which once included Maine. Schoodic Peninsula was added to the park in 1929; and the Cadillac Mountain Summit Road, begun in 1925, was completed in 1931.

From 1915 to 1933, the wealthy philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, Jr. financed, designed, and directed the construction of a network of carriage trails throughout the park. He sponsored the landscape architect Beatrix Farrand, with the nearby family summer home Reef Point Estate, to design the planting plans for the subtle carriage roads at the park (c. 1930). The network encompassed over 50 miles of gravel carriage trails, 17 granite bridges, and two gate lodges, almost all of which are still maintained and in use today. Cut granite stones placed along the edges of the carriage roads act as guard rails of sort and are locally known as "coping stones" to help visitors cope with the steep edges. They are also known as "Rockefeller's Teeth".

Beginning on October 17, 1947, 10,000 acres of Acadia National Park burned in a fire that began along the Crooked Road several miles west of Hulls Cove. The forest fire was one of a series of fires that consumed much of Maine's forest as a result of a dry year. The fire burned until November 14, and was fought by the Coast Guard, Army, Navy, local residents, and National Park Service employees from around the country. Restoration of the park was supported, substantially, by the Rockefeller family, particularly John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Regrowth was mostly allowed to occur naturally and the fire has been suggested to have actually enhanced the beauty of the park, adding diversity to tree populations and depth to its scenery.

The park includes mountains, an ocean shoreline, woodlands, and lakes. In addition to Mount Desert Island, the park comprises much of the Isle au Haut, parts of Baker Island, and a portion of the Schoodic Peninsula on the mainland.

In total, Acadia National Park consists of 49,052 acres, including 30,300 acres on Mount Desert Island, 2,728 acres on Isle au Haut and 2,366 acres on the Schoodic Peninsula. The permanent park boundary, as established by act of Congress in 1986, includes a number of private in-holdings that the park is attempting to acquire.

Cadillac Mountain, named after the French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, is on the eastern side of the island. Its green, lichen-covered, pink granite summit is, because of a combination of its eastern location and height, one of the first places in the United States to see the sunrise. Miles of carriage roads were originally built by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. The mountains of Acadia National Park offer hikers and bicycle riders views of the ocean, island lakes, and pine forests.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Whfg unatvat nebhaq

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)


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