Acadia: Maine's tidewater haven

This story was sold to Canadian Press. Among the newspapers that ran it was the Evening Telegram of Sept. 18, 1993

BY WARREN CARAGATA

BAR HARBOR, Maine (CP) -- Discovered by Champlain, developed by robber barons like Morgan and Rockefeller, Acadia National Park is now a haven of tidewater and mountain trails for the urban weary.

For people used to the Rockies, the rounded granite humps that spread over the 100 square kilometres of Acadia might not seen like much. Snow-capped peaks they are not, but not gentle hills either. Cadillac Mountain, at 1,530 feet, is the highest point of land on the Atlantic seaboard.

Bar Harbor is the park's main population centre. It's a resort town of some charm where the Marine Atlantic ferry from Yarmouth, N.S. brings fresh infusions of Canadians to mix with the New Yorkers and Bostonians who have been finding their escape on Bar Harbor's shores for more than a century.

Acadia is a large island hanging off the Maine coast by a causeway, about three hours drive from the New Brunswick border. Another, less visited, part of the park is on a neighboring jut of land across Frenchman's Bay.

The hiking trails that ramble over about 200 kilometres of park are the chief attraction. There are gentle loops and demanding climbs, trips along the shorelines of mountain lakes, through forests of beech and fir, across bald mountain faces offering views out over the Atlantic.

The park's visitor centre has descriptions of the most popular trails, ranked by difficulty. Maps and more detailed guides are also available.

John D. Rockefeller was among the many titans of business who summered at Acadia, making Bar Harbor one of the most exclusive resorts in the United States before income taxes and the First World War.

Rockefeller is remembered around the world for many things, for Esso and the Standard Oil Trust and the days of the robber barons. In Acadia, he's remembered for the idiosyncratic roads he had built. Known as carriage roads, there are about 100 kilometres of them, built on a bed of broken stone with easy grades and handsome stone bridges. Rockefeller designed the roads to fit the landscape, and show it to best effect. And by his orders, no cars are allowed, making them heaven-built for bicyclists.

In Bar Harbor, several cycle shops rent bikes, and for those who don't like the idea of riding up a mountain, some give you an early-morning lift to the summit to catch the sunrise, leaving it to you to steer the bike back down. Caleches are also available for carriage road tours.

Acadia has a few ocean beaches but only kids and the very brave will go in the water. It's cold. Even the spray is cold. The ocean here is best for sailing or whale-watching or looking at it from shoreline hikes.

From Sand Beach, a three-kilometre trail leads along the shore past Thunder Hole, where the ocean pounds through a narrow cleft and makes a loud noise, and on to Otter Cliff, the highest headland on the Atlantic coast.

Several companies offer whale watching expeditions from Bar Harbor. Frenchman's Bay is the one operator that has a park service recommendation. There's a naturalist aboard all the trips who offers expert commentary not only on the whales but on sea birds and other wildlife.

On the trip we took of about three hours in the Gulf of Maine, we saw a lot of whales, humpbacks mostly, but if you haven't done this before, it's important to realize this isn't Marineland. You don't get that close, by law, and the whales don't do tricks for fish snacks. They don't spend a lot of time out of the water, where you can see them, but they are big, they have awful breath, and they make strange snorting noises.

When listening to the sales pitches, it's also important to understand that the companies count the whales they've seen that day a bit differently from the rest of us. On our trip, the count was announced as about 30. If you're a whale expert standing on the bridge with high-powered glasses and you know what to look for, you'll come up with a higher number than the people down on the main deck who seem to turn to look just milliseconds after the whale has dived.

The whale boat companies also make sunset trips and several offer sailing cruises. Like all resort towns in the United States, Bar Harbor has its tacky side, too many t-shirt stores, too many indifferent restaurants. But some of the architecture has survived both the fire of 1947 and the predations of modern tourist commerce.

Bar Harbor has all kinds of accommodation, from bed and breakfasts to stays in some of the mansions that the Morgans and Rockefellers considered summer cottages. There is also a full range of motels, modern and auto-court vintage.

Mama di Matteo's is not among the indifferent restaurants. It was so good we ate there three nights running. It's Italian, with great homemade sauces heavy with local herbs and garlic and a great ceasar salad served in a round of homemade garlic bread.

The Lompoc Cafe is a brew pub and night spot with a faintly counter-culture air that serves vegetarian food along with innovative pizzas, some Middle Eastern dishes and good seafood.

On the drive in, try to arrange a stop in Ellsworth, on the mainland side of the causeway, for a meal at Jasper's. A family-restaurant kind of place, it does seafood right. It began as a clam shack and built its reputation from there. As a rule, fried clams are greasy things that give seafood a bad name. These break the mold, tasting like clams, and with no telltale oil slick on your chin. Even the brussel sprouts were good, and the apple crisp is supposed to be fantastic. They were sold out the night we were there.