Taking a welcome breath of fresh air, I looked up from my spot on the carriage road where I had been raking leaves out of the drainage ditch. A National Park like Acadia produces a lot of leaf litter, to use the technical term, which finds its way into the drains, and which subsequently requires a lot of manual labor to remove in order to maintain the bicycle and hiker-only roads. That day we made up 8 of the 3,000 volunteers who find their way into Acadia every year to offer their minds and bodies in order to help the park, in order to learn and experience something they can’t find elsewhere. Our group, being the inquisitive Udall scholars that we are, managed to put in a good 45 minutes of raking and carrying leaves before we got to talking with the Rangers and volunteer coordinators about all sorts of things. We discussed National Parks and wilderness ethics, and even heard a story about a man who was chased by a bear for an entire winter. And of course all of this got me to thinking—about the state of wilderness in the U.S. and the role of National Parks in preserving hopefully ecologically diverse lands.
National Parks are crunched for funding and staff right now, as we found out that 15 or more full-time positions are vacant in Acadia, for example. The number of visitors to the parks is dropping as well; though Acadia alone had around 2 million visitors last year (down from 3 million). What is the role of the tourist, in the park-lands user, in maintaining the parks themselves? We spoke about this often on the bus in the days after our visit.
Young participants in the Parks in Focus program take
pictures of a lobster boat at Acadia National Park
Obviously, having people on the landscape can be damaging, as roads and parking lots are built and maintained, people may wander off trails into protected areas, and too many people may be visiting an area. It wouldn’t exactly be quiet, scenic, regenerative, whatever, if all 2 million visitors were there on the same day. However, National Parks are supported by the Federal government, and therefore aren’t intended to rely on visitor dollars for their continued existence. But showing up always shows support.
And this is where Bob comes in. Bob and I were talking about the Eastern seaboard
and its ecology, its culture and people. Bob brought up the great point that many of these coastal towns traditionally have maritime economies. Today many of these communities have grown to include researchers and students, as well as tourism and the growing service industry that comes with both of these groups. This three-fold economy (I made that up) is evident in Bar Harbor, the major town bordering Acadia. Bar Harbor definitely benefits from families and groups visiting the Park and staying, eating, shopping, and recreating in the town. There still is a local fishing industry and this presence not only adds delicious food to restaurant plates, it adds a certain charm to the whole town. We tourists love this. Whether we’re from fishing towns ourselves, the suburbs of Chicago, or Philadelphia proper, it’s quite the experience to be a part of a cozy community. I don’t know how this affects fisherman or locals in general, especially in terms of how they use and define their surroundings, but I’ve spent many summers working in a tourist town and I know that it’s good money, even if it fluctuates unpredictably.
I’ll end there, but I’ll still be thinking about this, so I’d love to keep the discussion going. Thanks for reading; I really did have a good time in both Acadia and Bar Harbor.
By: Jennifer Vazquez
