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Superintendent's View: The Icing on the Cake
Thanks to volunteers and donors,
Acadia National Park is a much better
place to visit and enjoy. Without
this private assistance, the National Park
Service could not keep up with the maintenance
and demands of serving more than two
million visitors each year.
National park superintendents often see
one another at various meetings around
the country and I am always pleased to
answer questions about Acadia's many sucesses
resulting from its partnership with
Friends of Acadia. I am proud to say that
Friends is clearly one of the leading
"friends groups" and, believe me, many
superintendents would love to have a similar
success story.
Even though it is easy for me to remember
the many great things happening in
Acadia thanks to our donors and volunteers,
I am still very impressed when I see
list of those accomplishments for any
given year. Projects, programs, events, and
activities made possible through Friends of
Acadia and your generosity just last year
include:
- Our ranger horse patrol, including the
feed, veterinary service, winter stbling,
and training for Max the horse
- Our bike patrol on the carriage roads,
which serves thousands of users each
summer
- The Acadia Youth Conservation
Corps, which gives youth a great
work experience in the park
- Earth Day Roadside Clean-Up and
Take Pride in Acadia Day events,
which involve hundreds of helpers
picking up litter, raking leaves, and
generally having fun working with
others who care for Acadia
- The Ridge Runners who maintain the
trail cairns and teach "Leave No Trace"
principles
- One summer worker for the Wild
Gardens of Acadia to keep the plants
(and volunteers) thriving
- Helping restore and maintain the historic
hiking trails that are unique to
Acadia
- Helping maintain the historic carriage
roads for walkers, carriages, equestrians,
and bikers
- Funding the Island Explorer buses
that carried a daily average of more
than 6,000 riders during the summer,
equating to 2,000-3,000 fewer cars in
the park each day
- The Schoodic Education Adventure
program that serves school children
from around Maine
- Helping the park acquire available
parcels inside its boundary, like the
Pooler Farm property near the
Northeast Creek watershed, and
helping protect very significant land
on the edge of the park, like the 25
acres on Acadia Mountain that was
acquired to end a major development
threat
- Monitoring nearly 200 conservation
easements to be sure the natural and
scenic values are not being altered
over time
- Family Fun Day, which introduces
children to the wonders of Acadia and
nature
- Nine new research projects, using the
L.L.Bean Research Fellowship grants,
that provide valuable information for
park managers on topics such as
seabirds, winter recreation, songbird
migration, geology, brook trout, history
of the Frazer homestead, freshwater
snails, and zooplankton
- The recruitment and management of
the 3,000 volunteers that pitch in to
improve the trails, carriage roads,
education programs, and many other
activities that make up our visitor
service and resource management
work‹we couldn't begin to properly
care for Acadia and our visitors without
the dedicated and hard working
volunteers
Working as one large team, we are able to
accomplish so much more than we could
without the generosity of people like you.
Acadia National Park is fortunate, indeed,
to have friends like you. Thank you for
your interest and support.
- Sheridan Steele, Superintendent
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