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Samuel de Champlain's ship hit a rock off this shore in 1604, and it is believed he and his crew spent the winter repairing it at Otter Cove. That is one stop on a history walk written by Mary Ann Schaefer, an Acadia National Park volunteer, for visitors who hike, bike or ski the stretch of Park Loop Road around Otter Point while it is closed to vehicles in winter. The walk is 1.4 miles from the Fabbri Picnic Area around the point and back, about 45 minutes to an hour.
The orange portion of the Park Loop Road is closed to vehicle traffic in winter. Image from the National Park Service's page.
The guide says the stops are not a straight line through time but a way to connect what you see with different periods and with how people used the land.
Stops on the walk
| Stop | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Apple trees | Not native to North America; they often mark where early European farmhouses stood. Settlers cleared land and sold timber, then planted corn, hay, wheat, potatoes and apples, and many also worked as carpenters, lobstermen or stone cutters |
| The Wabanaki | People of the dawn, in the region for more than 12,000 years. Chief Asticou met the French in 1613, leading to the French settlement Saint Sauveur. Within 30 years of Europeans' arrival, 90 percent of the Wabanaki died from disease or warfare. They remain, and their culture continues |
| Champlain | A navigator and mapmaker aboard Pierre de Gua's ship in 1604, he named the island for its bare mountain summits. His ship struck The Spindle on September 5, 1604, and had to be repaired at Otter Cove |
| Egg Rock and its lighthouse | Named for the nesting seabirds, used by the Wabanaki as a summer camp. A lighthouse was built in 1875, with the light tower in the middle of the keeper's house. Feather hunting for hats in the 1800s ended with the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. The island is now closed to protect nesting birds |
| Schoodic Peninsula | Added to Acadia in 1929 from land of John Moore, given by his widow and daughters on condition it stay a public park, including for scientific research. A Naval base replaced Naval Base Bar Harbor in the mid 1930s; when it closed in 2002 the land returned to the park and became what is now the Schoodic Institute |
| The ringing bell | A bell buoy warns of The Spindle, a rock hidden at high tide, believed to be the one Champlain hit |
| Gulf of Maine | An arm of the ocean from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia, fed by the cold Labrador Current. Pierre du Gua led a French expedition here in fall 1604 to build a colony and fur trading headquarters |
| Cranberry Islands | Mount Desert Island was once a supervolcano, four hundred million years ago. Settlers on the islands were mostly fishermen since the thin soil was poor for farming. A governor in the mid 1700s named them after a 200-acre cranberry bog |
| A long journey | Europe lies about 3,600 miles across the ocean. Ships roughly 130 feet long carried crews of 35-40 and took about six weeks from France. The Vikings may have passed this spot as early as 1060 |
| Scenes from Acadia | Views of cliffs and shores inspired artists of the mid 1800s, such as Hudson River School painters Thomas Cole and Frederick Church, and drew visitors |
| Settling the island | After about 1760 land grants drew settlers who farmed and logged, then turned to fishing and shipbuilding |
| Why a road is here | John D. Rockefeller Jr. built carriage roads inland; he then worked for more than 30 years to acquire land, move a naval base and build a road with coastal views. Cars were not allowed on the island until 1913 |
| Highest point on the Eastern Seaboard | Cadillac Mountain, 1,530 feet, first called Green Mountain; George Dorr renamed it for Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, who held title to the land and later founded what is now Detroit |
| The meltwater channel | The rounded tops of Cadillac and Dorr Mountains show glaciers more than a mile thick covered most of Maine 20,000 years ago, smoothing peaks and carving U-shaped valleys |
| Naval Radio Bar Harbor | In 1917 the ham radio operator Alessandro Fabbri's antenna at Otter Point picked up coded German command messages; after a demonstration, Navy Secretary Franklin Delano Roosevelt heard clear German communications himself |
| Change | The island has changed from Wabanaki seasonal use to settlements, farms and tourism |
Wayside on Samuel de Champlain's expedition, on the Park Loop Road overlooking Frenchman Bay.
Wayside on Egg Rock, at Schooner Head Overlook.
Wayside on the Gulf of Maine, at Schoodic Point on the Schoodic Peninsula.
A caravan of automobiles driving around Otter Point in August 1938. Courtesy of the National Park Service, Acadia National Park.
Wayside on early transportation and development, on Cadillac Mountain.
Wayside on a U.S. Navy radio station at Otter Point.
Wayside on an early community and waterfront here in the 1800s.
Each stop in the guide ends with questions for walkers, such as what evidence of our way of life people will find in 100 years, which are not reproduced here.
Sources
- National Park Service, Acadia National Park, "Self-Guided Winter Walk: Around Otter Point," written by Acadia volunteer Mary Ann Schaefer (https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/acadia_otter-point-guided-walk.htm); the walk's questions, GPS coordinates and some wayside images are left out; the spellings Alessandro Fabbri and Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac are corrected from the page's misspellings, from the writer's own knowledge; rewritten in hubnx's own words.
In these publicationsAcadia National Park
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
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