Hard Telling Not Knowing each week tries to answer your burning questions about why things are the way they are in Maine — specifically about Maine culture and history, both long ago and recent, large and small, important and silly. Send your questions to [email protected].
With nearly 4 million visitors per year, you’d think people today know everything there is to know about Acadia National Park.
And yet, there’s seemingly always something new to learn, from its colonial history that’s distinct from the rest of New England to the natural wonders hidden in secret corners all over Mount Desert Island. Here are five little-known facts about Acadia, one of the most-visited national parks in the country.
Somes Sound isn’t a true fjord.
Somes Sound cleaves a long, deep trough down the center of Mount Desert Island, stretching nearly 5 miles from the village of Somesville to the towns of Southwest Harbor and Northeast Harbor at its mouth. For many years, Somes Sound was called a fjord, due to its depth — more than 100 feet in some places — and the cliffs that surround it, as well as the fact that it was carved out by glaciers. One of Acadia’s many selling points to tourists is that they could visit the only fjord on the East Coast of the U.S.
In 1998, however, a report by the Maine Geological Survey pointed out that it’s inaccurate to call Somes Sound a fjord. The 1,000-foot elevations surrounding it are far shorter than the 3,000 to 4,000 foot cliffs seen in Norwegian fjords, which also have an average water depth of around 300 to 600 feet, and up to 4,300 feet deep in some places. There also aren’t any parts of Somes Sound that lack oxygenated water, unlike in true fjords. The report said that it’s more accurate to call it a “fjard” — a smaller cousin to the mighty fjords found in Scandinavia, the Arctic, the Pacific Northwest and New Zealand.
There’s a hidden sea cave you can visit.
Decades ago, the National Park Service removed one location from its map of Acadia, in order to protect visitors from potentially dangerous conditions in getting there, and the place itself from being damaged by park-goers. That’s Anemone Cave, a sea cave located just south of Schooner Head Outlook, a few miles south of Bar Harbor. Though it is technically still open to the public, be wary — the trail can be very slippery, and it’s only accessible at low tide.
If you do make it, however, you’ll be treated to an unforgettable experience. The cave is full of starfish, sea moss, sponges, a variety of mollusks and, of course, delicate, flowery, venomous sea anemone, which are hard to find on Maine’s coast. Leave the sea creatures alone, though, and take only pictures and memories as you listen to the sound of the ocean from inside an ancient cave carved out by millions of years of waves crashing against the shore.
The Cadillac of mountains
Whether you’re able to snag a reservation to drive to the top, or you do it the old fashioned way and hike or bike there, the summit of Cadillac Mountain is one of the top destinations within Acadia National Park. When you get closer to the top, look for a cross shape carved into the granite. Local legends hold that it was carved by members of French explorer Samuel de Champlain’s party, who became the first European to explore the island, and who gave it its name in 1608 — Ile de Mons Deserts, or Mount Desert Island.
In truth, the cross was likely carved by surveyors sometime around 1908, as they delineated a new parcel of land sold to the park. There’s a plaque honoring de Champlain over on Day Mountain, just south of Cadillac, and there’s a mountain in the park named for Champlain as well. Another fun fact is that Cadillac was renamed in 1918 from its original name, Green Mountain, for another French explorer, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac — the same Cadillac for whom the car company was named.
Acadia National Park was once part of France.
Centuries ago, the place that is now Acadia National Park was a part of France. Between 1604 and 1763, all of Maine east of the Kennebec River was part of the colony of Acadia, part of New France. The Treaty of Paris in 1763 — not to be confused with the 1783 treaty that ended the American Revolution — formally ceded Canada and what was left of New France, including part of what is now Maine, to Great Britain. England only held it for 13 years before the U.S. became a country in 1776. MDI’s colonial history is mostly French, rather than British.
Of course, before all of that, Mount Desert Island was part of the Wabanaki homeland, many of whom called the island “Pemetic,” a name that is still seen around the park and the island, such as Pemetic Mountain and an elementary school in Southwest Harbor.
The unknown origin of “Acadia”
There is some debate as to the origin of the name “Acadia” altogether. One theory holds that when French-Italian explorer Giovanni de Verrazzano first explored the Atlantic coast north of Virginia in the early 16th century, he named the entire region “Arcadia,” for the idyllic Peloponnesian wilderness that was home to the gods Hermes and Pan in Greek mythology. Over time, settlers dropped the “r” to leave us with Acadia, which eventually became more specifically the colony in New France that included much of what is now the Maritimes, the Gaspe Peninsula and Maine.
The other leading theory is that Acadia is a Europeanization of a Wabanaki word from either the Mi’kmaq or Passamaquoddy language. In Mi’kmaq, the word is “academ,” which means “we dwell” or “led-lacadem,” which means “where we dwell.” In Passamaquoddy, the word is “aquoddiauke,” which means “a place for pollock.” We’ll likely never know which theory is right, and it may be that the truth combines a little bit of both.
