Acadia National Park / The Maine Woods National Park
Do the Two Equate?





Acadia National Park: An Overview (including valuable coupons from
area businesses & info on how to access Ocean Drive free of charge).


The North Woods National Park


Roxanne Quimby for Governor?

COMMENTARY by Captain D

If a century ago Acadia National Park was a good idea—and nearly everybody agrees it was—does it not stand to reason that the hotly-contested proposal for a Maine Woods National Park is an equally good idea?
This promises to become a red-hot topic of debate for the next few years as the forces behind the proposed 3.2-million-acre park for northern Maine have picked up serious financial support and leadership drive from Roxanne Quimby, one of the world’s more formidable entrepreneurs and free-spirited idealists.

There is no denying that Acadia National Park has a major, mostly beneficial, impact on the economy of Eastern Maine. The three million visitors the park draws to Mount Desert Island each year blasts the July-through-September sales season of Bar Harbor into the stratosphere. Restaurants, gift shops, lodging facilities including hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts, and inns Downeast all experience frantic, lucrative, if all-too-short seasons.
The park also is a magnet for numerous other economic entities. Each summer, it helps attract several major cruise ships to ports Down East. If it were not for Acadia, College of the Atlantic might well be located elsewhere. Activities such as boat building, whale watching, camping, sight-seeing, and mountain climbing are all fostered by the park.
Would a Maine Woods National Park occupying an area larger than Yellowstone and Yosemite combined have a healthy impact on the economy of Northern Maine? Or would it turn a community of hearty outdoorsmen into one of exploitative, subservient trinket peddlers?

No doubt about it, the economies of Piscataquis and neighboring counties could use a boost. The paper industry has been in sharp recession with mills laying off hundreds of workers or closing altogether. There are few other employment opportunities in places like Greenville and Millinocket.

Granted, the park would hardly be the forest primeval. Most of the forest has been logged repeatedly. Still, it includes the largest old-growth stand in New England, the headwaters of five major rivers, miles of wilderness waterways, and over a thousand miles of trails including a prime section of the Appalachian Trail.

Proponents say their poll results indicate a majority of Mainers favor the proposal. Nevertheless, a highly vocal segment of the local population feels the park threatens a way of life they cherish. Trappers, hunters, fishermen, and snowmobilers seem united in opposition. A park would prohibit or greatly restrict many activities. Antagonism towards the proposal has at times threatened to get ugly.

To a significant extent, the future of the so-called "Second Maine" lies in the resolution of this debate.