Mount Desert


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Maine Cottages


Book Description

Robert R. Pyle Our sense of place and community is made up of memories—personal memories of first-hand experience; oral memories that recount our ancestors’ experiences; and f- mal, codified civic memories set down in laws, ceremonies, and rituals. Together they are vital building blocks of citizenship. In a vivid and meaningful way this book p- serves memories relevant to understanding the roots of communities on Mount Desert Island, Maine. The surnames of many of Mount Desert’s earliest settlers are still found in today’s telephone directories. In these families many oral traditions are passed down from generation to generation, building outward from a historical core like the rings of a tree. “Dad used to farm this field,” Fred L. Savage’s great-nephew Don Phillips told me once, gesturing toward an alder growth. “His father grew vegetables for the hotel, and my great-grandfather grew grains. This road used to go right on up over the hill, and they used it to move the cemetery up there from where the hotel is now. ” Describing the field, Don ignores the alders and the towering evergreens beyond them, for in his mind’s eye he sees yellow, waving wheat and rye, bare ground, and a narrow cart track leading up the hill into the distance, on which his ancestors tra- ported the remains of their own forebears to a new resting place. Oral traditions, living memory, set the stage for him, and he accepts the reality of things he has never seen.




Bar Harbor Babylon


Book Description

Mount Desert Island has attracted scoundrels and scandals for more than 100 years. Steady as the tide, every summer brings a rush of summer residents from eastern cities to the island and nothing thrilled them so much as a good scandal. In its heyday, Mount Desert was a wild oasis where the summercators could carry on in comparative privacy. Today, unfortunately, unlike Las Vegas, what happened on Mount Desert doesn’t always stay on Mount Desert. The scandals that were the talk of the picnics and outings that filled the summer visitors' days are brought back to life in Bar Harbor Babylon. Murderers, thieves, cheaters and scammers have all made their mark on the tiny towns of Mount Desert. This book will take the reader on a tour of the misadventures and misfortunes that punctuate the island's wealthy and privileged past.




Granite, Fire, and Fog


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Acadia National Park, on Maine's Mount Desert Island, is among the most popular national parks in the United States. From the road, visitors can experience magnificent vistas of summit and sea, but on a more intimate scale, equally compelling views abound along Acadia's hiking trails. Tom Wessels, an ecologist, naturalist, and avid hiker, attributes the park's popularity-and its unusual beauty-to the unique way in which earth, air, fire, and water-in the form of glacially scoured granite, winter winds, fire, and ocean fog-have converged to create a landscape that can be found nowhere else. In this beautifully illustrated book, Wessels invites readers to investigate the remarkable natural history of Mount Desert Island, along with the unique cultural story it gave rise to. This account of nature, terrain, and human interaction with the landscape will delight those who like to hike these bald summits, ride along the carriage roads, or explore the island's rugged shoreline. Wessels concludes with a guided tour of one of his favorite hikes, a ten-mile loop that will acquaint the reader with the diverse ecosystems described throughout his book.




Marine Physiology Down East: The Story of the Mt. Desert Island Biological Laboratory


Book Description

This volume offers a comprehensive history of the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory (MDIBL), one of the major marine laboratories in the United States and a leader in using marine organisms to study fundamental physiological concepts. Beginning with its founding as the Harpswell Laboratory of Tufts University in 1898, David H. Evans follows its evolution from a teaching facility to a research center for distinguished renal and epithelial physiologists. He also describes how it became the site of major advances in cytokinesis, regeneration, cardiac and vascular physiology, hepatic physiology, endocrinology and toxicology, as well as studies of the comparative physiology of marine organisms. Fundamental physiological concepts in the context of the discoveries made at the MDIBL are explained and the social and administrative history of this renowned facility is described.







The Chakra System of Mount Desert Island


Book Description

The Chakra System of Mount Desert Island takes the reader on a tour in which the actual hike or journey from locale to locale becomes a vision quest and operates on an internal as well as an external level. As we are led along the path of discovery, not only do we learn about the seven major chakras of Mount Desert, we are also taught how to discover chakras in every local, large and small. The traveler gets a chance actually to go to rocks and tiny bodies of water that have special power. He or she gets to look out from the hills and mountains across vast vistas and understand the energy of an entire system made up of islands, glacial moraine, a fjord (Somes Sound), and Cadillac Mountain itself. In a classic feng-shui mode Kaiser views the Mount Desert system of mountains, islands, kettle ponds, hillocks, etc., as a system of energy gates. Placing oneself in the correct alignment with these leads to insight and healing.




Mount Desert; a History


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The Stanleys of Cranberry Isles ... and Other Colorful Characters


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As a child I was interested in history and genealogy and through the years I had gathered a lot of stories. Out for an afternoon sail with Mrs. Montgomery on NILIRAGA, sometimes until the middle of October, often times just the two of us, I would tell her some of these stories. She would say, "Ralph! You must write all this down." Eventually I did write much about the early history of Mount Desert Island, shipbuilding history, other historical facts and stories of relatives and people that I knew. Albie and I discussed how to go about recording the story of the Stanley family and I suggested that we talk with Bill Bunting (William H. Bunting). We started by asking Bill to read all that I had written over the years. His response was, "You are a wonderful story-teller when describing people you know. As a youngster and as a young man you had an unusually sharp eye, sharp ear, and sensitive appreciation and understanding of the human comedy, all the while realizing that comedy and tragedy are often intertwined. You show that one can be insightful without being judgmental."So with this advice I sat down to the computer, rearranged, cut and pasted until I have the story of the Stanley family and those whose lives crossed, often with mutual respect and trust.




Mount Desert


Book Description