Raking leaves in a gale

Think back a week to last Saturday for a second. If you happened to stick your nose outside, you’ll recall you nearly had it ripped from your face what with the gale force winds and freezing temperature that did little to melt the snow dusting we got the previous evening.

At 7:45 a.m., I was headed south around Goose Pond on ice-covered Route 1A with three Maine Outdoor Adventure Club members wondering to myself WHY? Why was I headed to Acadia National Park to rake leaves on a day like this? I hadn’t even begun the annual drudge at my own house, and this wouldn’t have been the day I chose to tackle it. So WHY was I volunteering my limited supply of playtime and energy to rake leaves in a national park?

Partly it was because of Kathryn McGloin, a MOAC member in the Bangor chapter who had fired off an e-mail suggesting it would be great fun and a great service for the park. I was tentative about endorsing this gig. It sounded like work. When I peeked out my window at 6:30 a.m. it looked like we’d need jackhammers if we were going to move frozen leaves.

Deep down inside, however, I was thinking the effort would be beneficial to the park and therefore rewarding personally to be giving something back to such a wonderful resource. After all, it wouldn’t be any different than cleaning up our coastal islands during Maine Island Trail Association’s spring and fall sweeps. (There was a difference, I learned later. I saw no litter on the section of carriage road we cleaned up. Islands usually have a good dose of trash, much of it washed up on shore.)

Acadia is one of the most heavily used national parks in America. And at 45,000 acres, it is one of the smallest – and most vulnerable. That’s where volunteers can help – and why there’s a “Take Pride in Acadia” day.

“National parks today need volunteers. It’s a modern reality” especially in these times of budget constraints, W. Kent Olson told me. Olson is president of Friends of Acadia, a nonprofit organization that helps raise and manage money to maintain the park, and offers its advice to park managers on park policy.

Friends of Acadia is an independent membership organization with a noble mission: to preserve and protect the outstanding natural beauty, ecological vitality, and cultural distinctiveness of Acadia National Park and the surrounding communities.

In the early 1990s, Friends of Acadia began a campaign to raise $4 million, which in turn was matched by Congress to do extensive carriage road refurbishing. The park’s Web site tells the story: “Between 1992 and 1995, the roads were extensively rehabilitated. Woody vegetation was removed from roads, shoulders and ditches, and drainage systems were reestablished to arrest erosion. The crown and subgrade layers were restored and new surface materials applied to replace thousands of cubic yards washed away over the years. Coping stones were reset or replaced, and some of the historic vistas that once greeted horseback riders, carriage drivers, and walkers have been reopened. Rehabilitation was funded through a special program of federal construction funds with matching private funds. This funding will ensure that the roads will continue to be maintained in the future, close to their original condition.”

Today the park’s 44 miles of historic carriage roads are the “best crushed stone, motor-free roads in the world,” according to Olson. They are part of the park’s “cultural landscape,” he added.

These rustic carriage roads were the gift of philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. and family. According to the park’s Web site, “Rockefeller, a skilled horseman, desired to travel on motor-free byways via horse and carriage into the heart of Mount Desert Island. His construction efforts, from 1913 to 1940, resulted in roads with sweeping vistas and close-up views of the landscape … They are true roads, approximately 16 feet wide, constructed with methods that required much hand labor. The roads were engineered to contend with Maine’s wet weather. Three layers of rock, stone culverts, wide ditches, and a substantial six- to eight-inch crown ensured good drainage.” Keeping the drainage ditches free of leaves and debris is necessary, otherwise culverts would clog and cause runoff over the roads’ gravel surfaces thereby causing erosion.

The key words in there are “much hand labor” and that’s where volunteers enter the picture and where Friends of Acadia helps out, by rounding up and coordinating volunteers. For the year to date, Acadia National Park received 33,000 hours of volunteer help, 7,000 of which is directly attributable to Friends of Acadia.

“Volunteers add value to the park, provide something to enhance the experience, protect the environment, and preserve the culture of the place at no cost to users. They are part of the philanthropy… ,” Olson said.

In fact, volunteers and donors have helped make Acadia National Park what it is today, Jonathan Gormley, the park’s volunteer coordinator, told me later in the week. The park’s first superintendent, George Dorr, was paid the whopping sum of $1 a year. In the early years, all of the land in the park was donated, Gormley said. Nowadays in a typical year, 2,300 volunteers give of their time and effort that, if assigned a dollar value, would be more than $225,000, he said.

Some of what volunteers did this year included building 400 feet of bog walk on the trail skirting the west shore of Jordan Pond. They helped haul, grade, and pack trail surface material on 2,300 feet of the east side trail of the pond, Gormley said. Volunteers also help keep carriage road ditches clear of debris and do stone work on retaining walls and drainage ditches. Some of what they do is work that otherwise might not get done. “There’s always work to be done even if we’re fully staffed,” Gormley said. “[Volunteers] just make things better.”

In addition to work on the 120 miles of hiking trails, volunteers help out in campgrounds as hosts, assisting rangers, doing light maintenance, and selling maps and guide books. They also help out in the visitors’ center and park museum and help groom carriage roads in the winter for cross-country skiing.

Last Saturday, the 280 folks who turned out cleared 12 miles of carriage road ditches of leaves. We raked or scraped the leaves onto the roadway then hauled them on tarps into the woods on the downhill side of the road and spread them out. Carriage Road foreman Merle Cousins picked out the most critical areas to be cleared and spent the morning visiting the work areas and handing out muffins and candy in appreciation.

If you’re looking for more information about the park and Friends of Acadia, check out the Web site at www.nps.gov/acad/home.htm and do a little exploring. There’s a link to Friends of Acadia where you’ll find information about the organization and a list of its accomplishments.

Jeff Strout can be reached at 990-8202 or by e-mail at jstrout@bangordailynews.net.