Time and Tide in Acadia: Seasons on Mount Desert Island

by Christopher Camuto

Overview

Camuto delivers insights on Mount Desert Island, a place of stunning beauty and natural wonders.

Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park have been described as the climax of the coast of Maine. Millions are drawn every year to the stunning beauty of this rocky landscape of spruce-fir forest and granite islands. Some, like nature writer Christopher Camuto, never stop coming back.

In Time and Tide in Acadia the author draws on years of walking Mount Desert’s summits and shorelines, canoeing its marshes, kayaking its tidal waters, and visiting its outer islands. To this task Camuto brings an appetite for observing wildlife and landscape with considerable originality, a regard for history and indigenous perceptions of nature, a keen interest in exploring the psychological and philosophical appeal of nature, and a writer’s love of language. As in his previous, highly praised books, Camuto fulfills his promise to give the reader innumerable vantages on the nature of a remarkable place that it takes time to get to know.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780881509120
Publisher:	Countryman Press, The
Publication date:	06/14/2010
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Christopher Camuto is the author of A Fly Fisherman’s Blue Ridge, Another Country: Journeying Toward the Cherokee Mountains, Hunting from Home and Time and Tide in Acadia. He teaches creative writing at Bucknell University and lives in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

First Light: Land's End and the Mind's Eye 1

At Ship Harbor: The Edge of the Sea 11

Summits: Figure and Ground 27

Ironbound Coast: Land Partly at Sea 45

Surfacings: The Color of the Sea 57

Marsh Time: The Strong Presence of Things 75

River Of Mountains: Naming Names 89

Parallax: Expressions of Sea Level 105

Long Ledge: Walking Out to Sea 121

Down East: Imagining Birds 133

Cairns: Mountains Walking 151

Toward Pemetic: Spirit of Place 165

Last Light: Mount Desert Rock 177

Appendix: The Birds of Mount Desert Rock, October 3-6, 2006 189

Sources 193

Other Reading 197

Editorial Reviews

Maine's Mount Desert Island is perhaps best known for its Acadia National Park, which two and a half million people visit each year. Nature writer Christopher Camuto has long been hiking, canoeing, kayaking, and fishing in the Pine Tree State's largest island and its nearest neighbors. This evocative book is enhanced with 15 photographs and a useful map.

A seasoned nature writer scales the hills and valleys of Maine's rocky coast. Camuto (Creative Writing/Bucknell Univ.; Hunting From Home: A Year Afield in the Blue Ridge Mountains, 2003, etc.) surveys the largest and most mountainous of the state's islands, Mount Desert Island, dramatically describing the awe and limitless wonders found along the "roughly ten-mile-by-ten-mile wolf's paw of granite." It was first discovered by French explorers in the early 1600s. Then, in the 19th century, it was rediscovered by artists who were instantly enraptured by its rugged natural splendor. Recorded in his journal as "field moments"-random observations enjoyed without the intrusion of the general public-his excursions Camuto scouring the great expanse of Acadia National Park and hiking to survey the vista from his perch atop Cadillac Mountain, then navigating tricky channels by kayak, where he appreciated the landscape from the water. The author rented a cabin, befriended the locals and spent many months identifying indigenous bird species, examining the bountiful marine environment and enjoying a "walk through time" on the storm-battered coastline and challenging trails that bisect the summits of Champlain and Dorr mountains. At times, Camuto gets sidetracked, overwhelmed by the minutia of the moment: "The marsh dares you to get close to all these things, to become one with its otherness, to pay attention, to learn, to be satisfied, as marsh life is, with its own unnamable being." These eye-rolling episodes aside, the author writes with grace, and he touches on points of interest with the trained eye of an ecologist. His keen observations are deliberate, informative and written with poeticflourishes both languid and meticulous. Luxuriant language and an evocative sense of natural beauty translate well onto the pages of this literary tribute to the Maine coast.

Kirkus Reviews