Arrive - Summer/Fall 2016

of the ocean and off-lying islands,” says Moran, a
park ranger. “Listening to the sound of bell buoys,
lobster boats, birds, and the water crashing onto
the rocks is soothing to me.”
Amid this bounty, Acadia’s most distinctive
symbol is Cadillac Mountain. At 1,530 feet, it’s the
highest point on the Atlantic coast, and a popular
place from which to watch the sun rise over the
ocean. Conveniently, this is the rare peak where
you can drive right up to the top.

A Difficult Beginning

Shenandoah, the Northeast’s other national park, claims another road as its most iconic sight: the Skyline Drive, which meanders along the spine of the Blue Ridge Mountains for 105 miles. Although it opened in 1939, the road—itself a National Historic Landmark—actually predates the park’s 1935 creation. Work was started in 1931, and it took eight years to build. (In contrast, no road whatsoever goes through Olympic National Park, in Washington state).

Shenandoah, which sits about 75 miles from our nation’s capital, is an elongated sliver of mountains and forests that’s more than four times the area of Acadia, and 40 percent of its 200,000 acres is classified as wilderness.

Yet as idyllic as the park is now, it had a painful gestation—shared by Eastern national parks Great Smoky Mountains and Mammoth Cave.

Witnessing the benefits the parks brought to the West, the Commonwealth of Virginia decided it wanted one of its own. There was just one problem: The chosen spot was no sparsely populated West and no Mount Desert Island, with its philanthropy-minded millionaires. “The Virginia mountains were settled back in the 1700s,” says Sally Hurlbert, Shenandoah’s acting management assistant. “People had farms and orchards, there was mining.” So Virginia used eminent domain to purchase the deeds in the 1930s, which it then donated to the federal government. “It was a tough time because landowners were paid condemnation prices and it was the middle of the Depression,” Hurlbert explains. “It was a very controversial way to start a park, but now many are glad it’s there because this probably would have been developed over time.” To celebrate its centennial, the NPS launched the Find Your Park movement to help Americans appreciate their surroundings and connect with their history—but also their future. As the songwriter Lambert puts it, “National parks are a quintessential bridge between the reality of our society and lifestyles, and the tangible reality of the breathing Earth.”