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Still Time To Celebrate Acadia National Park's Centennial

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There's still time left this year to help celebrate Acadia National Park's centennial.

Fewer than 100 days remain in Acadia National Park’s centennial year. As Acadia’s autumn builds toward its fiery peak, the Acadia Centennial Task Force is reminding Acadia-area residents that 2016—exhilarating, memorable, and (perhaps!) exhausting as it has already been—will end with a blaze of centennial glory that shouldn’t be missed.

Notes Task Force Co-chair Cookie Horner, “These last hundred days of the Acadia Centennial include some substantial and thought-provoking offerings from the Acadia Centennial Partners as well as more light-hearted and celebratory events. When December ends, and instead of looking forward to Acadia’s future we’re living in Acadia’s future, I think we’ll find that the ideas and conversations we’re having now can really shape how we care for this special, special place.”

The Acadia Centennial Lecture Series on “Conservation in the 21st Century” will see the last three talks in the series during the month of October. College of the Atlantic president Darron Collins will explore the roles human beings have played in the management of the environment in his talk “Our National Parks: A Petri Dish for Understanding the Blurred Boundary between Humanity and Nature” (Oct. 9). And the Abbe Museum will present Dr. Rebecca Cole-Will, Acadia’s chief of resource management, reflecting on the 50th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act and where the study of the past may lead us in the future in her talk, “Is Archaeology Still Relevant In the 21st Century?” (Oct. 17).

Another significant trio of events looks to the past, present, and future of Acadia. The 69th anniversary of one of Acadia’s watershed moments—the Great Fire of ’47—and the resilience of park, town, and lab in the seven decades since the fire will be commemorated through images and commentary at a reception hosted by the Jackson Laboratory (Oct. 23). Friends of Acadia will host the Centennial edition of Take Pride in Acadia Day, its most important volunteer event of the year, in celebration of what we all can do today to care for our national park (Nov. 5). Finally, the Acadia Centennial Task Force will host the final Gathering of Acadia Centennial Partners and friends at a public dedication of the Acadia Bicentennial Time Capsule, which will be filled with histories and mementoes from this year and sealed up until the year 2116 (Dec. 10).

If you’re still getting your fill of artworks and birthday cakes to celebrate the Acadia Centennial, never fear. The Acadia Centennial online event calendar at http://www.acadiacentennial2016.org/events/ has plenty more to discover, from the creative to the creepy and lots in between. More Dorr? Haunted history? The “eeek!” in ecology? Add to that a double-handful of exhibits at art museums, historical museums, and other venues ongoing into October, and you’ll find something for centennial celebrants of all ages.

Eventually the Acadia Centennial will come to an end, but the beautiful Acadia Centennial logo and other licensed centennial products will be cherished mementoes for years to come. Dress up your kitchen, your walls, your bookshelf—and yourself!—with products designed and created by Acadia Centennial Partners, to show your Acadia pride, commemorate this historic moment, and benefit the park. Visit http://www.acadiacentennial2016.org/centennial-merchandise/ to browse the product listings.

Friends of Acadia, the organizing entity behind the Acadia Centennial Task Force, thanks the Acadia Centennial Partners whose combined contributions to the celebration—including event planning, product offerings, and financial support—are setting the standard for national park centennials. In particular, the Centennial Signature Sponsors have made leadership-level contributions: Bar Harbor Bank & Trust, Boston Red Sox, Darling’s, Down East Magazine, EMHS, The Hinckley Company, The Jackson Laboratory, The Knowles Company, L.L.Bean, The Mount Desert Islander, MPBN, Ocean Properties, Star 97.7, and Wallace Events.

To learn more about the Acadia National Park Centennial and the remarkable community effort that has created the yearlong 2016 celebration, visit www.acadiacentennial2016.org.

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