Gouldsboro to update comprehensive plan
GOULDSBORO – Twenty years have passed since the town crafted its comprehensive plan. In that time, the U.S. Naval base closed in Winter Harbor. The K-8 grade Peninsula School opened its doors. The nation’s last sardine cannery ceased operating and Acadia National Park’s Schoodic Woods campground and trail system and The Schoodic Institute were born.
With such major changes impacting Gouldsboro, Planning Board member Deb Bisson has volunteered to head a town committee to scrutinize the 60-page document over the next year and a half. Under Maine law, 14 of the plan’s chapters must address specific topics ranging from demographics and housing stock to forestry and agricultural land and marine-related resources. Seven maps also are required among other things in the plan viewed as a tool to chart the community’s future for generations to come.
Acadia campgrounds to open this spring
ACADIA NAT’L PARK After being closed all last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the park’s campgrounds are to be open this year, starting in May.
But the overall number of available campsites will be reduced “to allow us to spread campers out and to clean the restrooms more frequently,” said Deputy Superintendent Mike Madell.
“At Seawall, the campsites are really quite close together, so we might have only about 50 percent occupancy there,” he said. “But Schoodic Woods, the newest campground, was built in a way that there is inherently more distance between sites. So that’s probably going to be closer to full occupancy than to 50 percent.”
As of press time, some trails, campsites, and businesses are closed due to Covid-19 precautions. To check for safety protocols and potential closures, check individual websites before you go.
Unlike many national parks, a visit to Acadia can easily stand in for a visit to the state itself. The 49,076-acre site, predominantly located on Maine’s Mount Desert Island (MDI),
is intertwined with fishing villages and tiny seasonal enclaves, and it’s not always clear where its boundaries are. Lobster boats rumble below Acadia’s cliffs as they move from buoy to buoy pulling traps. Uninhabited Bar Island, isolated from the rest of the park, is connected to downtown Bar Harbor via a strip of gravel beach, which serves as a natural sidewalk at low tide. The route to Bass Harbor Head Light, one of three lighthouses managed by the park, passes through neighborhoods where yards are filled with towers of lobster traps. The Abenaki
Barn again:Â Remodeled barn envisioned as events center
Steuben builder Heath Barnes and his son Aaron singlehandedly rebuilt the 2,800-square-foot barn at the former Ocean Wood Campground property in Gouldsboro’s Birch Harbor village. The building is envisioned as an events center for the Schoodic Peninsula and for groups coming from farther afield. ELLSWORTH AMERICAN PHOTOS BY LETITIA BALDWIN
GOULDSBORO â When Roxanne Quimby bought the former Oceanwood at Schoodic Point, featuring bold, pristine coastline, the 118-acre propertyâs structures included a run-down barn nestled in the woods. Four years later, that white elephant has been transformed into an airy, handsome building poised to serve as a special events center for the greater Schoodic Peninsula area and beyond.