A Summer of Science and Wonder

The Mount Desert Island Historical Society published the first three Champlain Society camp logbooks as the 2021 edition of Chebacco.

I have been working with MDI Historical Society for the few years to edit, annotate, and introduce this edited volume. What began as an effort to digitize and transcribe thousands of pages of nineteenth-century script by a group of young Harvard men evolved into an accessible publication that illustrates their youthful enthusiasm for the “seaside wilderness of Maine” and their commitment to documenting Mount Desert Island’s flora and fauna. These notes from summers spent wandering mountains and waters also contain the origins of the idea to conserve for the public the place that became Acadia National Park.

Recognizing that the Champlain Society’s science also provides a baseline to understand environmental change on Mount Desert Island, the MDI Historical Society and partners launched Landscape of Change. Schoodic Institute leads the public science data collection and analysis component of the initiative. Join me in revisiting the Champlain Society’s historic survey sites on Mount Desert Island, and contributing new observations using iNaturalist and eBird.