Time and Tide in Acadia: Seasons on Mount Desert Island

by Christopher Camuto

An evocative exploration of the natural life of Maine’s Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park. 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.15 photos; 1 map

Genres: Nature, Nonfiction, Travel

224 pages, Hardcover

First published May 26, 2009

Reviews

[Betsy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Acadia National Park is one of my favorite places on earth, so I was excited to find this book at the library. However, it wasn't as interesting as I thought it would be. The author mostly talked about birds rather than the landscape and history, so I didn't connect with the writing. It was disappointing.

[Dave Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Haven't read much nature writing lately - since college, really - so what better way to break into it than with a book by one of my college professors? I also picked this up, in part, to prepare for a trip to Maine, including Acadia National Park, this summer. But somehow I don't think traveling there in the middle of tourist season with my wife and son will match up very well with the solitary exploration and in-depth musings on nature and ecology found here. Somehow Camuto dramatizes the natural - birds, whales and other living things help in this regard - but the sea that all this life is set against looms even larger as he engages in scene-building - world-building, really, with layers upon layers of the natural realm (marshes, mountains, bays, intertidal areas) converging in one spot/region. Interesting touches of language, particularly the directives - sentences in the second-person imperative with the missing-but-implied "you." It's not "pure," straight-from-the-notebook nature-writing - there's deep history here as well, of both the native inhabitants and the European explorers, and it's poetic in places, wry and humorous in others. I've never been to Acadia before, and I don't know what the prospect of visiting there regularly, as Camuto seems to invite, might be for me outside of the "frenetic jollity of tourism," as he puts it. Still, I'm glad I'll go armed with even a fracture of the deep wisdom found here.

[Eleanor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've never read a travel book before but I've concluded that you can only read them when you're actually en route to the location described in the book. Luckily, I was on the plane and then car to Acadia so it was so much fun reading about the place I was headed to. I will say that at times Camuto seems a little hoity-toity, talking about how crap tourists are and how it's so much better to go in the off season or whatever, but it's like how else are people supposed to enjoy the beauty of the place without being tourists unless they friggin move there? Otherwise though it was full of very rich descriptions of the birds and the rest of the island. I was keeping him in mind on my walk up Norumbega today.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely a good read for a traveler, ecologist, or birder. Might be difficult for someone to get into that isn't interested in those things because it is rather lengthy and shares a ton of info about birds, trails, rocks, and other landmarks on Mount Desert Island. I picked the book up in a bookstore in Bar Harbor and didn't complete it until returning home from the trip. Would've enjoyed it much more had I started it while we were out there so I could draw my own connections between the area and what the author discussed. Overall, a good read, but I will not be reading it again.

[Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Satisfying prose and thoughtful, reflective mingling of natural history of MDI and the human experience of this special place. Authentic description of an accessible natural world to be savored.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

A contemplative journey through Acadia...

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book a few months after a trip to Mount Desert Island - my first visit in 20 years, although my family went there frequently in my youth. On my trip, I was struck almost immediately by how intensely I loved the place, how every rambling walk was delicious, how deeply the island had impressed itself on my heart from the time I spent as a child there. So of course I wanted to revisit via books.

I had a little trouble getting into the voice the author uses - it's not the voice I would write about my experiences in. Despite my love of the place, at times I had trouble staying engaged in some of the essays. I liked the history and nature descriptions he brought in. On my visit to the "Quietside," we stopped to view Bass Harbor Marsh; after reading his essays I really want to go back and canoe in the marsh.

I was reading this book during a traumatic time (US presidential elections of 2016), and having this book and its slow and detailed essays to read to try to take my mind off my grief (and back to a landscape I love) was very grounding for me.

[Chaitra · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was looking forward to reading this, albeit for a challenge, because of Maine - I've fallen in love with the place. It didn't catch my interest as a light read. Not the book's fault - I think I had different expectations. Had I taken it with me on the vacation in Mt Desert Island, I would have found this much more informative. As it is, I found it a little dry, and a little too informative and less personal/chatty (I think that's what I'm trying to get at). So what does this contain? A fair bit about Mt Desert's topology, the birds, the tides and the whales. Some neat areas to hike. Like I said, it's more a travel companion than it is a readable account.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part field notes, part advice book, with passages like this:

"Move slowly, stop often. Practice forms of patience that the busy world defeats at every turn -- observe, think, feel, loaf. Enjoy space and silence, form and color, your own vigor and fatigue, unaccountable fits of boredom as well as moments of keen awareness when the life of things seems to be a part of your own life, moments when the landscape seems to ride easily on your shoulders, the weight of the world a pleasure to bear. Observe, recognize, conjecture, speculate, understand, know. Open your senses and your mind to the nature of things."

[Diane Toomey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great get-away when you can't. Extensive detailed descriptions and musings on the wilderness of this island off the coast of Maine

[Elaine Reinhard · Rating 4 out of 5]

very interesting and detailed. great if you enjoy reading nature books