BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 14, 2021
Acadia National Park just had its busiest winter ever, despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that caused park visits last year to fall by more than 750,000. This past winter, from November through March, Acadia had 172,000 visitors, far surpassing its previous wintertime high of nearly 140,000, which it set two winters running in the late 1990s. Rich MacDonald, a naturalist who provides guided tours of the park through his business, the Natural History Center, said he typically does one guided birding tour a week each winter. But he’s averaged more this winter, and once or twice has had more than one tour a day. Many of his customers, he said, have been summer residents who stayed through the winter and wanted to learn more about Acadia during the colder months.