BY ELIZA WORRICK

A thriving park. A high-quality visitor experience. Protection of Acadia’s precious natural resources. A safe and welcoming place that is accessible to all. A cherished sense of community.

These things are all powered by the very best seasonal workforce Acadia National Park and its partners can hire. Unfortunately, in recent years, hiring that seasonal workforce has been hampered by a severe lack of employee housing.

Friends of Acadia responded to this need by launching a multi-faceted housing effort, which included several construction and renovation projects, powered in part by a $10 million philanthropic investment.

This spring, seasonal employees moved into housing at three brand-new locations: an eight-bedroom housing complex at Dane Farm in Seal Harbor; two renovated, six-bedroom townhomes off Jordan River Road in Trenton; and a 13-pad RV camp at White Birches Camp in Southwest Harbor.

Left: An eight-bedroom housing complex at Dane Farm in Seal Harbor. Right top: A 13-pad RV camp at White Birches Camp in Southwest Harbor. Right bottom: Renovated six-bedroom townhomes off Jordan River Road in Trenton.

As the 2025 season kicks off, staff have settled into their new digs across Mount Desert Island and Trenton. We spoke with several of them, including Island Explorer bus drivers, a preventative search and rescue ranger, an interpretive ranger, and the Wild Gardens of Acadia intern, all of whom may not have been able to come to Acadia this summer had it not been for the new seasonal housing opportunities made possible by member
support.

Island Explorer Bus Driver & Ambassador Ricky and Annette Jackson (Rhiannon Johnston/Friends of Acadia)

Ricky and Annette Jackson live in Groesbeck, Texas. After Ricky retired from being an insurance company claims adjuster and Annette from a career as a librarian, the couple were drawn to work outdoors. “We’d worked in state parks locally, then one in Colorado, and we discovered that we liked working in parks.”

While visiting their grandson who was stationed at Fort Drum in upstate New York, a friend who knew that Ricky had obtained a Commercial Driver’s License in retirement suggested they check out Acadia National Park and the fare-free Island Explorer bus system while they were on the East Coast. The Island Explorer needs 100 seasonal employees to operate the bus system, which serves 500,000 riders annually. They got in touch with Jodi Moore, operations manager for Downeast Transportation, and everything fell into place. 2023 was the first year they drove their 23-foot camper to Maine so that Ricky could work as a bus driver and Annette as an ambassador.

That year, the closest the Jacksons could get to Acadia was an hour away. “We tried to get closer, but we ended up in Cherryfield because a fellow driver had camping spots in his backyard. That was a long drive to Acadia.”

This year, they were relieved to learn that housing was available at the new Jordan River Road property. “Having the housing is easier for us,” they said. “We didn’t have to bring our camper 2,500 miles. It did make all the difference in the decision to work at Island Explorer [again], as we might have not been able to come back [otherwise].”

This summer, Ricky will once again be driving visitors throughout the park, and Annette will be helping visitors find the correct bus to reach their destination. “We love that we get to see and work in the beautiful park and explore the area,” said Annette.

Both are looking forward to visiting with park explorers. “I like to know where people are from,” Annette said. “My first time on the job I enjoyed talking to people from Canada; I liked their accents. Then they’d start yacking it up when they heard my southern accent. Everyone is so polite and in a good mood. Nobody was irritable, even with all of the people and crowds. It’s fun to talk to them about where they’re from and what they want to see when they’re here in Acadia.”

Preventative Search and Rescue (PSAR) Ranger Emily Franco (Rhiannon Johnston/Friends of Acadia)

If you need help while in the park, it may be Emily Franco you see coming to your rescue. But an important part of her job, she said, is helping prevent those accidents from happening in the first place.

“My teammates and I respond to emergency medical and search and rescue calls in the park, but more importantly, we try to prevent those situations by getting out on trails and carriage roads, making contact with visitors, and helping them identify and avoid hazards,” Emily said. “We want everyone to have a great time in Acadia, whether they’re here from Bar Harbor or Bangkok, and twisting an ankle on wet granite can really put a
damper on your weekend!”

Emily worked previous summers as a PSAR and education ranger in Denali, Zion, Yosemite, Death Valley, and Theodore Roosevelt National Parks. “There are a lot of big, beautiful parks out West, but living and working right on the ocean this summer has been a thrilling experience,” she said.

“Acadia’s landscape and community have already begun to feel like home to me, and I’ve truly never been anywhere like it.”

This winter, before coming to Acadia, Emily spent the offseason working in an urgent care center in Reno, Nevada. “I would not have been able to work in Acadia this summer if housing had not been available. Moving cross-country seasonally for work with the National Park Service, housing is a tremendous source of stress,” she said. “Even when housing is guaranteed, there are so many unknowns. How old will the housing be? Are there mice? Does the heat work? How many people will be sharing a bathroom? Do I need to bring all of my own pots, pans, and even curtains, or is it move-in ready? Often, none of these questions are answered until you arrive, and that’s at the end of a multi-day, multi-state road trip with all of your belongings in your car!

Moving into Dane Farm has been the best housing experience of my NPS career. The house is clean, bright, and welcoming. It feels like it was designed with care.” One of the highlights, she said, is staff staying at Dane Farm have “tons of space to cook and eat together. It feels like a real community is emerging.”

Wild Gardens of Acadia Intern Mattie Vandiver (Rhiannon Johnston/Friends of Acadia)

As the Wild Gardens of Acadia intern, Mattie Vandiver cares for the gardens, gives impromptu visitor tours, and helps organize volunteers. One of the projects she’s most excited for: restoring the Wild Garden’s bog section.

“I love peatland ecology and the specific plant species that grow in bogs,” Mattie said. “I am looking forward to learning more about peatland conservation practices.” The bog at the Wild Gardens is open to visitors when the path is not flooded. “Bogs are not fed by groundwater, only from above-ground rain and snowmelt, which allows them to maintain high acidity and lower decomposition,” explained Mattie. “Because of the floods, the water in the bog has become less acidic, which makes it challenging for the bog plants that are specifically adapted to that environment to thrive, and easier for other plants like sedges to encroach and take over.” Mattie has been clearing out some of the sedges to make more room for bog species like pitcher plants, bog rosemary, false solomon’s seal, bog cranberry, and many other beautiful and unique species.

When asked if Mattie has a favorite bog plant, she replied, “I really love the sphagnum mosses. They’re so intricate and important to bog ecosystems. They’re also fascinating—they have a mutualistic association with nitrogen-fixing bacteria that live inside the cells of the moss and provide the moss with usable nitrogen.”

Mattie grew up visiting Acadia often. “As a kid, Acadia felt like a fairy land (and still does). I remember the smells at the tops of peaks and picking blueberries along the trails, running in the waves at Sand Beach, and just the tranquility of the island. It has been wonderful to return here and really get to know the native plant species, and in turn this park, in a new way.”

Mattie graduated in May from Vassar College, where she studied biology and worked in greenhouses. “When I was first offered the job and began looking for housing, I was worried by the high rent prices I was seeing on the island,” Mattie said. “I was relieved when I was contacted about the available housing. The apartment is so beautiful and spacious, and I am so grateful to be living here.”

Interpretive Ranger and Communications Intern Alexis Silva (Rhiannon Johnston/Friends of Acadia)

The rugged coastline of Acadia is what draws many folks here. For seasonal Interpretive Ranger Alexis Silva, who recently moved from the Big Sur region of California, that feature turned out to be pretty personal. “The previous area I lived in was known for its rugged terrain, so being able to have something like that is really nice, especially considering that I don’t really have any established connections here, so that physical environment having some resemblance to what I’m familiar with is comforting.”

Another factor that made taking the role in Acadia appealing to Alexis was having a place to live at Dane Farm. “Housing in towns near national parks tends to be very expensive, so being able to have that resolved or included as part of the job offer definitely makes logistics easier, especially because park jobs tend to run around six months or less [which can make signing more traditional leases difficult].”

Now that Alexis has moved into Dane Farm, he’s really enjoying both the space and its proximity to the Hulls Cove Visitor Center, where he’ll be primarily stationed this season to help out at the information desk. “It’s one of the nicest, if not the nicest park housing that I’ve been able to live in. It’s been very comfortable, and I feel safe in the space.”

When he’s not at the information desk, Alexis will be helping with the peregrine falcon interpretive program, which is the part of the job he’s most looking forward to. “I haven’t taken on a project with birding yet, so I think it’ll be a really fun experience that I’ll be able to learn something new from alongside visitors.”

ELIZA WORRICK is Friends of Acadia’s Digital Marketing Manager.