Sieur de Monts Spring

A nice day trip in Acadia National Park is a visit to Sieur de Monts Spring where wild flowers abound. We will make more visits as the seasons progress to watch the changing of the flora.

Quoting from the Acadia web site http://www.acadia.ws/sieur-de-monts.htm

“In a true sense, this spot has come to symbolize the vision and passion of private citizens such as George B. Dorr that bloomed into Acadia National Park.

George B. Dorr was the Park's first superintendent. In 1909, he built the structure you see below over a spring and carved “The Sweet Waters of Acadia” on a nearby rock. Dorr named the spring in honor of the French nobleman, Pierre Du Gua, de Monts. In 1603, Sieur de Monts was commissioned Lieutenant Governor of New France by King Henry IV which gave him authority over all of North America from present-day Philadelphia to Montreal.

The King directed Sieur de Monts “to establish the name, power, and authority of the King of France; to summon the natives to a knowledge of the Christian religion; to people, cultivate, and settle the said lands; to make explorations and especially to seek out mines of precious metals.” Sieur de Monts set forth with his navigator, Samuel Champlain, and his crew and sailed to North America.”

There are an number of pictures that you will need to double click on to see the details in the flowers. Use the back arrow to return to blog after viewing.

The flowers on the left are Blue Eyed Grass blossoms. The ones on the right are bluets.

Common cinque foil on the left and I remember the one on the right.

Another TBN on the left and one of many members of the fern family growing on this cool and wet island.

Can you find the frog? Iris on the Right.

Anyone care for Labrador Tea? That is it on the left accompanied by Jack about ready to give a sermon from his pulpit.

A giant yellow lady Slipper protected by a mesh cage with a family member the diminutive whitish lady slipper.

Last but not least, well last of the flowers, is the pitcher plant.

This friendly pair seem to want their picture taken as they each posed quietly until I could get the shot that I wanted. I believe they are a mated pair that were gathering nest material when not posing for tourist pictures. Can you identify them?

Did you wonder why the wire mesh cage on the giant lady slipper? there were other plants that were similarly encased. This shows why…

If you can identify either of the two that I have forgotten, please email me and I will update the blog with credit given for your knowledge. Thanks.

Video test

Just testing the waters for bandwidth. Video of fin whales to follow.

Early days at Woodlands Campground

We arrived in late May to find the spring flowers and  wild flowers getting underway with their blooming. It was very exciting to see these old friends that are missing in Florida. Spring is on of our most favorite time of year. We  stopped at a campground in Maine a few hours drive from Woodlands. We wanted to arrive at Woodlands early in the day. The ground in the campground was covered with wildflowers.

After settling in at Woodlands we drove back to Ellsworth. We had been here three summers before so we had a pretty good idea where we wanted to go. Shopping is good for most things. There are several large chain grocery stores. A long strip of route 3 has just about every kind of store you would want including an L L Bean outlet. More on that in a later blog.

Our favorite non-commercial stop is the Library. What a very nice place. It is large, airy, well stocked and has a most friendly, helpful and polite staff. We each picked up books to read and DVDs to watch. We grabbed a series of the DVDs thinking that the programs would be like Downton Abbey. WRONG! They were quite amateurish with old British humor. We watched a couple of episodes on the first DVD and returned the rest unused.

On the drive back to camp we had a few stops to make. Lou can’t resist popping into Mardens. It is a store that has everything from food to clothes to material to you name it. What makes the magnetism even stronger is that they carry items that are overstock, bankrupt, etc. The prices are good but like all stores of this kind you need to read the labels.

No trip to town can avoid a stop at the roadside plants for sale. This one is very large. It has five long greenhouses and a very large out doors display of flowering plants, herbs, shrubs, vegetables (tomatoes), on and on. Lou has our camp site looking very smart (to use a British phrase).

Just a couple pictures of our site.

 

Remember to click on picture to enlarge and back arrow to return.