5 Best Sights in Bar Harbor, Acadia National Park and Mount Desert Island

This important museum dedicated to Maine's indigenous tribes—collectively known as the Wabanaki—is the state's only Smithsonian-affiliated facility and one of the few places in Maine to experience Native culture as interpreted by Native peoples themselves. The year-round archaeology exhibit displays spear points, bone tools, and other artifacts found around Mount Desert Island and exhibits often feature contemporary Native American art, and there are frequent demonstrations of everything from boatbuilding to basket weaving. Call on rainy days for impromptu children's activities. A second location, inside the park at Sieur de Monts Spring, open only during the summer, features artifacts from the earliest digs around the island.

This important museum dedicated to Maine's Indigenous tribes—collectively known as the Wabanaki—is the state's only Smithsonian-affiliated facility and one of the few places in Maine to experience Native culture as interpreted by Native peoples themselves. Spanning 12,000 years, the "core" exhibit, People of the First Light, features items such as birch bark canoes, basketry, and bone tools as well as photos and interactive displays. Changing exhibits often showcase contemporary Native American art. A birchbark canoe made at the Abbe anchors the free Orientation Gallery beside the gift shop at the entrance. Check the website for events, from basket weaving and boatbuilding demonstrations to author talks and family-friendly pop-up rainy days activities.

Opened in 1928, the Abbe's Acadia National Park location at Sieur de Monts is its original home. Longtime exhibits in the small eight-sided building include artifacts from early digs on Mount Desert Island and dioramas of Native American life here before European settlement.

Stepping into the large foyer of this 1903 brick chateau, your view flows through glass doors on the opposite side, then across the piazza and flat lawn to a serene coastal expanse. A business partner of J.P. Morgan, George Bowdoin, and his wife, Julia, built this 13,000-square-foot, 41-room mansion near downtown Bar Harbor as their seasonal residence. Unlike many of the area's summer “cottages” of the nation’s elite, it was spared from the Great Fire of 1947. In 2020, La Rochelle became Bar Harbor Historical Society's museum and the town’s only Gilded Age mansion open to the public. While the Bowdoins’ story weaves through displays, each room has themed exhibits on local history: in the foyer, baskets the Wabanaki made to sell to tourists; the dining room, grand hotels of yesteryear; the master bedroom, old maps (one shows where the fire raged); a guest room, the town's famous visitors; and so on. Under the elegant wishbone staircase, a “flower room” with a curved wall spotlights the famous landscape artist who created the long-gone sunken garden. In the servants' quarters on the third floor, their story is shared—don’t miss the hallway callbox.

The trust protects 14,000 acres of land in the Rangeley Lakes area. Both online and at its Rangeley office, the trust has maps and descriptions of its 35 miles of recreational trails and access roads, along with information about fishing, hunting, snowmobiling, picnicking, and other outdoor activities.