American Realities with Bill Youngs
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      • Part I: Possessing the Falls >
        • Chapter One: James Glover: Purchasing the Falls
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        • Chapter Four: "The World's Fair of the Northwest"
        • Chapter Five: The City Beside the Falls
      • Part II: Rediscovering the Falls >
        • Chapter Six: The Twilight of Old Spokane
        • Chapter Seven: Urban Blight and Urban Renewal
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        • Chapter Nine: Visualizing a World's Fair
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        • Chapter Ten: From Spokane to Paris >
          • Tom Foley's Turn
        • Chapter Eleven: Wooing the Foreign Exhibitors
        • Chapter Twelve: Wooing the Domestic Exhibitors
        • Chapter Thirteen: The Environmental Debate
        • Chapter Fourteen: Building the Fair
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      • Part IV: The Fair by the Falls >
        • Chapter Sixteen: Opening Day
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        • Chapter Nineteen: The Press of New Ideas
        • Chapter Twenty: The Final Tally
      • Part V: An American Environment >
        • Chapter Twenty-One: Spokane Falls, An American Environment
      • The Fair and the Falls Map

Historian's Journal: Acadia National Park, Fall, 2011

Fireside Chat: Historian's Journal: Acadia National Park, Fall, 2011 
J. William T. Youngs

We have read about Acadia this week the National Geographis Guide to the National Parks. Now, here are some movies made by your professor during 23 days of camping with an RV and a Motor Scooter at Acadia last November. These are some of the events in the life of a park at the end of the tourist season.

1. On the Edge of a "Northeaster"

I was "camped" in my RV at Blackwoods Campground in Acadia National Park on October 30, 2011, just as a Northeaster hit New England. This was late in the year to be camping, even in an RV, and there was only one other occupied site in the entire national park that day -- and for that matter, in all of New England, because Acadia had the last open campsite in the region. Luckily for Acadia, but less lucky for other parts of New England, the worst of the storm swept through about 200 miles south and west of us. You can see in this film how the storm kicked up the sea and the campground:
2. Talking to a porcupine. When you camp alone for day after day, as I did during November, 2011, any company is good company. Here is a little film I made based on an encounter one afternoon with a porcupine. I was on my bicycle riding on the road that goes along the seashore. I had a telephoto lense, and so I did not need to go too near to those quills!
These are simple little films, but I hope they give you a deeper appreciation for the beauty that is Acadia.