Here we are on Amen Ridge yesterday, once again marveling at the ever-changing vista, a sight that is a psychological vaccine for the coronavirus blues. It’s midday and refreshingly cool, but not cold; in the low 40s (F), we guess. There’s a cleansing west-southwesterly breeze; it’s not strong enough to whip up Blue Hill Bay, but it’s enough to plow low-flying banks of cumulus clouds northward. As usual, Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park dominates the scene – our sacred mountain, if there can be a secularly sacred thing.
Western histories say that Cadillac Mountain and Mount Desert Island from which it rises were “discovered” and “claimed” for France in 1604 by Samuel de Champlain. The area later was awarded by the French king to Antoine Laumet de La Mothe Sieur de Cadillac, hence the Mountain’s name. But, Samuel and Antoine were latecomers.
Native American histories say that the mountain was revered by the indigenous peoples of the Wabanaki Confederacy of tribes. They called it “Wapuwoc,” which has been translated as “[the] first light white mountain.” That’s a reference to the fact that the dawn’s sun first arrived in their homeland at the summit of the Mountain. We think that they had a better idea: Cadillac Mountain should be renamed First Light Mountain. (Brooklin, Maine)