Catherine Schmitt, Science Communication Specialist at the Schoodic Institute at Acadia National Park and a participant in the 2017 Institute for the Editing of Historical Documents (IEHD), has successfully edited and published a collection of historical records.

“Summers of Science and Wonder: The Champlain Society Logbooks 1880-1882” features the summer camp logbooks of a group of student naturalists known as The Champlain Society.

The notebooks describe with youthful enthusiasm the students’ efforts to document the geology, flora, and fauna of Mount Desert Island. The pages also contain the origins of the idea to conserve for the public the landscape that became Acadia National Park. The fully annotated and illustrated edition was published in Volume XXII of Chebacco, the annual magazine of the Mount Desert Island Historical Society.