SEAL HARBOR—Thursday afternoon, Robyn Hanson sat behind a counter at Acadia Outdoor Center, pages of work splayed in front of her, inventory to the side, an employee trying to finagle a fix on a piece of machinery that had been given to her by her step-mother.
Friday morning, she opened her business for the season and that frantic Thursday? It was long gone.
In its place was a celebration of hope, of business, and of a single-mom’s love for the outdoors and her community.
Love is a big part of Robyn’s business plan. She’s smart. There’s no getting around how smart she is as she relays her plans for a 25-foot climbing wall, or how community matters to her, or when she talks about her love for her kids, or even when she describes the different biking routes from the center to the park.
“The park is technically right behind the building (Stanley Brook Road), but it’s 1.5 miles to the carriage roads from here,” she said. “I tell people to get on the carriage roads right at the gatehouse right across from the Jordan Pond House. Officially, you could get there even quicker by going to the Day Mountain loop, but I don’t send people up that crazy hill!”
She knows the area intimately because she grew up here. She lived on the same road where she raises her kids. Ancestors came to Seal Harbor by way of Somesville.
However, it’s the love for the community that raised her, her father, her grandparents and a few more generations (yes, she’s the sixth) that really makes a difference in what she does and what she’s trying to do in the outdoor center.
“I love raising my kids here. They’re the seventh generation of my family to live on the same road,” she said.
And when she was little, she’d walk up that same road, head to the same exact building where she has her business and buy penny candy.
“When I was growing up, this building had a brick facade,” she said. “I would walk down here every day….It gave me freedom as a kid.”
Then, she’d watch the building over the years. It would change hands. She would have dreams of what it might become. It would change hands again, but it was never what she wanted it to be, what she wanted to build.
“It was never anything community minded,” she said.
Robyn is more than community minded. She’s community souled. Maybe that’s part of her blood. Robyn’s grandfather was Donald “Pucka” Hanson, a Korean War veteran, who received that nickname from his oldest grandson.
The nickname stuck just like the family stuck.
Her dad, Jimmy, would go into Scamp Gray’s Village Market to get coffee. He would often have exact change because he went there so often. An Old Timer, every year her dad would be part of a group that quietly did good in the community, even giving watches to graduating Seal Harbor seniors. This year, her oldest son got a watch. When Robyn graduated from MDI High School, she did, too.
The legacy of caring for community isn’t new at all or confined to Robyn’s Seal Harbor family and understanding how connected everyone is—long-time residents, summer visitors, seasonal residents, businesses—is a tradition in the village of Seal Harbor and in the greater area of Mount Desert.
Back in 2017, John Boynton created a Kickstarter campaign that raised $85,000 in two days to help revitalize McGrath’s. After the fires in 2008 and 2009 devastated businesses downtown, people got together to support each other.
Way back in the 1960s, Downeast Magazine relates, “chauffeurs delivered a crew of summer ladies to Brown Hardware so that Becky and Buddy Brown wouldn’t have to close when they took Tom, then 10, to Boston for cancer treatment (the genteel ladies were hard sellers and boosted the store’s receipts). The time, in 2000, Martha Stewart featured Lisa Hall’s sea-glass jewelry in her magazine and on her television show and introduced her to customers nationwide.”
In quiet ways, this happens, too. Like the watches. Like Robyn creating a business that’s meant to be a community gathering place. Or just by being a good person and a good neighbor and a good friend.
“Robyn is a fun-loving, charming friend. She is always ready to hear what a friend has to share and is always ready for a good time. Robyn assumes people are well-meaning and appreciates others for who they are as humans,” said longtime friend Michelle Bailey Brzezowski.
Back in 1937, the Seal Harbor Christmas tree was lit at its Neighborhood Hall. Before that, a Christmas candle lighting was held in a Seal Harbor parish hall. In the 1950s, Christmas lights decorated the village green. When her business first started and Covid-19 occurred, shutting things down, Robyn volunteered her site for the tree lighting and gathering, which usually occurs on the first Wednesday in December, because people could stay outside under her tent or in the lot or inside.
A former special education director and teacher, the business is her passion because it combines community with the outdoors.
”What I do in my spare time is go outside,” she said. “Probably my favorite part is talking to people about what they’re going to do.”
It might be a hike. It might be a bike ride on one of the electric or manual bikes she has. It might be visiting the gardens of Northeast Harbor or just heading to the Seal Harbor Beach or Little Long Pond. Robyn has a few favorites—all the trails on Dorr Mountain, the Arthur Murray Young Path, the Penobscot Cliffs Trails. The business is right by the beach, and people can just walk up and get Pugnuts ice cream or gelato (from Surry, Maine) or Vacationland Coffee (out of Bar Harbor) or get some pizza. Or they can park for free if they are coming from further away.
“It’s just an awesome location,” she said. “From here to the park is just 1.5 miles.” For anyone renting a bike, it’s the closest location to carraige roads on the island.
All photos were provided by Robyn Hanson. Correction: A copyediting error changed Old Timer to Odd Fellow. We’ve fixed that and many apologies!
FOR MORE INFORMATION
The summer hours are 8-5.
Acadia Outdoor Center
18 Main Street
Seal Harbor, Maine 04675
(207) 801-9343
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