Thoreau's Maine Woods

A view of Mount Kineo from Moosehead Lake

Mount Kineo juts up from the shoreline of Moosehead Lake.

We begin our search for Henry David Thoreau, retracing his route through the Maine woods 150 years later. What we see initially gives us little confidence we will find any trace of it. The town of Greenville, then barely a clearing along the shore of New England's largest lake, is brimming with tourists, and so is the lake itself. In Chesuncook, however, we pick up Thoreau's scent...

loons on Chesuncook Lake
A group of five loons make their way along the shoreline of Chesuncook Lake. Staff photos by John Ewing.
The Chesuncook stories:

Searching for Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau came to Maine in search of a deeper wilderness. He found it. But 150 years later, what remains of his beloved frontier?

Thoreau: Inspired writer, profound thinker
His essay 'Civil Disobedience' influenced Gandhi and Kennedy, but his nature writings remain his most important works.
'Maine Woods' inspires many to retrace route
Thoreau's observations and the prospect of discovering an unchanged wilderness create a powerful pull.
Separating pitch pine from scrub pine: Thoreau the botanist
By 1853, he was among the most knowledgeable botanists in the country.

1 - Mount Kineo - Thoreau stopped at the landing on the peninsula twice in 1853, but did not climb the mountain until 1857. Today, the blue-blazed Indian Trail approximates the author's route to the top. The mountain is composed of homstone, which Penobscot Indians fashioned into arrowheads, hatchets and chisels.

2 - Ragmuff Stream - Thoreau stopped here each time he passed by: for dinner, fishing, bathing and botanizing. Today, there is a pretty campsite on the point where Ragmuff and the West Branch meet, and good-sized trout still are caught in the stream.

3 - Pine Stream Falls - Thoreau twice portaged this stretch of rugged whitewater between Pine Stream and Chesuncook Lake. Today, there is no sign of the falls, as Chesuncook Dam, built in 1903, raised the water level.

4 - Chesuncook - The American Indian definition of Chesuncook is "a place where many streams emptied in," and that's what this place was when Thoreau passed through. Today, dams have changed the landscape, creating the state's third-largest lake.

Original content in this site by Lori Haugen, graphics by Kathy Jungjohann, Blethen Maine New Media.
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