Map by Tom Funk of Westport, Connecticut, originally
published in The Book of Concord: Thoreau's Life as a Writer by
William Howarth, Viking Press, New York, 1982. Copyright © 1982 by
William
Howarth. All rights reserved. Please do not copy this image
without permission.
The route of 1846 and the insert shows
the trip to Katahdin: "I left Concord in Massachusetts
for Bangor and the backwoods of Maine, by way of the railroad and steamboat,
intending to accompany a relative of mine engaged in the lumber-trade in
Bangor, as far as a dam on the west branch of the Penobscot ... From this
place, which is about one hundred miles by the river above Bangor ... I
proposed to make excursions to Mount Ktaadn, the second highest mountain
in New England, about thirty miles distant, and to some of the lakes of
the Penobscot"
The 1857 route shows the start of
the trip described in the Allegash and East Branch
essay: "We had at first thought of exploring the St. John from its source
to its mouth, or else to go up the Penobscot by its East Branch to the
lakes of the St. John, and return by way of Chesuncook and Moosehead. We
had finally inclined to the last route, only reversing the order of it,
going by way of Moosehead, and returning by the Penobscot, otherwise it
would have been all the way up stream and taken twice as long." Thoreau
also took this route to Moosehead Lake in 1853, as described in the Chesuncook
essay. The large lake to the west of Katahdin is Chesuncook Lake.
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