Around Walden Pond

In the footsteps of Henry David Thoreau

I went to Walden Pond at the suggestion of one of my wife’s colleagues responsible for the care of the pond and its surroundings, what I call “greater Walden.”

I knew a bit of Henry David Thoreau’s writings and had driven by the pond many times, but there is nothing to stop you, no vista or drama. But I do occasionally learn my lessons well and one I had learned was to look anywhere someone suggested.

So in April 1991, well before trees would bud, I took a walk around the pond and found some beautiful roots along the path. I didn’t return until October, when I discovered Wyman’s Meadow cover by leaves I later learned were known as water-shields.

On my first afternoon at Wyman’s Meadow I shot every sheet of film I had with me and returned every year for ten years, and all because I placed my tripod at the edge of this vernal pool. Click HERE to see what I saw that day.

What I had seen changed my life.

The pond, by itself would not. It is a beautiful body of water but not so unusual, a kettle hole pond 100 feet deep and created by the retreating ice in the last ice age. But it was definitely a place to get lost in thought as you wandered closer and closer to the site of Thoreau’s cabin and then your mind would drift to words that had stayed with you from reading his unique prose.

New England is special, no question about that. I have wandered from Japan to Sochie, Russia. Perhaps it is a reward for familiarity and growing up among trees and ponds, and grasses like these.