The Stranger in the Woods_ The - Michael Finkel

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Knight actually did have a plan. Or maybe it was the opposite of a plan. Regardless, he had a goal: to
get lost. Not just lost to the rest of the world but actually lost in the woods by himself. He carried only
rudimentary camping supplies, a few articles of clothing, and a little food. “I had what I had,” he said, “and
nothing more.” He left the keys in the car and vanished into the forest.
It’s not that easy to get lost. Anyone with basic outdoor skills generally knows which way they’re going.
The sun burns west across the sky, and from there it’s natural to set the other directions. Knight knew that he
was heading south. He said he didn’t make a conscious decision but felt pulled like a homing pigeon. “There
was no depth or substance to the idea. It was at the instinctual level. It’s instinct among animals to return to
home territory, and my home ground, where I was born and raised, was that way.”
Maine is partitioned into a series of long north-south valleys, the geologic clawmark left by glaciers
surging and retreating. Separating the valleys are strings of mountains, now weather-worn and bald-topped
like old men, but only a couple of dozen million years ago the Appalachians were mightier than the
Rockies. The valley floors at the time of year when Knight arrived were a summer soup of ponds and
wetlands and bogs.
“I kept largely to the ridges,” Knight said, “and sometimes crossed swamps going from one ridge to
another.” He worked his way along crumbled slopes and muddy taiga. “Soon I lost track of where I was. I
didn’t care.” Virtually every natural feature in Maine, pond to peak, has a proper name, but Knight saw such
titles as human impositions and preferred not to know them. He sought a purity to his retreat beyond all
measure. “There were no signs saying, ‘You are here.’ It was either dry land or wet land. I knew where I was
but I didn’t know where I was. Oh, I’m getting all metaphysical here, aren’t I?”
He was unfettered by the rules of society, king of his own jungle, and alone and lost in the forest—a quilt
of dreams and nightmares both. Knight mostly liked it. He’d camp in one spot for a week or so, then head
south yet again. “I kept going,” he said. “I was content in the choice I had made.”
Content except for one thing: food. He was hungry, and he really didn’t know how he’d feed himself. His
departure was a confounding mix of incredible commitment and complete lack of forethought, not all that
abnormal for a twenty-year-old. It was as if he went camping for the weekend and didn’t come home for a
quarter century. He was an able hunter and angler, but he carried neither a gun nor a rod. He didn’t want to
die, at least not then.
His idea was to “forage” for food. The wilds of Maine are enchanting to behold and monumentally broad,
though not generous. There are no fruit trees. Berries sometimes have a weekend-long season. Without