New trail system retraces Thoreau's steps in Maine

PORTLAND, Maine -- Henry David Thoreau made his third and final trip to Maine's North Woods 150 years ago, traveling waterways and forests that shaped so many of his ideas about nature.

A nonprofit group has now created what it calls the Thoreau-Wabanaki Trail to pay tribute to Thoreau -- whom some consider the first ecotourist -- and the Penobscot Indian guides who accompanied him on two of his treks.

Maine Woods Forever has produced a detailed map of Thoreau's trips and will erect informational kiosks along different parts of Thoreau's route. The group has also worked in partnership with a photographer who is producing a book of photos titled "Wildness Within, Wildness Without," which retraces Thoreau's steps.

The map is thought to be the first of its kind that tracks each of Thoreau's trips, as he canoed Moosehead Lake, the Penobscot River and its tributaries, and climbed Mount Katahdin.

The project aims to raise public interest not only in Thoreau's travels, but also in the wilderness spirit and heritage of the North Woods.

"I hope what comes of this is a better understanding of the potential that the North Woods has to offer everyone in the world when it comes right down to it," said Don Hudson, president of the Maine Woods Forever.

Thoreau, an author and philosopher who lived from 1817 to 1862, is well known today for his reflections on simple living in nature, especially through his book "Walden" about his two-year retreat in a small house on Walden Pond in his hometown of Concord, Mass.