Walden Pond

I thought Walden Pond would be small, like, well like a very small pond. But it wasn’t. Walden’s Pond is 107 feet deep and the walk around the pond covers about 1.3 miles.

Walden Pond is part of the 335 acre Walden Pond State Reservation. The Reservation was declared a Historic Landmark in 1962, basically because of its associated with the famous write Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862). Thoreau lived two years, on the property that was owned by his fellow writer, friend, and mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Thoreau built his cabin along the shore of Walden Pond. It was there that he reflected on the simple life and wrote many essays that would become his famous work, Walden or Life in the Woods.

Thoreau is sometimes referred to as an Anarchist. In his Civil Disobedience, he didn’t call for abolishing government, but rather for improving government. One famous quote that is attributed to him and still is a timely one, “That government is best which governs not at all…:”

Walden Pond was on our itinerary list. We drove to the Reservation and parked our car. We walked along the trails toward the signs to the Thoreau’s cabin. When we found the site, there was no building, only a sign that stated that this was the sight of the building. Next to the site was a large area filled with rocks and stones. This definitely was a visitor’s site where homage was paid to a famous writer and thinker. There were stones piled on stones. Some larger stones and sayings were written on them and other stones had paintings. 

While in graduate school, I was required to read Walden’s Pond. Now a few years later, I was standing here in a beautiful park, filled with trees, insects, and birds. I fell in love with this place. It was a tranquil setting and I assumed that Thoreau loved this place. It fit his perfect Transcendental* life and later he would write his greatest book.

We hiked from the site of Thoreau’s cabin, down to the Pond and walked around it. Afterwards, I felt triumphant and glad that I saw where Thoreau lived and that I walked around the famous Walden Pond. My legs were tired but not my mind. I was inspired to go back to my rental, sit down and begin to write.

*(Transcendentalist movement was a philosophical movement developed in late 1820s and 1830s in the eastern United States. It came about as the reaction to or protest against the general state of intellectualism and spirituality at that time. The followers believed they were capable of generating completely original insights with as little attention and deference to past masters as possible.)