Tag: Ktaadn

Rambo, Boy Scouts, and Mount Katahdin (or Ktaadn, as Thoreau Spelled It)

October 29, 2024

I am sorry I never had heard of Lost on a Mountain in Maine when my children were growing up. What a story of perseverance against all odds!

In 1939 a young boy went hiking with his Father and brothers in Ktaadn, Maine’s highest peak. Donn Fendler was his name. Only 12 years old, he lost his way in the wilderness when a fast-moving fog obscured his trail. He traversed about 100 miles in 9 days in 1939.

He wrote a book, which became mandatory reading for 4th graders in Maine. He remembered, from his Boy Scout days, that he needed to follow the stream he had found. Hundreds of people searched for Fendler, including troopers with bloodhounds from his home state of New York.

Recounting his ordeal, Donn Fendler reflected that he survived because of his faith in God and his will to live — along with what he had learnt from the Boy Scouts. His brother later remarked that,

“You know, we’d get together every evening and we’d say prayers and stuff like that. We’re Catholic and the church jumped right in. But for my mother and father it was, it was really tough,”

After his rescue, President Roosevelt presented him with the Army & Navy Legion of Valor’s annual medal for outstanding youth hero of 1939.

He studied Forestry at the University of Maine and served in the Pacific during WWII. He served with the US Navy in the Philippines and China and then. He then served with the U.S. Army for 28 years. He was a Green Beret and served in Vietnam for two tours. He lived to be 90 and died in 2016. Fendler was from “away”, having been born in New York City. He lived in Rye, NY and went to Iona Prep School in New Rochelle, NY.

In one of his interviews he reflected,

“…unbelievable that that many people were looking for me…but I’m in Maine; that’s Maine people”.

Oh, and what does Rambo have to do with this story? Well, Sylvester Stallone produced the movie that will be released November 1. I hope my children and nephews get to see it. I sure will, God willing.

Full Moon over Mount Ktaadn

October 26, 2024

I’ve never been to Mt. Katahdin, but I have heard stories about the place, seen video taken by my nephew via drone, and watched my nephews traverse what’s called (I think) Knife’s Edge. Even today, the Wabanaki look to Katahdin as a sacred place, where the Spirit roams freely and powerfully. Because I was privy to some nightmare stories of scoundrels soiling the beauty of the place and violating the mountain’s sanctity, I sometimes have thought of Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred Hitchcock and what a tale the two combined could tell. Horror and torture.

But, when I saw this picture recently, I went back to Thoreau. He wrote about Ktaadn (as he called it) in a beautiful book called The Maine Woods.

I hope one day to go explore Ktaadn with someone who is a curious and kind soul, with a lyrical appreciation of majestic beauty and sensitive enough to have read the author and absorb the spell of what Thoreau and others tried to convey. And treat the place with the respect it deserves.

Thoreau climbed Ktaadn, but never made it to the summit. However, he did actually go fishing and caught his own trout!

From The Maine Woods:

“In the night I dreamed of trout-fishing; and, when at length I awoke, it seemed a fable that this painted fish swam there so near my couch, and rose to our hooks the last evening, and I doubted if I had not dreamed it all. So I arose before dawn to test its truth, while my companions were still sleeping. There stood Ktaadn with distinct and cloudless outline in the moonlight; and the rippling of the rapids was the only sound to break the stillness. Standing on the shore, I once more cast my line into the stream, and found the dream to be real and the fable true. The speckled trout and silvery roach, like flying-fish, sped swiftly through the moonlight air, describing bright arcs on the dark side of Ktaadn, until moonlight, now fading into daylight, brought satiety to my mind, and the minds of my companions, who had joined me.”