Off the Grid

I am halfway through Thoreau’s The Maine Woods, a descriptive and moving chronology of the author’s ventures through the forests of northern Maine, published posthumously in 1864. Some of the essays in his book will help me shape the underlying theme of an article I am writing for Maine Boats, Homes and Harbors magazine, to run in their Spring 2026 issue.

Inspired by the book and seeking an antidote for these “uneven” times, I encouraged my camp team, Katie and Greg, to find us an overnight campsite a bit different from Birch Island, where I had camped with friends over the summer. Greg suggested a return to Katahdin Mountain, where we had fished for brook trout last year. Katie organized provisions and joined me and Greg for the four-hour road trip from Bangor airport to a small log cabin on the shores of Nesowadnehunk Lake. Nestled in the woods off the electric grid, our only power was by generator and only during set hours. Outhouse toilet facilities and bunkbeds for all of us off the main cabin, we hunkered down for an early to bed, early to rise. The next morning, we engaged in a brook trout hide-and-seek exercise. The fish were everywhere, except where we were. Yet with temps in the high 60s, and the sun in our faces, we lasted until midafternoon, free of the usual manmade sounds like traffic and phones pinging. In fact, it was one of the quietest places on earth—even more silent than some of the remotest locales I have been to fish in Iceland, Labrador, or in the forests of New Zealand. As described by Thoreau: “The silence sings. It is musical. I remember a night when it was audible. I heard the unspeakable.”