Introduction
“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Living undetected in the woods for a considerable amount of time seems to be a remote possibility, considering the high level of technology we are constantly undergoing.
Nonetheless, the case study which represents the hub of this article offer some serious food for thought in terms of:
- skills acquaired
- self reliance
- resourcefulness
- endurance
- perseverance
After his incredible deal of living alone for twenty-seven years in the forests of Maine, Christopher Knight was named “The last of the Hermits” or “The Ghost of North Pond“.
Locals knew he was there, as someone spotted a solitary figure wandering in the nearbies of the bugalows located near the lake.
Nonetheless his tracks were very difficult to detect.
His story has much to teach us, in terms of how to achieve a successful undetected life.
Who is “The Ghost of North Pond“
Maine, 1986. Christopher Knight, a 20-year-old accident prevention installer disappears into thin air.
Knight had a regular past and he was raised inside an extremely religious and reserved family.
The parents and other siblings did not spread the news, believing in a voluntary gesture of the young man: Knight loved to stay alone.
What he actually did was just taking with himself some basic items for camping, driving north, reaching a rural area and dropping his car somewhere, at the end of a dirt road,
His family thought he would just like to have some time for himself.
Probably Knight thought the very same. But the more the time passed by, the deeper he started to enjoy the complete solitude. He was hungry for that.
Spending some hours in the Great Outdoors wasn’t enough for him. He would like to stay at large from civilization for a considerable amount of time, and so he did for twenty seven years.
How Christopher Knight achieved the dream of living undetected in the woods
Knight succeeded in his purpose with outstanding will and awareness, staying stick to the legendary figures of the pure hermit. He wanted to become one of them, “[…] who never sees a doctor or a woman […]”, by his own admission.
In order to achieve his purpose, he put into action a precise strategy.
Before explaining how he was able to bring that on for so many years, it is necessary to stress out that Knight had no expertise in terms of Survival Skills, as he confessed later on.
In fact, his experience consisted only in some basic campings around his birth place.
Therefore, he couldn’t claim to be an expert, but he was smart and he took advantage of the years he spent as installer.
LOCATION SELECTION
Knight paid extreme care in selecting a determined place who happened to be very far away from any beaten trail. He patrolled the area, looking for the ideal location to set his camp.
He eventually ran across into a spot which was naturally protected by two large boulders.
Their presence made the place quite unnoticeable from eye-sight.
APPLYING TRACKING AND ANTITRACKING SKILLS
All over the years he spent isolated, he never moved from that place: a real proof of how good he was in selecting the ideal site for his camp.
As part of his daily duties, he constantly checked for tracks in order to assess if any passage occurred the nearbies.
Additionally, he focused his attention in also minimizing his footprints whenever he needed to leave his place. He actually applied some essential Antitracking tecniques, based on the scenario he lived and moved in.
Knight, for example, never used to step on soft and nude terrain in order not to reveal the regularity of the pattern of his boots. In the same way, he walked smoothly and carefully on pine needles and leaves.
He took care of not breaking anything. By that, he consequentially managed to reduce the noise he could prouduce by moving throughout the narrowed vegetation.
CAMP CONCEALMENT
After picking the site, Knight set up a tent with dark brown tarps and paracords, and later on he fixed it with other layers of tarp, to restrain the infilitration of water.
He also insulated the ground employing some plastic bags and other tarps.
Knight put all himself to make his place undetectable even from above.
Blending with the environment was the very first step he took care of.
In such a way, he applied the major rules of camouflage.
He started to paint all the metallic surfaces of canteen, bowls, etc with camo spray as they coudn’t reflect the light.
FOOD, COOKING AND HEATING
For twenty-seven years Knight never started a single fire, as it would have involved so many risks of being detected.
Knight had only one way to survive to the harsh winters of Maine: stealing what he needed from the bungalows located in the nearbies.
He stole primarly gas cylinders to cooking and to heat his shelter.
He stole skillets, and canteens too, cleaning everything at the end of every meal and dumped the packages in the ground along with exhausted gas cylinders.
He used to boil water to turn into into potable, but he also gathered rain water by taking advantage of some tanks.
CLOTHES AND TOOLS
Simply as it is, he just stole from the bungalows he visited quite often anything he might think it could turn to be useful.
Food – especially long term expire date – but also extra fleeces, trousers, jackets and obviously socks and boots.
When he experienced a bad toothache he took care of it by using some meds he found inside the buildings.
Thanks to his knowledge in security systems and alarms he could enter inside the bungalows without damaging locks, doors and windows, grabbing every kind of stuff to make his life comfortable. He brought out even books, magazines, a TV and a radio.
He just managed to slip inside like a ghost.
Right after the first raw of thefts, he was named “The ghost of North Pond”.
The end of an utopia
At the moment of his arrest Knight was forty seven. He was charged for more than a thousand minor break-ins he committed all over those years.
The thefts specifically helped him to achieve his goal of remaining alone, surrounded by those woods. He never claimed to have a particular relationship with Nature as Michael Finkel, author of the good book “The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit“, revelead.
Finkel, a journalist and writer, patiently and carefully approached Christopher Knight during his detention, looking for the reasons beyond this voluntary exilium from the society.
Nonetheless, since the very first enconteur, Knight proved to be a hard handling person, with a and hyper cynic mind.
He eventually admitted his purpose wasn’t to live an ordinary life in terms of comforts and integration in the civilization.
At the very base of his choice there is a very precise choice: the search of a pure life, not contaminated by the presence of other people, with no hypocrisy neither judgement.
Authenticity seems to be the cornerstone inside Knight’s frantic necessity to reach this status.
Nonetheless,actually screwed his plan, of spending all life alone.
Conclusions
“He constantly thinks about how to improve his accommodation, every stolen tool is carefully stored, clean and tidy like everything else. The hermit does not go away never too far from there. He spends most of his days in some form of contemplation of the space around him, of nature, immersed in his thoughts, without ever feeling bored […] “ He does not understand how it can be considered acceptable to spend hours closed in a room in front of a pc for money, it’s strange to relax in a tent in the woods. He doesn’t understand how indolent looking at trees and resourceful to cut them can be. ”
Michael Finkel
Being an hermit for sure doesn’t necessarily involve to be a burglar.
In order to stay stick to the reality of facts it is essential to recognize the dedication and accuracy – and smartness too!- Knigh learned to live offgrid, counting on no gear, no skills, no MRE, no purifiaction system devices. .
Therefore, with a proper knowledge in terms of homesteading skills as well as of bushcraft, tracking, survival and camouflage a n individual could replicate his venture. But for how long, without being detected?
All depends on his/her skills, experience, tenacity.
But the biggest challenge, needlessly to say, will be solitude.
About The Author
Article by Kyt Lyn Walken. Official Representative and Instructor for Hull’s Tracking School and Certified Conservation Ranger for the NGO Conservation Rangers Operations Worldwide. Kyt will be in the UK running a workshop 18 – 20 February, 2022 Telford, Shropshire (U.K.) “The Art of Tracking Class” with FERAL YAMYAM BUSHCRAFT School.
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