The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel

A hyper-practical Stoic, He is not religious yet still achieves a sense of oneness with nature. While he is well-read, he distrusts intellectuals and listens to right-wing talk radio. He doesn’t think of himself as a hermit and worries about giving hokey truisms. Knight confounds expectations of a forest hermit. In addition to food, Knight took books, electronics, and supplies for Maine’s harsh winters, where he risked starvation and hypothermia. He developed a system to travel without a trace and break into homes when their owners weren’t around. Knight knew that stealing was wrong but turned to burglary as his initial plans to forage proves unsustainable.

Eventually, he found an ideal campsite location in the rugged “Jarsey” by North Pond. Realizing that he preferred being alone, he traveled back to Maine, abandoned his car, and walked into the forest. In 1986, a young Knight took an impromptu trip down the East Coast. His parents taught him the value of “Yankee ingenuity” and continuous improvement, which would later help him make equipment like a rainwater collector and water-resistant flooring for his tent. Knight was the fifth of six children, grew up in a conservative home in Albion, a rural town near North Pond. Prideful but immensely self-conscious, he refuses to touch or make eye contact with others. Knight speaks in a book-like tone, labors over his sentences, and is honest to the point of insult. Knight is initially unhappy to see him, but the author discovers ways to loosen him up. He strikes up a written correspondence with the hermit, now in prison, that lasts for five letters until Knight abruptly ends contact due to the stress of his new life.įinkel travels from Montana to Maine for what would be the first of nine interviews he conducts with Knight in the facility. An outdoorsman and recent father of three children, Finkel sees Knight as a someone who has escaped the noise of the modern world. The arrest makes national headlines and attracts Finkel’s attention. Knight was so good at covering his tracks that the only reason for his capture was because a game warden, former Marine Sergeant Terry Hughes, used Homeland Security surveillance equipment in his spare time.

The hermit leaves a divided legacy: His raids stirred paranoia within the small town, but his focus on minimizing property damage and taking inexpensive essentials from vacation homes earned him the sympathy of some residents. On April 4, 2013, Kennebec County law enforcement arrest Christopher Thomas Knight while he’s stealing food from a camp facility near North Pond-the last of more than a thousand burglaries over two decades.

The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel