September 16, 1853

in Thoreau’s Journal:

[in Maine] ….we heard faintly from far down the stream what sounded like 2 strokes of a woodchopper’s axe echoing faintly and dully through the grim solitude & silence— When we told Joe of this he exclaimed “By George, Ill bet that was moose They make a sound like that.” 

These sounds affected us strangely, and by their very resemblance to the stroke of an axe where they probably had so different an origin enchanted the impression of solitude & wildness.

[Photo:  September 8, 2016, Squam Mountains, Sandwich, NH]