[Scoutmaster]

Although I enjoy Thoreau's writings, I've never truly viewed him as going 'to the woods.' He was on the outskirts of Concord, able to stroll into town when he wanted to do so.

In 1846, Thoreau visited Katahdin in Maine. True wilderness and woods. He didn't view it in the same light as his little cabin in the sunshine outside of Concord. He called it "grim and wild," "savage and dreary," fit only for "men nearer of kin to the rocks and wild animals than we."

Thoreau biographers Geral T. Blanchard and Roderick Nash say Thoreau was nearly hysterical from his experience with true wilderness.

Methinks I take pre-teen Scouts to places that would unnerve that man of the wilderness, Henry David Thoreau.

[Borges]

In Walden, Thoreau makes very clear that ‘civilization’ is nearby. He made no claims about living in the wilderness.