Swimmers at Walden Pond: Henry David Thoreau and his Successors

I awakened before dawn this morning in Concord, Massachusetts -- and the pond beckoned. At this very moment swimmers would already be criss-crossing Walden, and in one cove perhaps the very spirit of Henry David Thoreau would be walking down from the site of his cabin to the cove where he would swim again. Time to get up and walk beside the pond.

Walden Pond is the most famous pond in the world, and rightly so. Thoreau's two-year stay here in 1845-1847 led him to write Walden; or Life in the Woods, one of the classics of American literature. And Walden today is every bit as lovely as it was more than a century-and-a-half ago, perhaps even more beautiful because back then wood-choppers were at work leveling the pond-side forests Thoreau so loved.

Thoreau's Cabin from Title Page of Walden, 1854

Few places in America can rival Walden Pond for stimulation from a natural setting and the words associated with that setting. John Muir's Yosemite comes to mind as another such locale. But they are rare and special.

When I walked down the hill to Walden Pond this morning, the sun had just risen, a lovely orb shining through the mist over the hills at the far side of the water. Or so I thought. But as I gained a better view of the "sun," it occurred to me that it looked a lot like the moon. It was early, and my faculties were still adjusting to yesterday's flight from the West Coast, but it soon occurred to me that this "sun" was rising from the west, not the east. Ergo, my sunrise was actually a moonset. It also dawned on me, so to speak, that the moon was setting a lot faster than the sun had dropped the night before. More cogitation.... Oh, the moon, unlike the sun, moves around the earth, and so as our planet was rotating to the east, the moon was circling  around to the west. Ergo again, I did not have much time to get my camera shot. This is how the pond looked at moonset, with mist raising over the water. In the next few moments the moon would be gone.

Dawn and Moonset Over Walden Pond -- Photos here and below by Bill Youngs

At the pond's edge I saw a half dozen men and women preparing to swim or already in the water.  In a moment we'll look at the patterns they made across the pond, but first let's explore what Thoreau himself said about swimming in Walden. 

Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks. I got up early and bathed in the pond; that was a religious exercise, and one of the best things which I did. They say that characters were engraven on the bathing tub of King Tching Thang to this effect: "Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again." ,,, The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night. Little is to be expected of that day, if it can be called a day, to which we are not awakened by our Genius, but by the mechanical nudgings of some servitor, are not awakened by our own newly acquired force and aspirations from within, accompanied by the undulations of celestial music, instead of factory bells, and a fragrance filling the air — to a higher life than we fell asleep from; and thus the darkness bear its fruit, and prove itself to be good, no less than the light.

On the morning of September 19, 2013, at the very end of the summer, most swimmers were wearing wet suits.

Swimmers glided beneath the clouds of mist over the pond.

With dawn they appeared to be swimming in a field of gold.

On the shore an egret watched with interest.

And at a corner of the lake known as "Thoreau's Cove" no one was swimming -- unless one of those wisps of mist was Henry David himself.

The calendar said summer, but these leaves said Autumn is coming soon and winter with its pond ice -- swim while you can!

In order to visit these scenes in motion and with sound go to the accompanying YouTube video at:
-- Walden Morning
As evidence of just how cold Walden can become in the winter here are two videos I posted on YouTube a another season:
-- Walden Winter Swimmer: Erec Sanders 
-- Snow Falling at Walden Pond

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               If you enjoyed this post on Walden Pond swimmers, then and now, you want to read this post on Herman Melville and the Seattle Waterfront:
                    -- "Ocean Reveries" in Herman Melville's Manhattan and Today's Seattle