We always look forward to a new series by Ken Burns and the recent one about Henry David Thoreau was no exception. Actually, neither one of us is especially fond of Thoreau’s writings, but we recognize how influential he was in Nature writing as it was first evolving nearly two centuries ago. Thoreau is best remembered for the book Walden that was based upon the two years, two months and two days he spent living in a tiny cabin along the north shore of Walden Pond in his hometown of Concord, Massachusetts. He spent much of this time hiking through the woods around the pond and looking at and pondering all the Nature (yep, capital N!) that he saw there. He sometimes did some serious science, for example he carefully compiled a list of all the 800 different plants and animals that he identified. But as much as anything else, Thoreau simply contemplated Nature. He seems to have found himself to be part of Nature. This was consistent with the transcendentalist views that he picked up at Harvard. A lot of people who followed in his footsteps came to feel the same. Science met philosophy at Walden Pond.
We found it revealing that all his natural history was in the present tense. He saw Nature as it was, right there before him, but never as it had once been - long ago. We watched the program and saw more, a lot more, and that came in a flash. Take a look at the map, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Walden pond might seem unusual in that it is so isolated; there are no streams flowing into it or out of it. There is no connection, in any way, to the ocean. That might seem odd, how could that be? But it is typical of a special type of pond – a kettle pond. There are a lot of them all through New England, and they all formed towards the end of the Ice Age. Great masses of ice can come to be buried in thick heaps of glacial sediments. After the ice melts sizable holes are left behind. Those holes are called kettles. If or when they fill with water, then they become kettle ponds. There is no need for streams to be flowing into or out of them.
We researched it and found that the Concord area had, indeed, been heavily glaciated. Modern geologists have recognized all sorts of Ice Age features there. They use words like moraines and kames and drumlins there. So, the Walden kettle pond was no surprise. But did Thoreau know any of this? We wonder. He had gone to Harvard but how much science had he learned. He certainly was interested in natural history, but the scientific theory of the Ice Age was only a recent discovery in 1845, and Thoreau might well have known little or even nothing about it. Kettle lakes would surely not have been understood back then.
What a shame. Thoreau in his wanderings would have passed all sorts of Ice Age features and could have recognized them – had he only known. If so, then this wonderful naturalist would have had so much more to meditate upon. The two of us are so fortunate to have inherited so much modern knowledge. When we explore our landscapes we are wise enough to appreciate that. Thoreau wandered the woods at Walden and played a form of natural history chess there. We wander the woods and can play three-dimensional chess. There is a very big difference.
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