It’s certainly something many have considered in theory, but very few have managed to do it in practice, let alone for more than a quarter of a century. Regardless, each time he went out for more supplies he was committing a crime, one that he was well aware of and purported to feel bad about, yet he continued doing so until he was ultimately caught.Ī clear social misanthrope, Knight reads as a cantankerous individual who, rather than participate in society, elected to simply drop out entirely and live wholly on his own, off the grid yet still largely reliant upon it. In fact, he was rather conscientious in the way in which he went about procuring his supplies, taking only items of minimal value along with canned foods and other assorted sundries. Yet Knight never harmed a single person, nor did he target (at least not intentionally) any occupied residence. While there’s a certain romanticism to a life lived alone in the forest, isolated from the progress of society and the anxiety of modernity, the fact of the matter is Knight’s existence was only made possible by his hundreds of break-ins and thefts from the seasonal residents of the North Pond area.įor years, the legend of the North Pond Hermit had children and adults alike scared out of their minds, a literal campfire tale come to life.

From food to clothing to books to propane, Knight pilfered every item within his makeshift camp-in-the-woods. Because of this, he would spend the next several decades breaking into cabins and residences to gather all his supplies. Having abandoned his car in 1986 somewhere in the northern Maine woods and simply walking until he found a spot he elected to call his own, Knight entered the woods with nothing but the clothes on his back. For more than 25 years, Knight lived alone in the woods, isolated from society yet relying on its resources to continue his solitary existence. There’s something of an ethical dilemma in the case of Christopher Knight, the so-called North Pond Hermit.

The stranger in the woods finkel