Notable Hermits: Estwick Evans

“I wished to acquire the simplicity, native feelings, and virtues of savage life; to divest myself of the factitious habits, prejudices and imperfections of civilization; to become a citizen of the world; and to find, amidst the solitude and grandeur of the western wilds, more correct views of human nature and of the true interests of man." – Estwick Evans (1787-1866) 

Wow, what a hermit. I found this on Stephen Bales' "nature calling" blog. Stephan (the author of Ghost Birds, about the Ivory Billed Woodpecker) describes him as:

"An attorney who walked, in the dead of an extreme winter, from his home in New Hampshire to Detroit dressed in buffalo skins. He wanted to experience the wilderness first hand" 

He wrote a book about his journey with the nice title "Evan's Pedestrious Tour of 4000 miles - 1818."

Notable hermits: Alvah Dunning

Alvah Dunning (1816-1902) was known as the Hermit Guide of the Adirondacks. "He could lure the timid mink from its hole by imitative chippering."

My criteria for a Nature Hermit is simple: a person who appreciates nature so much that they are compelled to live in it. It doesn't matter if you are solitary or live with a family. Whether you grew up there or came later. Whether you stayed a lifetime or less than a year. If you lived IN nature by choice, because you weren't content only to visit in your free time, then you are a nature hermit.

That said, I read something recently by W.H.H. Murray about guides in the Adirondacks in the 1800's. (It was in an anthology.) The "good" guides, as he described them, seemed to fit my bill:

"Born and bred as many of them were, in this wilderness, skilled in all the lore of woodcraft, handy with the rod, superb at the paddle, modest in demeanor and speech, honest to a proverb, they deserve and receive the admiration of all who make their acquaintance. Bronzed and hardy, fearless of danger, eager to please, uncontaminated with the vicious habits of civilized life, they are not unworthy of the magnificent surroundings amid which they dwell...The wilderness has unfolded to them its mysteries, and made them wise with a wisdom nowhere written in books. This wilderness is their home. Here they were born, here have they lived, and here it is that they expect to die. Their graves will be made under the pines where in childhood they played..."

Another Adirondack guide and his so-called "sport" (what they called the rich city fellows that hired them).

And then there was Alvah Dunning. He was moody and cantankerous, according to the Adirondack Museum's website (a profile worth reading). But he was also (according to a 1921 book by Afred Donaldson) "probably the most wily and resourceful hunter, fisher, and trapper the Adirondacks ever housed. He lived in the woods all of the time, and for the most part alone. The human voice was less familiar to him than the noises of birds and animals, and he often seemed able to understand and speak their language. He could lure the timid mink from its hole by imitative chippering, and trick a frightened deer back to the water's edge by deceptive bleating with his throat and splashing with his hands." (My Italics.)

Now that's a Nature Hermit!!!

I'm not saying he was perfect. He hated wolves and women, and maybe, just maybe, killed the last moose in the Adirondacks. But he also was a nature lover who "knew every tree, every flower, and every forest animal" according to those that knew him, and he disapproved of killing for sport alone. Quote the hermit: "In the old days I could kill a little meat when I needed it, but now they're a-savin' it for the city dudes with velvet suits and pop-guns, that can't hit a deer if they see it, and don't want it if they do hit it." He went to his grave eschewing modern technology, and firmly believing that the Earth was not round!

More Adirondack guides and their "sports".

All photos and info came from Wikipedia and the Adirondack Museum. Here's some newspaper articles written about Alvah, and here's a whole bunch more info on other Adirondack guides in the Adirondacks, where I found this nice picture of a bark hut on Tupper Lake (1899):

Notable hermits: Hanshan

The first in an occasional series highlighting notable nature hermits...

From Wikipedia: "Hanshan is said to have lived in a cave named 'Hanyan' (寒岩, Cold Cliff), a day's travel from the founding home of the Tiantai Buddhist sect, Guoqing Temple; itself located within the Taishan Mountain range on China's southeast coast."

Cold mountain. Hanshan's cave is in the lower right.

Hanshan lived in the 9th century (the 800's) and wandered around on Cold Mountain appreciating nature and writing poems about it. He had two friends (Fenggan and Shide, also poets) who lived in the temple, a day's walk away. The beat poet Gary Snyder was a fan and translator of Hanshan's poems.

Here is his Poem # 126:

The layered bloom of hills and streams

Kingfisher shades beneath rose-colored clouds

mountain mists soak my cotton bandanna,

dew penetrates my palm-bark coat.

On my feet are traveling shoes,

my hand holds an old vine staff.

Again I gaze beyond the dusty world-

what more could I want in that land of dreams?

He wrote about 600 poems up on Cold Mountain. His cave looked like this:

The view from the inside of Hanshan's cave.

Here is poem # 26:

Since I came to Cold Mountain

how many thousand years have passed?

Accepting my fate I fled to the woods,

to dwell and gaze in freedom.

No one visits the cliffs

forever hidden by clouds.

Soft grass serves as a mattress,

my quilt is the dark blue sky.

A boulder makes a fine pillow;

Heaven and Earth can crumble and change.