A half-hour drive from Boston, Massachusetts, in the town of Concord, lies one of the most revered literary landscapes in the world: the 2,680-acre Walden Woods and Walden Pond State Reservation.
Each year, over half a million people pay homage to the Great Pond and spiritually nourishing forests where Henry David Thoreau wrote his classic 1854 book, “Walden.”
During his two years, two months and two days living there, Thoreau treated every creature he encountered, from a squirming red squirrel to warring ants, as kin.
As Thoreau wrote at the beginning of “Walden”: “I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, to face only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, to find I had not lived.”
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Tragically, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has listed Walden Pond and Walden Woods as one of “America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.” Blame a proposed expansion of Hanscom Airport near Walden. This aviation project would add 6,000 private jet takeoffs and landings a year, shattering the solitude of enchanted Walden.
The environmental threats to Thoreau’s retreat are not limited to those from the air. Just a stone’s throw from the pond sits a 35-acre former landfill. Without conservation protection, this parcel could be open to commercial development.
The American people should demand the preservation of the former dump and demand an immediate end to the expansion of the jet port. No developer has the right to destroy the historic essence of Concord, which includes the Minute Man National Battlefield of the American Revolution; the former home of Ralph Waldo Emerson; and the place Louisa May Alcott wrote “Little Women”.
By defending Walden, we save the birthplace of an American literary shrine, and honor its inspiration: the world of sublime nature.
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Story produced by Liza Monasebien. Editor: Karen Brenner.
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