Naked in the Woods: Joseph Knowles and the Legacy of Frontier Fakery

Dan Danbom, Special to the Rocky

Published March 7, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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* Nonfiction. By Jim Motavalli. Da Capo Press, $26.95. Grade: C

Book in a nutshell: Hang out naked in the woods nowadays, and people will call you nudist. But in 1913, when a former itinerant hunting guide, trapper, lumberjack and seaman named Joseph Knowles went into the Maine woods wearing nothing more than whiskers, people called him a hero and looked upon his feat as comforting evidence that no matter how urbanized we became, no matter how much we relied on civilization and all it brought, humans could still survive on wits alone.

To hear Knowles tell it, "survive" was an understatement. Why, just dig a pit to trap a bear, use its hide for a coat, catch a deer barehanded, use its meat for sustenance, make a fire by rubbing sticks together, sleep on boughs whose comfort is superior to the finest hotels' feather beds and you'd be loath ever to rejoin the civilized world, too.

After two months, Knowles emerged triumphant from the woods, bronzed, fit and smelling like an over-ripe bear corpse. He became instantly famous: An estimated one-third of the population of Boston turned out for a parade in his honor. His book about his experiences became a best-seller, and people had serious discussions about whether the curriculum at Harvard was sufficient because it didn't include fire-making.

Knowles' stunt helped launch the Boy Scouts and a number of authors whose books about nature were as popular as they were specious. The only problem was that Knowles was accused of faking the whole episode.

Best tidbit: Knowles' success would have been impossible without the promotion of the Boston Post. Publisher Edwin Grozier was a promotional genius. He once discovered that a circus had three surplus elephants and decided they'd make swell residents for Boston's zoo. Instead of buying them, he enlisted the city's children to make contributions toward the $15,000 purchase price. Thousands of kids sent in money and got their names in the paper as "part owners." Of course, the children badgered their parents to buy the Boston Post so they could see their names. Circulation soared.

Pros: This is a good reminder that fame is usually fleeting.

Con: Motavalli frequently goes off on tangents, resulting in an extremely frustrating read.

Final word: The story has its intrigues, but Motavalli tries to make it far more significant than it is.

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