HOME OF THE STORM GOD

Among Native Americans, Katahdin was a sacred and fearsome place, and few ventured there. Its peaks were the home of the bird spirit Pamola, god of thunder and protector of the mountain. Among the Penobscot he was said to have the head of a moose, the body of a man, and the feet and wings of an eagle.

The first non-native (and perhaps the first, period) ascent was made in 1804 by surveyors Charles Turner Jr. and Zachary Adley. No one from the party of eleven suffered Pamola’s wrath.

Henry David Thoreau climbed it in 1846 and wrote of his experiences in The Maine Woods; young Theodore Roosevelt ascended it in 1878; and even Percival Baxter climbed it before he became governor.