Restoring Walden Woods and the Idyll of Thoreau II: A Recent Historical Tracing of Changing and Renegotiated Restoration Goals

Narratives of environmental restoration are subject to continual renegotiation and mediation by different groups and contexts. They are constrained by a combination of geo-political, socio-cultural, ecological, economic, legal, and moral-emotional influences. In this study, I focus on the case of Walden Woods (Massachusetts, U.S.) to provide empirical evidence of the evolution and historical portrayal of environmental restoration narratives, and the nature-society interaction and management of socio-ecological systems. Through a temporal examination of restoration narratives at Walden Woods, I provide evidence on the social mechanisms for restoration and the manifestations of ‘restored nature.’ The ‘who’, ‘where’, and degree of myth creation and selection (after ) is critiqued to highlight changes and shifts in restoration practice. I compare changing restoration narratives across three sites in Walden Woods: 1) shoreline restoration at Walden Pond (1960s–1990s); 2) restoration of the former Town of Concord landfill (1990s–2000s); and 3) the creation of Thoreau’s Path on Brister’s Hill (2000s). Here, ‘what would Thoreau want?’ is a guiding restoration goal for practitioners. A key issue for this study is the limits to myth creation, grounded in the context and materiality of nature, and how it shapes practice.