Agiochook: The Sacred Landscape

Appalachia, December 2001

By Christopher Johnson

The trail to the summit of Mount Willard in New Hampshire's White Mountains is like a deftly written mystery—it gives no hint of what the outcome will be. The path starts at Crawford Depot, the restored Victorian railroad station at the north gateway to Crawford Notch, then crosses the tracks, and gradually climbs along an old carriage road. Soon the trail parallels a rapidly flowing mountain stream and skirts a small cascade called Centennial Pool.

After a mile and a half, a pinpoint of bright sunlight suddenly becomes visible at the end of the tunnel of foliage. Ten minutes more, and the outcome is revealed: the trail spills out onto the ledge of Mount Willard—and a view south into Crawford Notch that is nothing short of magnificent. Mount Webster is on the east and Mount Willey on the west, thick, squat mountains that sweep down to form the notch far below. The mountains are covered like a mantle with vast emerald forests. Here and there, though, the forests are interrupted by islands of granite, scars formed by glaciers that receded ten thousand years ago and by avalanches that have ripped out trees and carried them down the sides of the mountains.

These primitive mountains are ancient links to the Earth's distant past. From the vantage point of Mount Willard, the only visible signs of modern life are US 302, which cuts south, and the railroad, which has recently been revived to carry tourists through Crawford Notch. Subtract these two intruders, and this view is close to what it has been for centuries. One feels the timelessness of this magnificent landscape and a connection to those who have stood in this place and have been awed by the same view.

For the Algonquian people who inhabited this region for centuries and for Anglo-American writers of the mid-nineteenth century, the wild, natural beauty of Crawford Notch and the surrounding mountains pointed to spiritual presences and profound moral meanings. It was a sacred region—a region of mystery and magic—and the relationship of humanity to this transcendent landscape was more spiritual, more mysterious, more mythical than anything we feel about it today.

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Snowy Forehead