Life had made it, in all its original beauty and splendour. Nor was
this all. It led me to observe and ponder over the daily pages of the
most profound and yet the most fascinating book that man has ever tried
to read; and though, it seemed to me, my feeble attempts to decipher
its text were always futile, it has, nevertheless, not only taught me
to love Nature with an ever-increasing passion, but it has inspired in
me an infinite homage toward the Almighty; for, as Emerson says: "In
the woods we return to reason and faith. Then I feel that nothing can
befall me in life--no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes)--which
Nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground--my head bathed by
the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space--all mean egoism
vanishes. . . . I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty."

So, to make my life-dream come true, to contemplate in all its
thrilling action and undying splendour the drama of the forests, I
travelled twenty-three times through various parts of the vast northern
woods, between Maine and Alaska, and covered thousands upon thousands
of miles by canoe, pack-train, snowshoes, _bateau_, dog-train,
buck-board, timber-raft, prairie-schooner, lumber-wagon, and
"alligator." No one trip ever satisfied me, or afforded me the
knowledge or the experience I sought, for traversing a single section
of the forest was not unlike making one's way along a single street of
a metropolis and then trying to persuade oneself that one knew all
about the city's life. So back again I went at all seasons of the year
to encamp in that great timber-land that sweeps from the Atlantic to
the Pacific. Thus it has taken me thirty-three years to gather the
information this volume contains, and my only hope in writing it is
that perhaps others may have had the same day-dream, and that in this
book they may find a reliable and satisfactory answer to all their
wonderings. But making my dream come true--what delight it gave me!