For nine days in 1939, 12-year old Donn Fendler was lost, alone in the wilderness around Mount Katahdin in northern Maine. The story of his harrowing ordeal and rescue as told in the 1939 classic, “Lost on a Mountain in Maine,” is required text for the state’s fourth-graders.
Since Donn retired in 1990, he has traveled throughout New England telling his tale to audiences young and old.
Now, he tells the story again, with added details, in “Lost Trail: Nine Days Alone in the Wilderness,” published by Down East this month.
As the temperature plummeted, the wind whipped and sleet clouds enshrouded the mountaintop, Donn is separated from his hiking party. Traveling almost 70 of the state’s harshest miles, he encounters bears and hordes of biting insects, loses a fifth of his body weight, and suffers hallucinations and total exhaustion.
Fendler teamed up with award-winning children’s book author Lynn Plourde to write “Lost Trail,” illustrated by Ben Bishop.
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