Top photo, Appalachian Trail thru-hikers Phillip Zappone of Shrewsbury, Mass., left, and Brodie Trickey of Greenville, Tenn., pause near the summit of Mount Katahdin to look back at the land they covered after a five-month, 2,155-mile hike, in this file photo in Maine’s Baxter State Park. Henry David Thoreau made his third and final trip to Maine’s North Woods 150 years ago, traveling waterways and forests that shaped so many of his ideas about nature. AP Photos

PORTLAND, Maine — Henry David Thoreau made his third and final trip to Maine’s North Woods 150 years ago, traveling waterways and forests that shaped so many of his ideas about nature.


A nonprofit group has unveiled what it calls the Thoreau-Wabanaki Trail to pay tribute to Thoreau — whom some consider the first ecotourist — and the Penobscot Indian guides who accompanied him on two of his treks.


Maine Woods Forever has produced a detailed map of Thoreau’s trips, and will erect informational kiosks along different parts of Thoreau’s route. The group also has worked in partnership with a photographer who is producing a book of photos, “Wildness Within, Wildness Without,” retracing Thoreau’s steps.


The map is thought to be the first of its kind that tracks each of Thoreau’s trips, day by day as he canoed Moosehead Lake, the Penobscot River and its tributaries, and climbed Mount Katahdin. The map gives a broad overview of Thoreau’s trips and includes his observations from selected points along the way, but it is not intended as a navigational tool for canoeists and hikers.


The project aims to raise public interest not only in Thoreau’s travels, but also in the wilderness spirit and recreational heritage of the North Woods.