Brent Ranalli props himself against a stone wall on the beach at Walden Pond. A cold, wet November day chills Concord, Massachusetts. Ranalli, 49, opts for a blue checkered button-down shirt and tan fleece jacket instead of the black wool vest, thick bow tie and wicker sun hat he normally wears when visiting the pond.
By day, Ranalli, a Boxborough native, is a senior specialist in environmental policy at the Cadmus Group, a technology-focused business consulting firm. When he is not at his regular job, Ranalli works part-time as a Henry David Thoreau reenactor.
“I had a lot of information [about Thoreau] in my head to share. I thought that it would be a waste of that knowledge not to,” he said.
Thoreau was a 19th-century philosopher, environmental scientist, political activist and writer famous for building a cabin on the shore of Walden Pond in 1845 to experiment with living simply and deliberately in nature, according to Ranalli’s website, Thoreau Living History. Scholars most remember Thoreau for writing the books “Walden,” which chronicles his experience living on Walden Pond, and “Civil Disobedience,” which explores the ideas of nonviolent movements to resist the government and promote social justice, according to Ranalli.
After graduating from college, Ranalli started working on a research project writing about the environment in relation to Thoreau’s message of simple living. His co-author volunteered with the Thoreau Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering the education of Thoreau’s life and works, according to their website. Shortly after the 1999 publication of their study, Ranalli participated in a panel at a Thoreau Society event in Concord to share his findings. This led to him joining the society. Ranalli left the group in 2018 to start his for-profit company, Thoreau Living History, in which Ranalli impersonates Thoreau – costume and all – and gives private tours of Walden Pond.
For $100, Ranalli takes groups of up to 15 people on a one-hour long hike of the area. He visits the site of Thoreau’s cabin and shares the messages of Thoreau’s writings, he said.
“I can pull off the look of Henry David Thoreau in the right clothes,” Ranalli said. “I can't do Louisa May Alcott. I can't do [Ralph Waldo] Emerson, but I can do Thoreau. It seemed like a good fit.”
Alcott and Emerson were Concord writers and Thoreau’s neighbors. Alcott famously published the novel “Little Women.” Emerson was a well-known philosopher, essayist and mentor to Thoreau, according to Ranalli.
While Ranalli enjoys the job, it can also be challenging. He finds it difficult to share Thoreau’s message when the country feels divided politically, especially after the most recent U.S. presidential election, he said. But Ranalli also believes times of disagreement are when people need to hear Thoreau’s message more than ever.
“After September 11, when a lot of people felt shaken, the traffic here at the pond grew substantially,” Ranalli said.
“A lot of people came here because it was a place where people felt that they could find solace in nature, find the grounding that they were looking for or to reflect on Henry David Thoreau and his legacy.”
A walk through Walden Pond
By Tamsin Vidal
December 2024