“I guess that yelling was pretty funny, for Mr. “I crawled out on the big log so the man could see me, and began to yell,” Fendler said in his book. Fendler, who had walked 48 miles and lost 16 pounds, stumbled into a hunting camp and saw a person. “I’m still trying to make myself believe there’s a faint thread of hope,” Fendler’s father, Donald, told The Boston Globe. The New York State Police dispatched two of their best bloodhounds by air.”īut as the days wore on, optimism shrank.

“Thousands of mothers sent prayers by Western Union to the boy’s mother,” according to Fendler’s obituary in The New York Times. “Boy Scouts joined the search, along with workers from the Millinocket paper mill. I don’t know what it - like I told you, it’s your will to live.” The search partyĪs Fendler refused to quit, a massive search was underway in Maine. “There were plenty of times I wanted to give up and just say, to heck with it, like those last few days,” Fendler told Maine Public Radio. He later found a burlap sack to use as clothing and shelter. He lost his sneakers and pants in the river, and his feet and legs quickly became covered with cuts from rocks and bites from mosquitoes and flies.Īt night, in near-freezing temperatures, Fendler wedged himself between tree roots and slept under a blanket of moss. Remembering his Scout training, Fendler followed a stream, knowing that camps and towns often are found along streams and rivers.ĭuring the day, he survived by eating wild berries. He took a few wrong turns and spent the next nine days alone. Realizing he was separated, Fendler tried to find the members of his hiking party, but it was raining so hard that he became lost. In July 1939, the Second Class Scout from Troop 2 of Rye, N.Y., wandered away from family and friends on Mount Katahdin, Maine’s highest point. He was 90.įendler’s story, recounted in his 1978 book Lost on a Mountain in Maine, seems almost unbelievable.

Donn Fendler, who says his Scout training and faith in God helped him survive nine days lost in the woods of Maine at age 12, died Monday.

Lost on the mountain in maine