Archie G. Norcross’ Maine Forest Fire Maps (1918–22) — The Public Domain Review

In the summer of 1956, the Beat writer Jack Kerouac ascended the North Cascade Mountains, climbing up through the glacial crests of Washington State to Desolation Peak, where he would assume a summer post as a fire lookout for the United States Forest Service. Alone in his sparsely furnished cabin in the sky, Kerouac kept watch for smoke, the first sign of forest fires. He was broke (On The Road was still a year away), and room, board, and $230 per month was a draw. But it was really on his friend Gary Snyder’s urging, the writer and Buddhist practitioner dubbed “Japhy” below, that the city slicker signed on. Kerouac was chasing an ascetic, meditative experience that would never really materialize. He would recall his sixty-three days of isolation in the semi-autobiographical Desolation Angels (1965), drawn from the journals he kept at the time, and Dharma Bums (1958):