Christopher Thomas Knight

Journalist Michael Finkel met with Knight for nine one-hour sessions while he was in jail. This was the genesis for first an article in GQ magazine in August 2014, and then the book The Stranger In The Woods, published in March 2017.

Biographer Michael Finkel later reported that around February 2013, a fisherman named Tony Bellavance (along with his son and grandson) had discovered Knight in his camp, two months before he was apprehended by police. Knight later admitted to having been discovered by the fishermen, but hadn't mentioned it to police at the time of his arrest because the group swore a pact to not tell anyone of their meeting (after the anglers learned that Knight simply wanted to be left alone).

Knight was captured by game warden Sergeant Terry Hughes on April 4, 2013, while burgling the Pine Tree Camp in Rome, Maine. He was sentenced to seven months in jail on October 28, 2013, of which he had already served all but a week while awaiting sentencing. In addition to the jail sentence, Knight paid $2,000 in restitution to victims, completed a Co-Occurring Disorders Court Program (designed for people with substance abuse problems and mental health disorders), and completed three years of probation.

At the time of his arrest, Knight claimed there was only one instance during his 27 years of solitude in which he spoke with another human: at some point in the 1990s, he exchanged the word "hi" with a hiker whom he encountered on a lightly traveled path.

Christopher Knight entered the woods in 1986 at 20 years of age, saying goodbye to no one. His parents never reported him missing to the police. In an interview, Knight said, "I had good parents", and, "We're not emotionally bleeding all over each other. We're not touchy-feely. Stoicism is expected." At the time of his notoriety, a neighbor who lived near Knight's childhood home reported that for fourteen years they had exchanged no more than a few words with Knight's mother.

Christopher Thomas Knight (born December 7, 1965), also known as the North Pond Hermit, is a former recluse and burglar who lived without human contact (with two very brief exceptions) for 27 years between 1986 and 2013 in the North Pond area of Maine's Belgrade Lakes.