It's July 4, 1845. A soft-spoken young man named Henry David Thoreau has carefully constructed a small, simple cabin in the woods overlooking Walden Pond. For the next two years, his closest companions will be the chickadees, the woodchucks, and the quiet pines of the Walden Woods.

Henry is twenty-eight years old, and his life has not been easy. His brother John his closest friend and companion has died. The only woman he ever loved has rejected him.

On this day he has come to Walden in search of truth not the truth taught in schools or in church, but the truth he can feel dwelling deep within him.