Thoreau writes in his journal:

Thoreau writes in “The Allegash and East Branch” chapter of The Maine Woods:

  On reaching the Indian’s campingground, on the south side, where the bank was about a dozen feet high, I read on the trunk of a fir tree, blazed by an axe, an inscription in charcoal which had been left by him. It was surmounted by a drawing of a bear paddling a canoe, which he said was the sign which had been used by his family always. The drawing, though rude, could not be mistaken for anything but a bear, and he doubted my ability to copy it. The inscription ran thus, verbatim et literatim. I interline the English of his Indian as he gave it to me.
[The figure of a bear in a boat]

July 26
1853
__________
niasoseb
We alone Joseph
Polis e1ioi
Polis start
sia olta
for Oldtown
onke ni
right away
quambi
July 15
1855
__________
he added now below:—
niasoseb
1857
July 26
Jo. Polis

  This was one of his homes. I saw where he had sometimes stretched his moose-hides on the opposite or sunny north side of the river, where there was a narrow meadow . . .