The Catamount: Background information when reading North Woods

The Catamount

This article relates to North Woods

A mysterious recurring figure in Daniel Mason's Massachusetts-set novel North Woods — starting with the cover image — is the "catamount." This folk name, which originates from the Middle English "cat of the mountaine," usually refers to a particular North American wild cat species, the cougar (Puma concolor), which is also known as the mountain lion, puma, or panther and lives to around age 13 in the wild. The different names are used more or less interchangeably, but historically have corresponded to previously recognized subspecies.

The species once ranged across the whole of the Americas. However, ongoing bounty hunting led to the eastern cougar subspecies being declared officially extinct in 2018 (although it was likely gone since the middle of the 20th century). The cougar's range remains the largest of any Western hemisphere (terrestrial, nonhuman) mammal: from British Columbia to Argentina. In the western USA, the cats are still shot by ranchers and hunters. The Florida panther is critically endangered.

According to the Massachusetts government website, the last cougar of the state was killed in about 1858, but twice in recent years its likely continued presence has been confirmed, through DNA evidence from a beaver carcass in 1997, and tracks in the snow in 2011. It is generally thought that these cats were individual visitors, but that the state has no resident or breeding population.

The cougar has taken on legendary status in some Eastern states where it is now extinct, and its name has been given to various places and products. For instance, the catamount is the mascot of the University of Vermont's sports teams, a 300-mile ski trail completed in Vermont in 2007 was named the Catamount Trail, and the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania company Brooks has a line of trail running shoes called Catamount.

The eastern cougar also bears the nickname "ghost cat." This seems to be its primary role in North Woods. Our book club has been discussing the novel and some members consider the catamount to be a representation of the unknown or the disappeared. Like the other ghostly figures in the book, it symbolizes the persistence of the past.

A catamount, or North American cougar (Puma concolor)
Photo by Hollingsworth, John and Karen, USFWS, via Pixnio

Filed under Nature and the Environment

This "beyond the book article" relates to North Woods. It originally ran in November 2023 and has been updated for the September 2023 edition. Go to magazine.