In 1914, a small wiry man of French Canadian descent moved from the Lake Placid area to Coreys, a sportsmen's lodge on the carry between Raquette River and Upper Saranac Lake. For fifteen years he worked there as handyman, caretaker and guide, all the time perfecting his woodlore, much of it learned from Dan Emmet, an Abenaki Indian who also guided at Coreys. During this time, he became well acquainted with the country around Cold River seventeen miles away, where he hunted and trapped. He became even more familiar with the local game wardens, ending up with a few brief visits to jail for supposed game law violations.

In 1929, when he was 46 years old, this small man called Noah John Rondeau, "not well satisfied with the world and its trends" began to live year-round at Cold River. He came out of the woods on occasion for supplies and or a holiday, but spent the major part of the next eighteen years alone in his Cold River camp, hunting and trapping, reading books on science, history and philosophy, and recording the daily events of his life in a series of diaries , many of them in secret code. He was not unobserved; having run afoul of the New York State Conservation Department, he was kept under surveillance for possible hunting infractions. Later, the Department befriended him by air, dropping him supplies and even his annual hunting license.

As a "hermit" Noah John Rondeau found his true vocation. Far from disappearing from the world and its trends, he began to attract the attention of hikers on the Northville-Placid trail which ran close to his camp. Among these was Grace Hudowalski, one of the first woman "'46ers," to scale all forty-six of the Adirondacks' highest peaks. She and her companions visited him many times over the years, on one occasion carrying in a birthday cake and presenting him with an honorary membership in the Adirondack Mountain Club. Here is how she described him:

His trousers are made of buckskin which has tanned. He also wears a vest of buckskin complete with pockets! Even the smallest of pieces are fitted into this vest - not one is wasted - and the needlework would vie with grandmother's pieced quilt! On state occasions The Hermit wears a long fringe of deerskin around his neck and waist and swishes as he walks. His most unique possession is a fishing bag which he slings over his shoulder. The bag is made of an unseamed deer neck and, as he says, "I'd like to see any fish get out of that bag!"

The costume, the surroundings, scarcely account for the kindly face that greets one. In spite of Mr. Rondeau's heavy gray-streaked, black beard, he is a "handsome" gentleman. Piercing, brown eyes sparkle from a long pointed face, and almost hidden lips twitch with a humorist's smile. He is kindly of heart, gracious of manner, merry of disposition and well leavened with humor. His love of beauty and the little things that go to make up life is evidenced by a wee plot of wild daisies that he has transplanted under the eaves of his cabin.