Laying around watching TV I flip past one of the PBS channels and catch a glimpse of what looks like a home movie from the 50s or something of some guy canoeing down a river talking about building a log cabin.
I leave it on thinking I’ll get some good snickers at the program (quality of filming etc).
As it turns out, it's a series of home movies based upon the autobiographical account (call it what you will a journal, diary whatever) of one mans adventure. That man was Richard Proenneke. Proenneke was a survivalist/naturalist that lived in mountains of Alaska ALONE in a remote area called Twin Lakes. He built his cabin by hand and hunted /trapped/fished/grew his own food and stored it.
Proenneke spent May - June & July of 68 building this cabin by hand and when I say by hand I mean NO POWER TOOLS.
I can not imagine the shape the guy must have been in to not only gather the materials for his cabin and transport them (whether hauling it on his back or "towing it" with his canoe) but also the using, and maintaining the hand tools. That's a LOT of work for one dude.
This guy was amazing he had a food cache up on stilts (that he later expanded); he dug a proper hole for a "refrigerator". The cabin itself was amazing. The only thing he used that was modern on this thing was the polyethylene he used on the roof for weatherproofing. Short of that it was all raw materials and hand made - right down to the tin water buckets he made and the wooden spoon he carved out. He designed non-fogging windows to face the lake, built all his furniture and even designed hinges for his doors that most master carpenters to this day have a difficult time replicating.
Everything I have been able to find about this guy continues to amaze me. Born in 1916, Proenneke started this journey in 1968 - he was 52 when he set out for Alaska. After building his cabin he stayed there the first stretch for a little under 18 months. After a short break to spend some time with his family and friends he headed back to Alaska and pretty much stayed there for the next (almost) 30 years(other than little vacations here and there to see friends/family). He left Alaska at 82 years old (in 1999) when he finally decided the winters (sometimes getting below -50F) were becoming too much for a man of his age.
When he died (stroke) in 2003, Proenneke left his cabin to the parks department where (to this day) it remains a popular visitor attraction in the Twin Lakes region.
Some other interesting facts about Proenneke:
· He began taking care of himself and really paying attention to how he lived after he recovered from rheumatic fever. Apparently, Proenneke contracted it while (working as a carpenter) in the Navy during World War II and was bedridden for nearly six months. After recovering he decided to devote his remaining life to strengthening and bolstering the health of his body.
· He, at one time or another, was, among other things, a diesel mechanic - a sheep farmer - a cattle farmer - a heavy equipment operator and repairman and a salmon fisherman.
· He decided to retire in 1967 laid out a plan for himself and spent the entire summer of 1967 felling trees he would need to build his cabin the following year.
· He originally planned to stay in the Twin Lakes region for under two years
· While being interviewed for a documentary on his 70th birthday, Proenneke stood up and did 70 chin-ups for the interviewer (Go ahead try and do 70 chin ups right now. . . . . . . I'll wait)
Some Links pertaining to Proenneke:
Photos taken by Proenneke
More photos
A giant PDF of Proenneke’s journals
Books and DVDs on Proenneke (I highly recommend Alone In the Wilderness)
