Last weekend I read One Man’s Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey by Sam Keith. It’s based on the journals kept by Richard Proenneke who, at the age of 51, built a cabin in the Alaskan wilderness in 1968 and lived in it for over three decades. The book was published in 1973.
One Man’s Wilderness is a quick and fascinating read. The story is told in first-person in the form of journal entries. It describes how Proenneke chose his homestead, built his cabin, and lived on the shore of Twin Lakes. He seems to have been a very meticulous man. Everything was planned in detail before he started working. And working seemed to be his major hobby. The book is full of his Misdwestern work ethic. He also enjoyed watching wildlife through his spotting scope and binoculars (a pastime he called ‘glassing’), fishing, feeding the birds around his cabin, hiking, paddling, building things, measuring the temperature and thickness of the ice, and visits from bush pilot ‘Babe’ Alsworth (who founded Port Alsworth in 1950). He was also a pretty fair photographer and cinematographer.
His life was simple. His meals consisted largely of sourdough pancakes or biscuits, beans, oatmeal, berries, fish, and game. He called food ‘fuel’, and didn’t desire anything more than a full tank. He was alone, but he said he wasn’t lonely. There were plenty of things to keep him occupied.
One thing that confused me at first were the ‘gas cans’ he used to make everything from pans to hinges. (The door hinges, however, were nicely crafted from tree roots.) When I hear ‘gas can’ I either think of a 5-gallon jerry can or a heavy squat can for filling your power mower. Then I thought of Coleman fuel cans; but they’re too small for what he was making. After discussing it with my roommate (from whom I borrowed the book) we decided they were probably two- to five-gallon cans of white gas (‘Coleman fuel’).
An amazing thing was how Proenneke could make all of this stuff! Given the era in which he was born, I guess that carpentry and tin-bending were somewhat common knowledge. I’m sure any of us could stack logs and call it a cabin, but Proenneke demonstrated craftsmanship; not only in his careful fitting of the logs of his cabin, but in the myriad things he made.
A documentary called Alone In The Wilderness was made in 2005. It features footage shot by Proenneke, as well as newly-shot video. Personally, I think Proenneke was the better shooter. (Or maybe I just prefer the look of film.) The narration is taken from the book. One thing that bothered me is that it seemed every other sentence started with ‘I…’, and the narrator (as Proenneke) seemed to say it the same way every time. It grated a bit. The foley was… Well, most people probably wouldn’t notice it. It’s just sound that was added to silent footage, right? But one bit of sawing in particular sounded exactly like the sound we used in our high school super-8 short Mutilation Maniacs. And there was no ambient sound to speak of. It was as if they had one foley guy and no mixer. But this is a documentary; not a drama. I only mentioned the foley because I tend to notice these things and that one bit of sawing. It’s fine. The main thing about the DVD is that it’s nice to actually see the things he made. (And to catch a glimps of the mysterious ‘gas cans’.) Since the narration was taken from the book, it really brought to life the recently-read passages.
I’m never going to move to the wilderness and build a log cabin. And certainly not where it’s 50-below in the winter. (Hey, I like it cold; but there’s a limit!) Still, as someone whose grandparents lived a rustic live until the 1990s, it’s interesting to see how another person did it.