"That evening I sat on my driftwood pile admiring my cabin. Pale blue wood smoke rose up through the dark boughs of the spruce, and beyond, looking huge and majestic, the jagged peak of Crag Mountain. The cabin was complete now except for the fireplace and, maybe later on, a cache up on poles. It was a good feeling just sitting and reflecting, a proud inner feeling of something I had created with my own hands. I don't think I have ever accomplished anything as satisfying in my entire life."
— Richard Proenneke, One Man's Wilderness
— Richard Proenneke, One Man's Wilderness
Richard Louis Proenneke (pronounced Pren-uh-key) lived alone for thirty years in Twin Lakes, Alaska. This is his journal covering the first 18 months of the odyssey.
Originally from Iowa, Proenneke served in World War II as a carpenter in the U.S. Navy and later became a master mechanic. Trading in his tool belt for a time, he moved to Oregon, working as a sheep camp tender on a ranch for several seasons. In 1950, at the age of thirty-four, he went north to Alaska. There he stared a cattle ranch venture with a friend on Shuyak Island. It failed, but he rebounded nicely into commercial salmon fishing for a time, before setting out once again to the sticks. Finding a specially secluded bight of Twin Lakes, Proenneke picked up his tool belt once more to start on a cabin.
Originally from Iowa, Proenneke served in World War II as a carpenter in the U.S. Navy and later became a master mechanic. Trading in his tool belt for a time, he moved to Oregon, working as a sheep camp tender on a ranch for several seasons. In 1950, at the age of thirty-four, he went north to Alaska. There he stared a cattle ranch venture with a friend on Shuyak Island. It failed, but he rebounded nicely into commercial salmon fishing for a time, before setting out once again to the sticks. Finding a specially secluded bight of Twin Lakes, Proenneke picked up his tool belt once more to start on a cabin.
"Who can go to bed after the sun is up?"
Dick's journal entries track his progress, from cutting beams and notching logs to meeting many woodland friends and foes as well as testing mouth-watering recipes. "For supper, I cut the trout into small chunks, dipped them into beaten egg, and rolled them in cornmeal. They browned nicely in the bacon fat, and my tender crusted sourdough did justice to the first fish fry of the season." The only help Proenneke accepted were food and mail deliveries from a float place piloted by his friend Babe twice a month. That and some tar paper and polyethylene for the cabin roof so it wouldn't leak.
Twin Lakes offered Proenneke the seclusion from people he that we wanted and demanded from him an incredible degree of self-sufficiency. He hunted, gathered, gardened, expanded his homestead to include a stone chimney, food cache on stilts (pictured below), some gravel trails, and a canoe. He trekked his backyard, clocking-in thousands of miles in the first 18 months alone, and 3,000 feet of Kodiak 8mm and 16mm footage. He chased of mischievous squirrels, rescued a caribou calf from a bear, and shot a mountain ram cleanly with his ought-six rifle.
Twin Lakes offered Proenneke the seclusion from people he that we wanted and demanded from him an incredible degree of self-sufficiency. He hunted, gathered, gardened, expanded his homestead to include a stone chimney, food cache on stilts (pictured below), some gravel trails, and a canoe. He trekked his backyard, clocking-in thousands of miles in the first 18 months alone, and 3,000 feet of Kodiak 8mm and 16mm footage. He chased of mischievous squirrels, rescued a caribou calf from a bear, and shot a mountain ram cleanly with his ought-six rifle.
"I popped a batch of corn in bacon fat, salted and buttered it, and munched on it while I studied the sweep of the mountains."
He also cleaned up the wilderness after countless disrespectful hunters who littered the beaches, game trails, and meadows with debris and wasted carcasses. This was one of his proudest achievements besides the cabin construction, acting as a wilderness steward to the Twin Lakes greater area so it remained as pristine as he had initially found it.
"I don't miss a radio a bit...A man is on his own frequency out here."
I loved the journal format of One Man's Wilderness and can't wait to go visit Twin Lakes for myself and stop into Dick's cabin, which is now a National historic site. Proenneke passed away in 2003 in Hemet, CA. Reading just some of the highlights of his modern, wilderness odyssey has whetted my appetite to venture out farther than the safe, popular trailheads and tamed parks I'm accustomed to. [JG]
"When a man climbs high it always seems an amazement, as he starts down, to realize the distance he has covered."
— Richard Proenneke, One Man's Wilderness
— Richard Proenneke, One Man's Wilderness
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
 TWELVE RULES FOR LIFE: An Antidote to Chaos Dr. Jordan B. Peterson  MEDITATIONS Marcus Aurelius |  HOW TO BUILD AND FURNISH A LOG CABIN W. Ben Hunt  A-FRAME Chad Randl |
