(ideally), or looking at social media on our phones or laptops, or watching entertainment in the form of online videos or television. Ironically, one of the most popular genres of reality entertainment across all of these mediums involves reading about or watching people perform the very tasks that modern technology is keeping us from needing to perform. Shows that require all sorts of cooking skills, shows about crafting timber frame buildings or simply improving one’s home with DIY techniques, shows about surviving in the wilderness, all seem to hold our fascination and provide a great deal of comfort. It’s a funny juxtaposition, but here we are.
Which brings me to the subject at hand. To my way of thinking, this book (and the astonishingly good film that accompanies it, Alone In The Wilderness) is the original must-read DIY entertainment. There are elements in his writing that hearken back to Lewis and Clark or Laura Ingalls Wilder in their attention to the same unadulterated forests and streams, and the teeming wildlife inhabiting them. In the tradition of all great nature writing, this work understands the power of simple observation and reportage. In the early 1960s, Richard “Dick” Proenneke carved out for himself an astonishing way of living in the Alaskan wilderness, hundreds of miles from the nearest light bulb. I suppose there must be other people who have notched similar achievements over the years, but none of them kept so resplendent a journal while outing on such a damn fine display of competence, not to mention filming themselves on 8mm film stock with an incredible rate of success.
While you read this, it’s fun to imagine him not only building his cabin and cache, woodshed, privy, doors, windows and furniture, all while maintaining a constant vigilance of the natural seasons around him and their effect upon the animal and plant life, regardless of their inclusion in his diet (or not) but also regularly setting up a small movie camera on a tripod, lining up his shot and rolling the camera, only to then hustle into the frame and commence the action of the scene, whether that was hewing logs, ripping boards, or feeding the camp-robbing birds. He would then have had to safely preserve his film from the effects of light and temperature until it would presumably be sent away with his mail in the bi-monthly visits from Babe in his tiny seaplane. An astonishing accomplishment from soup to nuts.
Somehow Proenneke understood that his simple efforts—build shelter, stay warm, find/hunt food, observe nature, respect life—would be well worth documenting, and boy howdy was he right. If you like hearing a TV chef walk you through a recipe for enchiladas, just wait until you consume the creation of a log home in this volume, from the ground up. A notoriously talented diesel mechanic before relocating into the wild, the author displayed exceptional skill levels in woodworking, log/timber construction, engineering, chemistry, hunting, fishing, navigation, gardening, and journalism. He was dropped off next to an Alaskan lake with a bag of tools and a few minor conveniences, like matches and a sleeping bag, to see if he could survive for a year. As an experiment, that is pretty damn gutsy.
Not only is this a ripping good read, but it also serves up valuable inspiration in our own comfortable lives, what with our indoor plumbing and laundry machines. I think about Proenneke’s statement that his time in his cabin was the most interesting and rich experience of his life, and I understand the truth behind it: if you make the right choices, then a very simple life, devoid of distraction, has the best odds of being a happy life. Of course, that’s easy for him to say, sequestering himself away from civilization in a monastic existence. Some of us have to pursue simplicity and also deal with traffic, and answering emails, and so forth.
As I sit to my breakfast this morning, consisting of eggs that I did not gather from my own henhouse, I think about those eggs and from whence they were procured. They are the most grass-fed, free-range eggs I can find at my local healthy grocery store. Eggs-wise, I feel victorious, and now I will build my day from there. I decide to listen to an audio book on my way to my woodshop—the excellent The Shepherd’s Life by James Rebanks—continuing my indulgence in delicious, well-written nonfiction, describing the art of living in and profiting by the beautiful and harsh elements of Mother Nature; in his case, raising sheep in the hills of northern England. When I get to my shop, I will be using tools like chisels and planes to continue crafting a batch of nine soprano ukuleles. You best believe I will be sharpening those tools with care before I touch them to the wood. I don’t have much in the way of birdsong at the shop, so I’ll put on some Talking Heads today. There. That sounds like a day that might see me satisfied by the time I drive back across town.
Whatever it was that drove him to put his mettle to such an extreme test, it is we who benefit, by entertainment and by inspiration, thanks to these pages you hold in your hands. In a day and age when so few of us know how to do much with an axe and a tree, it is deeply comforting to read of the sure-handed actions of a man who did. And if you’re anything like me, it will goose you to get out your own chisel, as it were, and give it an extra honing before your next session making chips and shavings.
Nick Offerman
Los Angles, California (2018)
Preface
Although Dick Proenneke came originally from Primrose, Iowa, he will always be to me as truly Alaskan as willow brush and pointed spruce and jagged peaks against the sky. He embodies the spirit of the “Great Land.”
I met Dick in 1952 when I worked as a civilian on the Kodiak Naval Base. Together we explored the many wild bays of Kodiak and Afognak Islands where the giant brown bear left his tracks in the black sand, climbed mountains to the clear lakes hidden beyond their green shoulders, gorged ourselves on fat butter clams steamed over campfires that flickered before shelters of driftwood and saplings of spruce.
It was during these times that I observed and admired his wonderful gift of patience, his exceptional ability to improvise, his unbelievable stamina, and his consuming curiosity of all that was around him. Here was a remarkable blending of mechanical aptitude and genuine love of the natural scene, and even though I often saw him crawling over the complex machinery of the twentieth century, his coveralls smeared with grease, I always envisioned him in buckskins striding through the high mountain passes in the days of Lewis and Clark.
If a tough job had to be done, Dick was the man to do it. A tireless worker, his talents as a diesel mechanic were not only in demand on the base but eagerly sought by the contractors in town. His knowledge, his imagination, and his tenacity were more than stubborn machinery could resist.
His quiet efficiency fascinated me. I wondered about the days before he came to Alaska.
While performing his duties as a carpenter in the U.S. Navy during World War II, he was stricken with rheumatic fever. For six months he was bedridden. It kept him from shipping out into the fierce action that awaited in the Pacific, but more than anything else, it made him despise this weakness of his body that had temporarily disabled him. Once recovered, he set about proving to himself again and again that this repaired machine was going to outperform all others. He drove himself beyond common endurance. This former failing of his body became an obsession, and he mercilessly put it to the test at every opportunity.
After the war he went to diesel school. He could have remained there as an instructor, but yearnings from the other side of his nature had to be answered. He worked on a ranch as a sheep camp tender in the high lonesome places of Oregon. As the result of a friend’s urging and the prospect of starting a cattle ranch on Shuyak Island, he came to Alaska in 1950.
This dream soon vanished when the island proved unsuitable for the venture. A visit to a cattle spread on Kodiak further convinced the would-be partners that, for the time being at least, the Alaska ranch idea was out. They decided to go their separate ways.
For several years Dick worked as a heavy equipment operator and repairman on the naval base at Kodiak.
