Sitting in a hotel room in Mt Pleasant Michigan in early March, since I'm not a gambler, is not the bastion of an excitable eve. Flipping channels I ran across a PBS gimme money break. I kept flipping, getting ready to read a book, I stumbled across PBS again.
This time, instead of some dork telling me for my donation of $25. or more I could get a $.99 coffee mug, I saw an old show. Since Mt Pleasant is in mid-state, there are a lot of nature shows on this particular PBS channel (not Marlin Perkins style nature shows, Ted Nugent style...guns, bows, knives, dead critters & happy hunters) I wonder why the hell they would have a show on that was so old.
So I stopped & watched. I ended up sitting thru three more we're broke breaks & wishing I was half the man in the program.
Dick Proenneke. The show, from the the early 70's was filmed in the early 60's, is called Alone in the Wilderness. (there is a companion book called One Mans Wilderness). Mr Proenneke decided he'd try to see if he could live with himself, alone & virtually unaided, for a year in Alaska. In the end, he stayed over 35 years. Leaving, finally, in 1996.
What was so amazing were his skills. He built a log cabin, singlehandedly & quite literally from scratch. He packed his tools in, most without handles, which he made. He felled the trees, moved them, shaped them, custom fit them, stacked & assembled them, by himself. The only "modern world" part of his abode was roofing paper & plastic to line the moss (which he cut & hauled) covered roof. I suppose you could say the mortar he used to build the fireplace is modern world. He used it with hand dug gravel & hand carried rocks. He put the cabin right next to a river, where he caught his daily fish & got his daily water. He even built his outhouse & fashioned a refrigerator & a meat locker.
The film, shot from a tripod, was a daily diary of his first year. I missed the very beginning. What I saw was from May - following summer. Some hunting, some fishing, a lot of carpentry (he carved a cooking spoon & a large bowl.) & game.
If you get a chance to see this film (on DVD & VHS) do it. Especially if you have kids. Show them what spoiled pansies we've become.
Alone in the Wilderness
This time, instead of some dork telling me for my donation of $25. or more I could get a $.99 coffee mug, I saw an old show. Since Mt Pleasant is in mid-state, there are a lot of nature shows on this particular PBS channel (not Marlin Perkins style nature shows, Ted Nugent style...guns, bows, knives, dead critters & happy hunters) I wonder why the hell they would have a show on that was so old.
So I stopped & watched. I ended up sitting thru three more we're broke breaks & wishing I was half the man in the program.
Dick Proenneke. The show, from the the early 70's was filmed in the early 60's, is called Alone in the Wilderness. (there is a companion book called One Mans Wilderness). Mr Proenneke decided he'd try to see if he could live with himself, alone & virtually unaided, for a year in Alaska. In the end, he stayed over 35 years. Leaving, finally, in 1996.
What was so amazing were his skills. He built a log cabin, singlehandedly & quite literally from scratch. He packed his tools in, most without handles, which he made. He felled the trees, moved them, shaped them, custom fit them, stacked & assembled them, by himself. The only "modern world" part of his abode was roofing paper & plastic to line the moss (which he cut & hauled) covered roof. I suppose you could say the mortar he used to build the fireplace is modern world. He used it with hand dug gravel & hand carried rocks. He put the cabin right next to a river, where he caught his daily fish & got his daily water. He even built his outhouse & fashioned a refrigerator & a meat locker.
The film, shot from a tripod, was a daily diary of his first year. I missed the very beginning. What I saw was from May - following summer. Some hunting, some fishing, a lot of carpentry (he carved a cooking spoon & a large bowl.) & game.
If you get a chance to see this film (on DVD & VHS) do it. Especially if you have kids. Show them what spoiled pansies we've become.
Alone in the Wilderness
