The writer Sam Keith, who befriended Dick when they both worked at an Alaskan naval base, edited Dick’s journals and in 1973 published One Man’s Wilderness, a chronicle of the construction of Dick’s cabin, which became an Alaskan classic. Then he realizes he needs a spoon to pour batter onto the griddle.
Alaska into the wilderness documentary tv#
It would be hard to script a duller TV moment, but Dick makes even tin bending compelling because what he is really doing is sidestepping the modern world, tin shears in hand. In the video nook, the crowd appears captivated. “Made a water bucket, a wash pan, a dish pan, a flour pan, and storage cans,” Dick rattles off, so that I am astonished, once again, by his productivity. “Tin-bending day.” He’s cutting down metal gasoline containers and transforming them into common household items. Who wouldn’t want to live alone in the wilderness? They don’t, as it turns out. I confess to my co-workers what seems an obvious desire: I’d love to be Dick Proenneke. Other than supply runs by the pilot Babe Alsworth, Dick will be entirely alone, just himself and his tripod-mounted camera. I was alone, just me and the animals.” As the film begins in the summer of 1968, Dick is fifty-one and preparing to build the cabin where he will live for more than thirty years. It captivates me, from its opening shot of rosy alpenglow and Dick’s calm declaration: “It was good to be back in the wilderness again.
Alaska into the wilderness documentary movie#
One of my coworkers says Alone in the Wilderness is the only movie she’s seen over and over and not come to hate. “He’s magic,” the man sighs, and I have to agree. We’ve run out of DVDs, so a gray-haired Australian buys Dick’s book. Dick is a star, with a strong presence on the park’s website and his own handout that I’m constantly photocopying since it flies off the rack in the video nook.
I dole out brochures for lands across Alaska, including Lake Clark National Park, where Dick’s cabin on the edge of Upper Twin Lake is now a historic site. It’s summer, and I’m working as a park ranger at a visitors’ center in Fairbanks. All day, every day, tourists consume Dick’s story, which continually unfolds since we keep him on auto-repeat. As the title of his film reveals, Dick Proenneke is Alone in the Wilderness, although from my spot behind the counter, I see how Dick draws a crowd: every seat in the video nook is occupied, and men-mostly older visitors who seem past their cabin-building years-stand behind the benches, arms crossed. The blade of his handsaw makes a steady sound, cutting through a peeled log stroke by stroke. National Parks ServiceĪ middle-aged man wearing a plaid shirt, denim overalls, and a white driving cap is building a cabin before a backdrop of snowy mountains and a turquoise lake. Photograph by Richard Proenneke and donated by Raymond Proenneke, U.S.