One Man's Wilderness

This morning since Caleb went back to sleep I was finally able to finish reading One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey by Sam Keith from the journals and photographs of Richard Proenneke. It was a very absorbing read, the journals cover 16 months of Proenneke's adventures and focus initially on his goal of building a cabin by himself pretty much from scratch. You can really appreciate his sense of accomplishment when he has his place complete, which in his later years he entrusted to the park service and it is open to the public. He was in his fifties when he decided to "retire" to the wilderness of Alaska in the late 1960's, which I think is remarkable, and he often notes of the joy he finds in manual labor and he hadn't felt better in a long time. Also the lack of noise from the outside mainstream world is refreshing, and you can imagine this taking place in almost any time period. Proenneke sought simplicity in nature at its purest form.

There is a documentary compiled from Dick's film footage from that time which has aired on PBS (I am glad I caught a snippet of it because that is how I heard about the book, and now I look forward to watching it in its entirety). And I am adding the twin lakes area in Alaska to my bucket list of places to see. :)