Here’s To Dick Proenneke, The Original Survivorman and One Badass Veteran [Video]

We didn’t explicitly thank our veterans today. (Thanks. Your balls swing farther most of ours ever will.) Here’s a vet to bear in mind: Dick Proenneke , who in 1968 built an Alaskan cabin by hand and lived in it for 35 years.

In a story that’s approaching legend to those around Lake Clark National Park, Dick Proenneke, a Navy vet, headed up to Alaska with a canoe, some steel tools, and sheer pluck to build a cabin next to the Twin Lakes. Proenneke didn’t even herald completed tools, but just the metal parts. If his axe needed a handle, he made one from a tree. If Proenneke needed a hammer, he made one from a hunk of spruce.

What made Proenneke even more unique than mountain men before him was his obvious love of filmmaking. He brought a brilliant 8 camera with him, filming his first year of construction. a couple of years ago, a filmmaker took Proenneke’s footage and spliced it into a movie, Alone within the Wilderness . It’s kind of 90 minutes of just watching a man building a cabin-and it’s fascinating.

The first bit of Alone within the Wilderness is on YouTube. (Linked above.) Give it a whirl. If watching a man build things out of wood doesn’t grab you within the first jiffy, it’s probably safe to claim it’s unlikely to grab you at all. But if it does, DVDs (and VHS!) are available in at DickProenneke.com .

There’s something quiet and moving about Proenneke, both in his life choices, his purposeful demeanor, or maybe just the way in which he works and the things he designs. (His wooden door hinges and lock blew my mind a bit of.) I’ll refrain from preaching too much, but there’s something right in regards to the opportunity that Proenneke made for himself: a man who served his country, become self-sufficient within the process, and used his freedom to spend the remainder of his days surrounded by the fruit of his labor.

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This post is tagged: dick proenneke, labor source, lake clark national park, life choices, mountain men, sheer pluck, steel tools