One Man's Alaska (2024) - Dick Proenneke In His Own Voice Living Alone In a Wilderness Log Cabin

so if you don't know who dick preni was you probably should not only did he single-handedly build a cabin in the Alaskan Wilderness with no chainsaw or power tools of any kind he lived there alone year round for three decades during this time he hiked thousands of miles a year he befriended the small animals he even rescued a baby carabo who lost its mother nursed it with the powdered milk in his cabin he fished and forged for his food he crawled into bare hibernation dens just because I guess that's what you do when you live out in the wilderness with no electricity before video games or the internet he fended off at least one grizzly bear attack and walked away unscathed even survived a plane crash dick preni lived a remarkable life mostly in solitude we know this because he documented it with Daily Journal entries and a windup movie camera long before for rechargeable batteries for YouTube or Instagram or Tik Tok today we would call him a content creator in 1977 a National Park Service film called one man's Alaska showcased dick Ken's Wildlife photography and his self-reliant way of life unlike later documentaries this one features dick in his own voice not dramatized readings from his journals the updated and enhanced version you're about to see is meant to bring Dick's sty of old school cool to those who might be turned off by the dated original version be honest I had a hard time getting through it myself but technology has come a long way in the last 50 years so even if you've seen this one before you haven't seen it like this with enhanced picture and sound all new music and uh informative factoids peppered throughout right now I'm the same age that dick was when he moved into his cabin up North but I'm no backwoodsman I'm more of a aspiring backyard home Homesteader like we can't all run off and move to Alaska I built this cabin myself but I uh I use power tools and got my materials from the store up the road watch my other videos for more about that dick preni he was the OG bigger than life guy in a tiny house so now without any further delay here's dick preni in one man's Alaska and stick around to the very end for some additional footage of Dick's very last visit to the cabin as an old man you won't be [Music] disappointed dick Reni first came to Alaska in 1950 after spending some years on Kodiak as a diesel mechanic and heavy equipment operator he found a new home 12 Air Miles Southwest of Anchorage is a small Alaskan Valley called Twin Lakes with the help of a tripod mounted timer controlled camera he filmed himself building a cabin literally carving a new life in the environment we spent two weeks with dick One Summer and found a man with little need to advertise his inner reaction to the Wilderness his Oneness with nature is an experience rather than an [Music] expression well the reason I decided to come in more or less fulltime was in um 1965 I was helping um welder for a babit bearing on a RB boat we had a big lad of molten babit metal we poured in here we poured in about cupful and uh there was a big explosion and all this B metal come out just like snow it was molten lead and hit me in the face and him and face and it got in my eyes pretty bad and uh for a short time they didn't know if I was going to see very much but in 3 days I went back to work but I couldn't see very good and especially from my right eye and I was testing every night to see if it was improving and it was several years before I recovered completely from that I decided that I would quit this racket of going B at metal and that sort of thing and working with dirt falling in your eyes from under heavy CL that and I would go to Twin Lakes and build me a cabin and and enjoy my heading [Music] there my my logs were well seasoned and I would say about a third lighter than they was when I backed them to dry I worked uh 12 hours a day 6 days a week and U in 10 days time I had the heavy logs [Music] [Music] up [Music] I I think there's a lot of satisfaction in in having everything that you made yourself like even your doores and everything cut her out buy it with with the tools you [Music] got [Music] I'm mve in AUST the first there was still work to be done but uh it would few of us pass even a day without seeing another person for dick the isolation can often last 6 weeks or more we wondered what it would be like to live so alone you want better come on wa I can't say that I was ever ever lonely I was always i b always had something going to activations to make or wood to cut or letters to write or something it seemed that U the time was was short to get everything done [Music] the canoe is by Transportation on the on the lakes and sumwhere it's much easier than hiking the beach if the wind isn't blowing if the wind's blowing of course you got to walk the beach but in good weather why you can carry a good Lo and travel a much great distance if we can Mo that again on [Applause] [Applause] fo I've never had any trouble with the canoe on the lake but if I did it would probably be the last time because this water is very cold and I doubt that if I was 200 yards from Shore that I would make it to shore I find that a person alone is much more cars than when you have someone with you because you know that they you mess up why that's it in the morning when you check your why if if if there are clouds and there moving at a rapid rate even though it's problem in the lake sometime during the day this wind is reach the lake surface and you'd be in trouble with the Comm I would aim to when that direction th if the wind did come I could ride with it to them back [Music] and there is a five star pile up on the expressway traffic to reot [Applause] to to me the step that comes radio these days just out of tune with to makes sense how how does it sound all the problem the world got in place like that I just couldn't see it I didn't want to hear it I why this this is pretty nice here that's not one oh it's like an old F an told me he says uh people go up here from the states and they say GE it's nice here no hu bust and really take it easy and he said they're not here 30 B until they're trying to make it like it was where they came [Music] from and well you have pretty much all the game you have sheep you have bear and carou and moose and many places have more of each but not all of it so that makes Twin Lakes a little bit special [Music] I have think to go on the mountain unless there's a good be bit come or just a very light Beast why you can't get closer to what he'll about you later if you got a good steady Beast One Direction where you can get view close to been 100 ft or even L without the bear detect you the AR the mountain they could gone he would be you know at the end of the show man the two bears that I um observed through the winner they went one went in October the 10th and 11 went in about October the 27th the last one was uh a s that went in and when she came out on May the 2nd with twin Cubs she had been in there since October the 27th I figured it was 6 months and letter that she'd been in the [Music] den back to the bear system in summer uh get up early and go late and in the winter it's just the opposite go to B at 8:00 and get up at 8:00 when you live down in the valley you know and you got mountains all around you can't be out and to climb once in a while and get up on top and look across top see new country and and such a that I think is a it's a good feeling I mean you're you don't feel like you're isolated or anything like that you know just you can [Music] see Dick's camera is poet's pin his eye caught the smallest elements of the vast beauty of the [Music] land you me climb eye on the M like that and maybe you'll find maybe just one little flower of a certain and just one then you walk for hour and not see another they should wor out that one Little Flower peer there I [Music] around well he cone Fe P of the cone and that is what he is AR he picks the p and and talk up that little seed [Music] [Music] and from I uh I pred quite a bit I lived on trout to a great extent for meat and and berries but I didn't kill any big game because for one man it's too much too much meat too much would go to waste during the first winter I'd spent at Twin Lake I'd cut a hole in the lake ice to get water for cabu on one occation I decided to do some uh ice fishing so i b h and uh dropped it in and and I went out about a an hour later and I had a nice uh Big L cop I pulled him out and put him in a deban and went to around a while and took him back out s back again I I just felt it that a good place for him found there nice right bling you [Music] anyway or after mid August you'll begin to see those red redes and maybe a few yellows of the B from popper and by the middle of September when any colors are used the [Music] B what I noticed most about the PA colors that uh T Lake country was was the the amount of red in the colors Reds and greens and Browns yellow but predominantly red and on one side of the lake on the south flope more predominant color yellow because of the fals and popper and and trees of that sort and on the other side it's predominantly red because B Birch and and a blueberry blueberry name [Music] the cabu is an animal of the Open Country he likes to eat up on the High rids where the bees blow keep the insects away Al she might not see him from all Sumer until running season and then he loses all his good sense and comes right out and he open and pray to nobody and that's when hunting season opens and that's end the hit somebody's looking for with anything with any game cheap or C or moose or bear just get in there get your pictures and right them around [Music] just the b c are really right about September to 15 they might last for a week in that condition the men suddenly they turn bound and then you might get a a a good dusting at snow just enough to make the countryside look [Music] gray and then around October the 1st The Creeks might start freeze along the edge and snow creeps down the mountainsides and and by the 10th of October it can look like winter and uh we be freezing up and waterfalls freezing and uh you can uh figure on the winter setting in soon after October [Music] 10th [Music] winter Frozen Beauty 50 below what would dick day perhaps [Music] curiosity I was always anxious to get down after good snow because the day after snow you you know who lives in the country when you're out or snow shoing and uh you see tracks you can uh well you can determine the concentration of rabbits where they are and if you see a good number of rabbit tracks usually there's the tracks the links cat which is bed on the rabbit and tracks to the B and the Wolverine he run to [Music] circuit [Music] [Music] during the Bel winter especially there was sever eight rabbits that congregated close to my cabin they went down just move in and stay and you'd move out a few hundred yards and you'd see very few tracks and it appeared that they both that they were safeer there because of the box and the link cat well they just gathered around clst and stay throughout the [Music] winter I knew the serman was in the wood pile and so I went for the a scrap of eight to talk to woodlog beer and see if I could get him out for pictures put the me on wood dog and then went for my camera again when I came back sure enough he was there and and El when he gets a taste of blood he becomes very bold and it was no problem to get good [Music] puding the first winter I was there throughout the winter the ice was groaning and cracking continually just day and night the ice was just just talking something trouble when the ice is Young and thin and breathing hard why it has a sharp sharp crack to it a sharp report and the Y go thicker it gets deeper and when it get 4T thick well then it's very low [Music] key [Music] during the short be of winter sun is very low it fails to uh like my cabin from November the 7th which until February the 3rd but you find the mountain across the lake and of course there the sun is very low but it does uh clear the mountain and uh shine on the slope where the Sheep are feeding and this gives the the snow and the general appearance landscape a kind of a a Rosy Glow when snow comes and fall of course the Sheep are there for the winter and uh they must uh either dig or starve and so they uh they dig like a a horse or a domestic sheep they will fall the front foot then cover feet and and then eat and move [Music] forward [Music] [Music] [Music] B [Music] the Ice Break Up is a is a great event in the wilderness because it uh means the end of a Long Winter after about 7 months you are really happy to see the ice [Music] s during the V the pigan is is white but as spring approaches he began his change from white to Brown first his head and neck and then you will seeck or round feathers about his [Music] body and eventually he will be a brown bird which is his summer [Music] color [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] well I think the kellu is is bothered more by insects than any other big game animal in next country the infects B them to such an extent that U they would just take off and run sometimes in One Direction and then just turn around and run in other direction just to create a breeze to get rid of these insects about the first days of summer that's when the big her Wars you cows and cows and there's some Bulls in The Bu from this big her small bunch of Wills s off and come up to into twin L country up along the Lower Lake the Upper Lake and up into the the high mountains above after the snow is gone in the Low Country they go to the eye country to rest on the snow patches up there where the insects are not a not [Music] about in order to get folks I uh aim to move while they're moving because they only detect movement if they're moving when you're moving they won't notice you but if they're standing still and you move they'll spot you right away noru will will lie down and often times they'll stretch out and lay flat you I've seen maybe a br of a dozen that would just just lay out plat and you would swear that they was all [Music] dead after weeks of isolation on Twin Lakes dick shifts to his own time when the sun is directly in line with the edge of his have a mountain peak behind his house it's 12 noon each of us creates our own world dick has found a place and a lifestyle that put him in touch with the rhythm of Earth and life it's kind of hard to come out civilization and and falling again you know into the way you think oh you know after You' been you get to be a brush rack dick PR lived alone in Alaska from 1968 to 1998 at the age of 82 dick pck his health began to fail so he reluctantly left the cabin to live with his brother Jake in California dick returned to Twin legs for one last visit in [Music] 2000 [Music] he was loved and respected by Park Rangers and those who knew him best but dick never married or had any children he died in 2003 at the age of 86 with his brother by his [Music] side dick donated the cabin to the National Park Service where it ranged today mostly as he left [Music] it in 2006 it was added to the National register of historic places for its historical cultural [Music] significance to me it's just simple living one day to the next you know that need hard to do people still journey to visit Dick's cabin seeking meaning and inspiration the same pristine and breathtaking environment he thought of as heaven on Earth [Music] a

Channel: Big Guy In a Tiny House

Views: 711,648

Keywords: Preneki, Prennecki, Pronneke, Pernacki, Prineke, Pronicky, Prenicky, Proeniki, Preniki, Pronneki, Proenike, Prenike, Proneki, Pronekey, Prenekey, Prenakey, Pronenki, Prenenki, Proenekey, Proennecke, Pronenke, Proenke, Prenenke, Prenke, Proenek, Prenek, Pronecke, Prenecke, Proneke, Preneke, Proennekey, Proeneky, Preneky, Prinicky, Priniki, Prineki, Prinike, prinekey, prinakey, prinecki, prinecke, prineke, prineky

Id: PaBxxl6ZTTE

Length: 30min 36sec (1836 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 01 2023