Alone in Alaska - Richard 'Dick' Proenneke

Dick Proenneke

This is just a little addendum to my last post – Castaways in the Time of Corona – as it sort of follows on from that theme. I won’t write too much about Dick Proenneke here, as the truth is I’ve only just discovered him! – Plus there’s plenty of other, much more knowledgeable websites, blog posts, and articles about him if you run a simple web search on his name.

Suffice to say here that he was a remarkable man. After an initial stint serving in the US Navy during World War Two, and later working as a diesel mechanic and then as a salmon fisherman, tough work which took its toll on him physically, he survived an accident in which an explosion of molten lead almost blinded him. That accident caused him to reassess his priorities, and so he found himself drawn towards the solitude of the natural world, wanting to make the most of his recovered eyesight. And so in 1968, at the age of 52, he retired to the Twin Lakes region of Alaska. In this truly remote part of the world he used his formidable carpentry skills to build a log cabin by himself using only hand tools. He spent the next thirty years living largely off the land, with occasional supplies flown in, spending many weeks completely alone. He documented most aspects of his life on film and in handwritten journals. Many of his records have proved useful to meteorological and wildlife researchers. When he died he stated in his Will that he wanted to leave his cabin to the US National Park Service, and as such it has been preserved as a part of Lake Clark National Park.

Dick Proenneke's Cabin as it looks today

Since his death at the age of 86 in 2003 his journals have been published, plus his film reels have been edited into several documentaries, thereby giving a wonderful window into his life isolated far out in the Alaskan wilderness in all seasons. He may have spent many years living alone, but, as his journals and films attest, he was never a hermit in the true sense of the word. In fact he appears to have been very keen to convey to people what it was like to live such a simple and self-sufficient life, isolated far from fellow human company; showing the immense joy that such simplicity entails, living in tune with one’s surroundings, not exceeding one’s needs, and respecting the natural world in which he chose to live, hundreds of miles away from the hectic, crowded cities of our modern day. It is said in one of the films made about him that people used to write letters to him from all different parts of the US and that he would reply to every one of them. Had I known about him sooner in my life I would have liked to have written to him from the UK.

Proenneke used to hang large tin cans to act as signals if any bears came sniffing about at night. He also built a food "cache" on tall stilts to keep his supplies safe from hungry bears too.

I’m definitely going to look out his books at some point, and when I do I may well return to add a few more words here. In the meantime, these clips about Dick Proenneke, made from his own film footage, give a good sense of the man and the remarkable life he led living alone in Alaska.

 Alone in the Wilderness

 Alone in the Wilderness, Part Two

Further Information

Richard L. Proenneke - The Man, The Myth, The Legend

Alone in the Wilderness

  More film clips about Dick Proenneke

One Man's Alaska