Cool Hand Tools

My brother Pat wrote me:

Check out “Alone in the Wilderness” featuring Dick Proenneke living alone in Alaska. It’s on our PBS affiliates a lot here (in Florida). He is a true pioneer, a 1960′s “maker” at work, building everything by hand, using tools he made. He has no electricity. Shoots it all on his Brownie camera. Awesome techniques he demonstrates!

I especially like how he builds handles for his tools. Proenneke says that building a cabin in the wilderness was just “something he had to do” and by doing it test himself. The YouTube video below covers ten minutes of the show and shows him building a cabin just before winter sets in.

According to an article about him in Wikipedia,

Proenneke remained at Twin Lakes for the next 16 months, when he left to go home for a time to visit relatives and secure more supplies. He returned to the lakes in the following spring and remained there for most of the next 30 years, going to the lower 48 only occasionally to be with his family.

He passed away in 2003. The complete set of his videos are available.

Ever dream of living alone in the wilderness? I have, especially after reading “Call of the Wild” but I would not be able to do it. Now I can vicariously through Dick Proenneke, and idly sit by and watch him do it all. Incredible.

11 Responses to Cool Hand Tools

Rob on February 25th, 2012 at 4:24 pm said:

This guy was the real deal. I loved these videos. Makes you feel completly inadequate in your wood working abilities (but in a good way)

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Keith From Canada on February 25th, 2012 at 8:49 pm said:

‘My Side Of The Mountain‘ was what stirred my interest in bush living, back when I was 8 or 9.

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- Josh from Syracuse on February 27th, 2012 at 4:34 am said:
  
  Yes! One of my favorite books of all time!
  
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-_- on February 26th, 2012 at 5:04 am said:

Good Job !

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Rubber Powerwhyte on February 26th, 2012 at 6:39 am said:

It takes a lot of calories to make a cabin.

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skr on February 26th, 2012 at 9:12 am said:

I love that film. That guy is one of my heroes.

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David Kavanagh on February 26th, 2012 at 5:42 pm said:

I saw this on my local PBS station a month or two ago. It was excellent! He has some serious skills with the saw!

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Daniel Kim on February 27th, 2012 at 7:54 am said:

I saw this years and years ago on TV. I kind of stumbled on it, and was completely captured by his slow narrative style and gentle humor. I did not catch the title or the guy’s name, and TV being what it was, there was no way for me to see it again. I am grateful that it is available on YouTube.

In later decades, other films have been made to document life in the wilderness, but they have either been idealized into the realm of fantasy (with friendly bears and lots of time spent in grassy meadows) or shown as some kind of grim, macho man-against-hostile-nature deathmatch challenge. This film is so straightforward and low-key, with no agenda. Just a guy with an axe and a camera, pretty much.

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Christopher Gosnell on February 27th, 2012 at 10:07 am said:

I saw this series some time ago. I was amazed at how he was constantly looking ahead to future projects, like when he was collecting stones for a chimney, and collecting root ‘knees’ for door hinges. He was doing all of this, and also hunting / fishing, harvesting wood for fires, etc…

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eldphm on February 28th, 2012 at 10:13 am said:

We have courses here in Sweden to learn how to build this kind of houses, this kind of knowledge must be saved for the coming generations because the guys that did it as a profession are easily counted nowadays.

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Steven on February 28th, 2012 at 3:59 pm said:

This would be an awesome setup if other like-minded people lived within walking distance to keep company from time to time. Cabin fever might set in for some of us otherwise!

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