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Chuck Wintle
12-11-2011, 4:33 PM
I've watched the show about dick Proenneke many times on PBS and it amazes me why someone would want to live in the wilderness....almost entirely cut-off from family and civilization.

Gary Hodgin
12-11-2011, 4:57 PM
Someone would have to be a bit troubled or a bit nutty to do that. Or maybe he just had trouble coping with people. On the other hand, I don't see why some people apparently voluntarily choose to live in real large cities either. I like some room, but I also don't want to have to kill everything I eat, build my own home from a tree, etc.... Running water and electricity are nice too.

ray hampton
12-11-2011, 5:55 PM
why pay someone to build your house when you can build your own ?
why pay someone to harvest your food ?

Jay Rasmussen
12-11-2011, 5:55 PM
For me it’s captivating to watch. Very enjoyable series. Living in the rat race I can see the appeal of what he did.

But I like sharp carbide and single phase 220 way to much.

Ken Fitzgerald
12-11-2011, 7:30 PM
I have watched it several times. I was amazed at the guys intelligence and skills.

Mike Archambeau
12-12-2011, 6:39 PM
I've watched the show about dick Proenneke many times on PBS and it amazes me why someone would want to live in the wilderness....almost entirely cut-off from family and civilization.

Well he was a very good film maker and he picked a topic that would be unique and interesting. I think it worked! Obviously a very talented man on many fronts. Bill Mason was also a brilliant film maker and avid outdoorsman. You can check out one of his productions here: http://www.nfb.ca/playlists/bill-mason-beyond-wild-beyond-paddle/viewing/song_of_the_paddle/

These guys did an amazing job making films in harsh conditions. Remember these guys shot these on film, not digital media. And the film had to be processed and edited by cutting. BRILLIANT work and still a thrill to watch it 40+ years after it was produced.

To put something in perspective, Dick was making these films while Nixon was in the whitehouse. And the war in Vietnam was raging. Dick was enjoying the solitude of Alaska while the country was busy fighting in southeast asia. Nice to know that there was some sanity in remote places like Alaska. Dick had contact via float planes, and he had supplies brought in and his film taken out for processing. Today people trek in to see his cabin, so he still has a following even though he has since passed on. Dick was a real treasure and they will be marvelling at his films as long as people have a way to view them.

Phil Thien
12-12-2011, 8:58 PM
I've watched the show about dick Proenneke many times on PBS and it amazes me why someone would want to live in the wilderness....almost entirely cut-off from family and civilization.

My mind often races terribly at night. I often work under very tight deadlines and I'm often working right down to the wire.

When I try to sleep, I can't turn my brain off.

The one "trick" I have is to imagine living like Mr. Proenneke. Not Alaska, but northern Wisconsin. I go through the process (mentally) of building a shelter, raising some crops, hunting/fishing, chopping wood to keep warm, etc.

It always works.

So I guess I understand the guy. I think the only thing better than thinking about it, would be doing it.

Mac McQuinn
12-12-2011, 10:56 PM
When I look around me today I wonder.........I actually think the guy was right on the mark and the rest of the world is missing the point.

Mac

Ryan Mooney
12-12-2011, 11:22 PM
So I guess I understand the guy. I think the only thing better than thinking about it, would be doing it.

I'm somewhat torn on this, its not a 100% positive win, although it certainly does have a lot of nice features and sometimes I regret my current point in life.

I have a perhaps somewhat unusual perspective here, at least for my age (not quite 40). My family was completely off grid until I was about 8 and my grandparents (and then eventually my parents again after I had gone off to college they moved back) lived there until I was about 20. My dad currently has electricity for lights, but does all of his heating and cooking with wood and still cuts hay for his horses with a scythe and then rakes and hauls it by hand.

Some details:

no indoor plumbing (first ~8 years and then summers until I was around 12 or 13 I think)
no hot running water (or any running water for about 5 years once we moved into the cabin my dad built - cut one log at a time with an axe and pulled them ~2 miles off of the mountain with a team)
all heating and cooking was done with wood
we (or more accurately my Dad, uncles and grandpa) cut, raked and stacked hay for 200+ head of cattle with only horses (until my parents moved out, then granpda bought a tractor)
no road until I was 9, everything was hauled in on a (rather steep, had to chain the skids to stop the runaway) skid trail by a team or packed in on pack horses (or less so on your back)
The nearest neighbor was about 3 miles away and was over an hour by horseback. Going to town was a 6 mile walk or horse ride followed by a 2 hour drive to the small town then another 2 hours to the city (assuming the weather was good enough to get out).
We grew most of our food except for a big (in relative terms) shopping trip in the spring and then again in the fall for dry goods (sugar, salt, etc..).
lighting was kerosene which we didn't haul in a whole lot of so you kind of went to bed early (more so in the winter).
There were some good parts for sure

It was really really quiet, once the road was pushed in you knew someone was coming a bit over an hour before they got there cause you could hear them downshifting on the mountain. The noise in modern society drives me nuts. I currently work in an office where people talk ALL DAY LONG and it drives me nuts.
Life was relative simple. You knew what you were going to do in the morning and you went and did it.
Decent amount of downtime in the winter and some parts of the summer between other stuff.
we always ate well with a good garden (this was at least a good part due to my grandma/mom/aunt - more below).
There were also some parts that were less than fantastic:

It was a lot of work. I don't think I can understate this A LOT of work! For years they even cut the firewood with old fashioned crosscut saws (or bow saw/axe for the small stuff). My mom hauled water by hand for years up a pretty steep hill and it really messed up her elbows for a long time after (a yoke would have been better in hindsight).
My mom will never let me forget that she rode 6 miles over the mountain at 8.5 mos pregnant on horseback and then walked back in carrying me 2 months later (and have you ever scrubbed diapers on a scrub board? yikes!)
Ask my grandma or mom about cooking for a hungry crew over a hot wood stove all day sometime to get an earful (especially in the middle of summer when its 90+ outside). When I go to visit my grams I always try to cook/clean cause I know how much she did all those years.
If you had a problem or got hurt you kind of had to suck it up and hope it wasn't to bad. I only had one really close call there when a horse threw me and then ran over me stepping on my chest (when I was 6), luckily it slid off. I shudder to think of all of the chances the older folks had though (ever been on a dump rake behind a runaway team? well hang onto your hat cause that may be all that's left of you once its done).
You bath less (a lot less) when you have to haul the water and chop the wood for it. After a short while you don't notice smell and stuff, but I'm kind of addicted to hot showers now that I can have them :D. When getting sufficient hot water is that expensive you also share the (small) tub in turns, not everyone is totally cool with that idea nowadays.
No real outside contact (plus or minus you decide - heh). If someone wanted to get a hold of us there was a service where the local area CBC station would read messages over the air. We managed to pickup the radio by virtue of a 100'+ wire as an antenna and batteries were expensive to haul in so you only listened to the news once or twice a day.
no refrigeration, so limited options as far as meat, milk, etc.. in the summer (dried, canned or fresh). Generally we had lots of veggies then and caught a few fish or killed a small animal like a chicken mostly.
you needed something you kind of had to make it (again plus or minus) or wait for the next trip to town. We made a lot of things on the forge or otherwise cobbled stuff together. Sometimes when things broke they could be down 3-4+ months until we could get out to get the part (no trips to the local hw store). You kept spares of really critical items (and minimized your definition of critical).
Books, heavy to haul in, precious to have (I do love my books).
There's more of course, but I'll stop boring you. The bottom line is that its not all roses and has its own set of tradeoffs. Personally I didn't mind it all that much and could lower my requirements to fit, but loml has set some rather stringent guidelines on any property we get including: hot running water, electricity, internet, etc.. which sort of limits my options there :rolleyes:

I'm pretty sure I could have inherited the place, but I had already moved to the states, got a job, etc.. so it never happened. At the time I thought of what a boatload of work it was, now I wonder if I wouldn't have ended up happier in the end. Who knows, you can't do it over and you can only regret what you didn't do, not what you did.

Mike Henderson
12-13-2011, 12:15 AM
Thanks for your posting, Ryan. I grew up on a farm. It was a lot of work and isolated. I always told my dad that if anything got me through college it was the fear that if I flunked out, I'd have to go back to the farm. City dwellers who romanticize farm life need to live it for a year or two. That would cure them forever.

Mike

Jim Matthews
12-13-2011, 6:30 AM
There are two things not mentioned in the Proenneke movies; mosquitos and baked goods.

In the bush, there's too much of one, not enough of the other.
There are many reasons that the bulk of human population lives in cities, fresh bagels being one.

Larry Edgerton
12-13-2011, 6:38 AM
Very interesting Ryan. You are right, there are not many in your age bracket that can tell that story.

After I was out of school my parents moved to a place in the Upper Peninsula that had no power/inside running water and lived there for quite a few years. Every time I would go there it made me question the folley of what I was fighting to achieve and still does.

My wife and I are in the process of simplifing our lives now, not going off of the grid mind you, but cutting way back on the amount of hours that we do battle to gain things we do not really need.

Interesting indeed.......

Thank you, Larry

Belinda Barfield
12-13-2011, 9:25 AM
Fascinating, Ryan! Thanks for posting.

Over about the last six months or so I have had this incredible urge to move back to "the country". I don't believe I could live in true isolation, but I can tolerate my own company for long stretches of time as long as I have books. I do tend to talk to myself, but heck, I do that in a room full of people.

Ryan, I completely get the bath thing. We lived with my grandfather for a little while. No bathroom, wood stove, hand pump for water. A tornado came through in '73 or so and a tree fell on the back half of the house. When that part of the house was rebuilt grandpa put in a new kitchen and a bathroom. My uncle and my dad dug the hole for the septic tank with shovels. Prior to the bathroom addition I took a bath in a washtub in front of the fireplace, and yep, the tub got shared. We "went to town" to sell tobacco at the warehouse and stock up on staples at the end of tobacco season when grandpa had money, otherwise we made do.

alex grams
12-13-2011, 9:35 AM
Another great similar story is of a guy named Heimo Korth. He has lived in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge since the 1970's (before ANWR was created).

Here is a link to a segment on him:

http://www.vice.com/far-out/heimos-arctic-refuge-1-of-5

I think the best part of the show is the crew/interviewer said to him:

Interviewer: I always thought that when we got up here that you would be some old grumpy man who didn't like being around other people.

Korth: Nah, you would have to be crazy to not like being around people. The soul needs other people like the body needs food.

Phil Thien
12-13-2011, 9:58 AM
I'm somewhat torn on this, its not a 100% positive win, although it certainly does have a lot of nice features and sometimes I regret my current point in life.

Outstanding post, Ryan.

When I was growing up I spent my summers (and sometimes parts of Winter) in the upper parts of Wisconsin.

When I said I'd like to live like Mr. Proenneke, I should have qualified that. I would like the solitude, but I'd want electricity, and a well (running water).

My wife and I started our own business in 1988. In 23 years, I have not had more than four days off in a row. In all those 23 years, I have probably not taken more than about five weeks off all totalled.

So the solitude looks real attractive to me sometimes.

Belinda Barfield
12-13-2011, 11:19 AM
My wife and I started our own business in 1988. In 23 years, I have not had more than four days off in a row. In all those 23 years, I have probably not taken more than about five weeks off all totalled.

So the solitude looks real attractive to me sometimes.

Right there with you Phil, but only since 2001.

Mike Cruz
12-13-2011, 11:30 AM
The more time I spend around people, the more what he did makes sense...

Zach England
12-13-2011, 2:38 PM
why pay someone to build your house when you can build your own ?
why pay someone to harvest your food ?

Because I am averse to doing difficult manual labor?

mike holden
12-13-2011, 4:42 PM
Chuck, as to why someone would choose to live away from family and civilization, that person may have a schizoid (NOT schizophrenic, thats entirely different) personality. Schizoids do well as lighthouse keepers, firetower rangers, and surprisingly - surgeons.
The only reason I know this, as that is what I was diagnosed as having. And yes, I wanted to be a surgeon when I was younger.
Mike

Gary Hodgin
12-13-2011, 7:21 PM
Because I am averse to doing difficult manual labor?

I'm with Adam Smith, markets complete with specialization and division of labor are good things.:)

Zach England
12-13-2011, 9:23 PM
I'm with Adam Smith, markets complete with specialization and division of labor are good things.:)

While I agree, my position has more to do with my general pusillanimity than it does with economic theory. I grew up a coddled suburban boy who never really had to get my hands dirty, so now getting my hands dirty is recreation--not something I have the fortitude to do for my own survival.

ray hampton
12-13-2011, 9:30 PM
While I agree, my position has more to do with my general pusillanimity than it does with economic theory. I grew up a coddled suburban boy who never really had to get my hands dirty, so now getting my hands dirty is recreation--not something I have the fortitude to do for my own survival.


HUH,your hands never been dirty ? well I want to shake your hand, as soon as I wash my hands

ray hampton
12-13-2011, 9:58 PM
we do not need to travel to Alaska to live like this, there are still places in the lower 48 states where we can live this way today if we are able-body

Bill Cunningham
12-13-2011, 10:10 PM
I'm somewhat torn on this, its not a 100% positive win, although it certainly does have a lot of nice features and sometimes I regret my current point in life.

I have a perhaps somewhat unusual perspective here, at least for my age (not quite 40). My family was completely off grid until I was about 8 and my grandparents (and then eventually my parents again after I had gone off to college they moved back) lived there until I was about 20. My dad currently has electricity for lights, but does all of his heating and cooking with wood and still cuts hay for his horses with a scythe and then rakes and hauls it by hand.

Where abouts was home back then Ryan?

John Coloccia
12-13-2011, 10:24 PM
You know, there are some days I would kill to just make most everyone vanish. Sometimes I watch a futuristic, apocalyptic movie and realize that the only reason they all have zombie mutants is to add some drama to an otherwise peaceful existence. LOL.

As it is, I sort of live off in the woods, but I'm only 25 minutes away from Hartford, CT so it's a nice mix of rural and city. The concept of "gee, it would be nice to just get away from everything" gets old really quickly when you're in Europe, Sunday rolls around and you suddenly realize that EVERYTHING is closed. AHHHHHHH!! I'm not much for roughing it, apparently.

Zach England
12-13-2011, 10:39 PM
Where do those people get sushi? Indian food? Pfft!

Ryan Mooney
12-14-2011, 12:32 AM
I have not had more than four days off in a row. In all those 23 years, I have probably not taken more than about five weeks off all totalled.

So the solitude looks real attractive to me sometimes.


That's about the main reasons I've been a corporate shill for ~20 years, I get vacation and someone else sweats running the business side. I've never had quite enough umption to strike out on my own, but I have every bit of respect for those of you that have.

As I noted I can certainly appreciate the sentiment on getting away from it all though. I guess it comes in degrees :cool:. I do spend a bit of time myself looking at real estate ads for largish chunks of more remote land in various out of the way spots with an eye for eventual semi-retirement.


Where abouts was home back then Ryan?

Central B.C. on the Fraser River The closest town was Clinton B.C. and the city was Kamloops B.C. We lived here
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=51.147802,-122.068927&num=1&t=h&vpsrc=6&z=15&source=gplus-ogsb until I was about 8 and then moved out to a Ranch just south of Clinton until I was about 16. Apparently there's a wheel line there now, sigh (I guess it must be gas powered, last I heard there was still no electricity). We did all flood irrigation from ditches which I kind of enjoyed (boys playing in mud I suppose, but Dad preferred it to sprinklers as well, we both hated moving sprinklers).

My folks grew up further north around a place called Aniham Lake B.C.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=52.470443,-125.314579&num=1&t=h&vpsrc=0&z=12&source=gplus-ogsb
I'm not even going to try to figure out where the ranches there are, its been to long since I've been. That area was really rough (and closer to the OP's Alaskan reference; -60F in the winter, cutting hay once the swamp had frozen to ice so the - even light horse drawn - machinery didn't sink, etc..). Both my grandmothers were from big cities and married cowboys and then they moved out to (as far as I know) the last place in North America you could actually homestead, to this day I have no idea how they managed to adapt, I suppose the delta wasn't quite as big back in the late 40s early 50's but its still a pretty big change.


There are two things not mentioned in the Proenneke movies; mosquitos and baked goods.

Heh, amen on that, mosquitos weren't to bad down where I was at because it was pretty dry, but up north they were beyond horrible, like a thick veil when you waved your hands around. You were glad when it got cold enough to freeze them out. The ticks would also get crazy bad. I remember one year they were so bad we saw a deer with blood literally running off of its sides from them (that was the worst year most folks could remember).

Belinda Barfield
12-14-2011, 7:03 AM
Both my grandmothers were from big cities and married cowboys and then they moved out to (as far as I know) the last place in North America you could actually homestead, to this day I have no idea how they managed to adapt, I suppose the delta wasn't quite as big back in the late 40s early 50's but its still a pretty big change.


You'd be surprised how adaptable women (and men) can be when we have no other choice. I'm sure there were days that your grandmothers just sat down and had a good cry, but when all is said and done, cryin' don't bake the biscuits. I think one of the biggest fears for women in that situation is childbirth and medical care for their children. As you stated earlier, if you get hurt hopefully it's no serious, and if it isn't you just deal with it and move on.

I've really enjoyed reading your posts in this thread.

Oh, and Zach . . . you might want to work on those survival skills a bit, otherwise you'll be one of the first ones the zombies get.

Mike Archambeau
12-14-2011, 8:51 AM
Another great wilderness video: http://ultimatebushcraft.com/2010/05/canoeing-bushcraft-style-ray-mears/

Yes it involves: bugs, baked goods, beavers, bushcraft, and beauty.............................

Phil Thien
12-14-2011, 9:08 AM
You'd be surprised how adaptable women (and men) can be when we have no other choice.

There is apparently a move of younger couples INTO farming. For the first time in decades, they say, more and more young couples are becoming farmers.

Belinda Barfield
12-14-2011, 9:33 AM
There is apparently a move of younger couples INTO farming. For the first time in decades, they say, more and more young couples are becoming farmers.

In this area we are seeing a LOT of young families who aren't necessarily going into farming, but are interested in being self sufficient. Lots of back yard gardens, container gardening, back to the basics of making cheese and soap, etc. I'm attending the South Georgia Growing Local conference in January. Topics include include things like

Wild Fermentation
Perennial Crops for Food Security: What Grows in South Georgia
Vermiculture: What Worm Castings Can Do For You

It's being held at the Vidalia Onion and Vegetable Research Center - love Vidalia Onions.

Zach England
12-14-2011, 10:28 AM
I have chickens and a every spare inch of my .09 acre lot is garden.

Larry Edgerton
12-14-2011, 6:16 PM
I always had one farm or another but after a catastropic divorce I have not had a garden for about ten years. I so miss it!

Part of the new shop/home complex will be a large garden just outside my bedroom window with a greenhouse on the nord side and a cyclone/electric fence to keep out the deer/elk/rabbitts/raccoon/etc.

I have wanted this all in one situation for a long time, but it is the garden that I am most excited about.

Larry

Peter Elliott
12-14-2011, 9:51 PM
I truly enjoyed Alone in the Wilderness. I think Dick did say something about the bugs at one point being horrible. It was also mentioned that he would return to see his family once in awhile.

I envy the man's will and determination.

Growing up in rural northern VT, there wasn't much other than a few churches, farms and a good distance to a real store. As a kid, it may have been more work, boring at times, etc. But when I reflect back, it taught me a lot. I don't think you have to be a farmer to experience the rural life.

Myk Rian
12-15-2011, 8:12 AM
I've watched the show about dick Proenneke many times on PBS and it amazes me why someone would want to live in the wilderness....almost entirely cut-off from family and civilization.
Anti-social?

Chuck Wintle
12-15-2011, 10:29 AM
Anti-social?

or tired of other human beings?

ray hampton
12-15-2011, 3:29 PM
Anti-social?

he not anti-social but he did trade one social for a better social