Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Dick Proenneke legal question

I haven't been able to find out if he owned the land where he built his cabin. It's now inside a Nat Park but the park didn't exist in the 60's when he moved there. A lot's changed in 50 years. I don't know the homestead laws in AK but I doubt that you can just find a spot and start building. I also assume that many of the current homestead rules didn't exist in the 60's.
So, how did he buy or get permission to build or did he just do it without asking?

Don't hold me to this, but I thought I remembered reading he got a mining claim that allowed him to "work" that area?

You could homestead in Alaska up until the mid 70’s.

Not sure if that was the route he took though.

He did not own the land or have any legal right to it. He was a squatter, and very luckily was allowed to live there until he got too old. My dad met with him many times trying to figure out a solution for him. Dicksorta moved in there under the radar back in the good old days. That would not happen now.

It was quite common in those days to go out in the bush and build a cabin or trapping shack. BLM has burned many of em and the state requires old trap lone cabins to be registered.

We had a similar guy in Idaho named Sylvan Hart, aka Buckskin Bill. He lived a little earlier than Dick. He built a cabin in a remote area along the Salmon River and lived there for about 50 years the same way. He owned his land, though. He bought 50 acres during the depression and had the deed. I don't know who he bought it from. In the 50's, the forest svc made the whole area into a primitive area and they tried to evict him. All hell broke loose. Hart's cabin was made of stone and he added a gun turret on top to defend himself. He was determined to protect his land if he had to die to do it. The forest svc eventually backed down before someone got shot. They wrote a regulation that he could live there until he died. He had some family and I don't know who got the deed but they probably eminent domained them out of it. Like Dick's cabin, Hart's is now a museum. You have to float down the Salmon River to get to it, though.

I have no idea what the rules for mining claims are today, but when Proenneke filed a mining claim many years a go, he would have been allowed to build a cabin on the claim, so long as he "proved up" on the claim a certain amount each year. The rules then were somewhat less stringent then than now.

Maybe some of our mining posters here know what they are today. (??)

L.W.

Found a couple of links that explain it if they are true.

https://www.nps.gov/lacl/learn/historyculture/richard-l-proenneke.htm

Proenneke arrived at the Carrither's on Upper Twin Lake in 1967 at the age of 51 determined to scout out the best construction site for his own cabin. The ideal location was 200 yards west of the Carrither's guest cabin. Another friend from Kodiak, Herb Wright, had applied for a Small Track Lease on the site in 1960; however, in a sad turn of events, Wright became terminally ill. He encouraged Proenneke to use the site instead. That summer Proenneke harvested spruce trees and in 1968 he began construction on what would become his cabin and wilderness home during the next thirty years.

https://www.npca.org/articles/1487-reflections-on-a-man-in-his-wilderness#:~:text=Proenneke%20left%20Twin%20Lakes%20in%201998%2C%20when%20he,it%20became%20part%20of%20Lake%20Clark%20National%20Monument.

Proenneke left Twin Lakes in 1998, when he was 82, to move in with his brother in California. He donated his log cabin and most of his possessions to the National Park Service, which had managed the area since 1978, when it became part of Lake Clark National Monument. (He never had valid title to the land, but some park administrators consider the cabin a gift nonetheless.)

He was only 200 yards from the other cabin? The PBS show made it look like it was a long way.

At one time, I had a video tape of the film he made while building his cabin. It was very unique. It was all hand tools. Apparently, he had flown in the year before, cut the timber to build the cabin and allowed it to season before returning to build his cabin.
IIRC, there was no discussion in the film about the ownership of the property or if it was a homestead or some other such arrangement. (?)
Again, IIRC, he was in his 40's when he built the cabin and stayed in it into his 80's. Thirty five or 36 years best I remember.

Curious.

believing anything thats filmed is dangerous. Ya know those folks down by Homer on TV live in the bush... LMAO.

Its another reason we watch very little if any mainstream TV and damn sure no news sports or weather.

In reading his journals he said himself he was allowed 5 acres by the homestead act. He marked that 5 acres out himself with post in the ground at all four corners. One requirement was that he had to live there one full year after building his cabin and after that time he was to pay, I think, $5.00 an acre to the state of Alaska. When he left, according to the video and his journals he entrusted his property to the park division and had free reign to go back any time he wanted. It never hurt his cause to be best friends with Jay Hammond, governor of Alaska at one time and the park service people loved him.

[quote=MartinStrummer]At one time, I had a video tape of the film he made while building his cabin. It was very unique. It was all hand tools. Apparently, he had flown in the year before, cut the timber to build the cabin and allowed it to season before returning to build his cabin.
IIRC, there was no discussion in the film about the ownership of the property or if it was a homestead or some other such arrangement. (?)
Again, IIRC, he was in his 40's when he built the cabin and stayed in it into his 80's. Thirty five or 36 years best I remember.

Dick was 52 when he built the cabin.

The lunatic in the leather jacket? You mean that’s not real either?

From what I've read, he worked in AK for a number of years. He probably started saving for his retirement in his 40's but he retired at 51 and started scouting out a location for a cabin.

I watched a video of him building the cabin that showed something I've never read about - the roof. He didn't restrict himself to native materials. He framed it then covered it with black visqueen under the moss and other stuff he used. Protected from the sun,heavy visqueen would have lasted many years.