Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Alone in the Wilderness...

....is on Alaska One right now. A little late to say so, sorry. I love watching it, every time it's on.

Jeff

The book that chronicles Dick Proenneke's move into the Alaskan wilderness is a classic called "One Man's Wilderness".

Dick's craftsmanship is beyond compare...no power tools, no chainsaw, no outboard on the canoe...not even a manufactured wood burner to heat the cabin. He's amazing. The Sourdough way of making a home in the Bush. I've owned the book for 30 years and still marvel at his way of life. He could make anything and make it beautiful.

If you see the PBS program, notice the "guns" on the guy. He had massive arms, and they were from work, not from weight lifting, or Barry Bonds juice.

for the ones of us that like to dream,what does some of this wilderness land sell for.

Proenneke's cabin is in what is now Lake Clark National Park. I think he had re-visitation rights until he died some years ago.

rebel, if you want to amuse yourself, go to remoteproperties.com and look around, price from a few thousand per acre to several hundred thouusand per fraction of an acre.

He was one rugged SOB, that show is a classic.

there is another move made by bob swerer that has dick in it when he was 76 years young. the movie is not about dick but he is in it alot. thought the movie was as good as alone in the wilderness. the name is Alaska sicence & solitude.dick does have a motor on his canoe but he was 76 years young so i think we can cut him a brake.they show him make a river crossing. all he does is take off his pants and put on a old pair of boots to cross a river that is flowing at a good speed and is almost hip deep. at 76 that is impressive to say the least who knows what the water temp was but i am guessing cold.

I love that show. I think they (PBS) showed a second movie of Dick's which I only saw a fraction of. I saw a Canadian documentary of Tommy Tompkins who lived in rural BC which was similar.

Not to hijack the thread, but does anyone know of any other good non-fiction wilderness movies/documentaries or books?

I like "The Silence of the North" by Olive Frederickson. Also have 3 books by Martha Reben written about her life in the Adirondacks in the 1930s; she wrote them in the 1950s. You can search her name.
If you like cowboy stuff, Rich Hobson wrote three books about opening up the interior of BC to a large cattle operation in the mid '30s into the 40s.

elebean
I am addicted to the kind of books you are looking for and some of the ones I have liked are "Three Against the Wilderness" by Eric Collier, all of Any Russell's books, "Grass Beyond the Hills" by I don't remember who.
Royce

Hi Royce. Rich Hobson's first book was "Grass Beyond the Mountains", is that one you liked? Where the 2 Americans went into central BC and started a cow-calf operation just before WW II?

I enjoyed reading Andy Russel, too.

Just finishing up a story of Frank Glaser's life called "Alaska's Wolf Man" by Jim Rearden. Rearden's own life story is really amazing, too.

I loved that book! He sure liked his 06!

I knew Tommy Thompkins slightly, fine guy and excellent photographer, I worked 40 years ago with a good friend of his in the BC bush. I have read about all of the books listed here and would say something.

The kind of life that these books portray is/was nothing particularly special back in the day; most of these people were not even "pioneers" in the true sense of that term. I lived in many log shacks with wood stoves, no running water and an outhouse for years as did many of my buddies and our grandparents and greatgrandparents opened up B.C. during the 1870s to the 1930s, Americans like Hobson were newcomers and the REAL pioneer ranchers were British who started in the 1860s.

I also met Andy Russell a couple of times, a sincere guy and genuine conservationist, but, Andy was first and foremost a story-teller and a hell of a good hand at promoting himself and his points of view. I respected him, but, I REALLY think that his anti-hunting son, Charlie, who is a couple years older than I am, is THE Grizzly guru of the clan and a fascinating character in his own right.

Olive Fredricken's books simply detail what all of our families coped with during the "Dirty Thirties" and while enjoyable to read, they are not unique in respect of typical B.C. life at that time. Men REGULARLY would WALK more than 100 MILES here to find work at the operating mines and would work all day for a supper.

My old man started in "The Yankee Girl" hardrock goldmine near Ymir, B.C. in 1920 and was working at "The Goldbelt" near Salmo, B.C. installing piping in the mill there during the Thirties, he would WALK from the Great Northern tracks to the minesite and then work all day and never considered this un-usual. Men were MEN, in the old days, that is why I am so adamant about respecting our pioneers.

kid0917
I think you have the title correct "Grass Beyond the Mountains"- Great read!

elelbean & Royce, There are a set of four books about Ralph Edwards and his family in BC starting 1908 methinks, the first book is called Crusoe of Lonesome Lake by Ed Gould & Ralph then Ruffels on my LongJohns by Isabel Edwards then Fogswamp & Living with Swans in the Wilderness by Trudy Edwards Tuner & Ruth McVeigh the final book is called Ralph Edwards of Lonesome Lake by John Edwards. The first book tells of Edwards starting a homestead and how using a 35 rem and 30/30 to kill grizzlies and having to shoot wolves attacking him on a frozen lake. Its a good read. I beleive that his son inlaw, Jack Tuner, shot a record grizz with a 30/30 up close in 1957. They are good reading the last book is about Ralph in later years, age took its toll. danny

The Grizzly was shot, May 16, 1965, with a Mod. 94 in .30-.30, I remember this well. Jack lives in a cabin at Hagensborg, B.C. now and was attacked by four yearling Grizzlies one evening outside his front door about two years ago, he survived as he is a tough old b*gger.

I knew the late Stan Edwards, Ralph's eldest son in 1969-70 at Ocean Falls, B.C. and he was a very shy man, who later tended to be quite caustic in his remarks about his father. Ralph Edwards, however, was an incredible man and I first read about him in high school about eight years before meeting Stan.

Things were very harsh in BC and Alaska in the early days, one of my aunts was an RN at Sitka in the 1920s and died of TB she contacted there when still very young, I visited her grave in the family plot, now 111 years old, last summer.

Another of my forebearers here was in the Klondike Gold Rush and survived a cabin fire on New Years Eve, 1900 and had to snowshoe all night with his partner to another cabin to survive. He was a giant of a Viking from Norway and returned there to live to over 100. Men WERE men in the good old days!

Great stuff fellas-Moutain men and gold fever. Hey at the price of gold nowadays, maybe I'll dust off my pans and go try my luck. I'll be strapped-don't tell them fish cops. I hear that prospectors can pack handguns- I enquired about this to a few government bodies but no replies???
Kute/others do you know how prospectors get to pack revolvers legally, in Canada?

You have to have this as your livlihood, IIRC and then you get a signature on some form from your employer and the RCMP reviews it. I can get one, but, can't be bothered as my .44Mag is a Ruger Redhawk sts 5.5" that weighs a young ton. We USED to just pack, but, "t*ts, turbans and tomahawks" were not the qualifications for an RCMP Constable in those days..........

I have about four specialized Grizzly buster rifles, custom built and will carry one IF I think it necessary, which I seldom do.

My favorite book of this type is titled Wasa-Wasa. The title page reads:

Wasa-Wasa
A Tale of Trails & Treasure

by Harry Macfie and Hans G. Westerlund
translated from the Swedish by F.H. Lyon & illustrated by Jack Robinson

London 1953
Readers Union - Allen & Unwin

-----------------------------------

I'll put the preface page here to give you an idea:

------------------------------

Harry Macfie is a Swede, though descended from a very old Scottish Highland family, one of whom (his grandfather) emigrated to Sweden in the first half of the nineteenth century. Harry went to America in 1897 and subsequently lived in Canada and Alaska during the years of the worst gold rush. His reason for emigrating was, he says, 'a longing for real adventures among gold-diggers and trappers'.

I myself came into touch with Macfie through the manufacture of Canadian canoes which he later carried on in his home at Lyckorna. On a visit to him there I obtained some glimpses of his life in the wilds of Canada, and this made me ask if he had not material for a book. He had indeed been urged to write his memoirs and made one or two attempts to start, but nothing more had come of it. We agreed that we should try to make ourselves free for a longer meeting, at which he would talk and I would write. Six months later I received a typescript from him. He had written his story himself.

I at once put aside all other work and set about turning this, as it seemed to me, remarkable book into correct Swedish. (His Swedish had been strongly influenced by many years spent in an English-speaking country.) I need hardly say that everything is described exactly as it reached me

with regard to Sam Kilburn, I should like to quote a letter from Macfie:

"Sam was born in Manchester in 1877; his mother was a Highlander and her name was Cameron. The Camerons and Macfies were closely related and fought together at Culloden against the Duke of Cumberland's army in 1745.

'But it was not this that made us such good friends. It was his sterling character and solid culture. He was always a complete gentleman; he was good-looking, somewhat over middle height, brown-eyed, dark-skinned, exceptionally strong and active. He enjoyed all that was good but would tolerate no injustice, but took a bright view of life despite many reverses, laughed in the hour of danger and played with death many a time; sang and was cheerful though we starved and froze, and often declaimed passages from Shakespeare by the camp fire'

My name appears on the title page at the author's express wish; such credit as the book deserves belongs entirely to Harry Macfie.

Hans G. Westerlund
-------------------------------------

If you find a copy of this book pay whatever is asked and take the next day or two off. You won't want to put it down.

Sadly those times, people, and circumstances are gone forever.

DJR

Another one I like is titled "The Alaska Adventures of a Norwegian Cheechako". It is about an 18 year old whoo went it alone prospecting in the Koyukon region, made and blew a couple of fortunes.

When I mentioned Hobson and Phillips to people who lived at Nimpo Lake, they also scoffed about the success of the two American cowboys. The book does give quite a bit of credit for opening up the BC interior to earlier pioneers.

I had two huge questions for them: why did they never remember to get mosquito dope, and why did they not get better clothing for the 70 below weather conditions?

The book "Grizzlies and White Guys" by Clayton Mack, has some eye-opening revelations about how one of the most prominent British pioneers got his start, at least from the Indian perspective.

He also fell in love with a .220 Swift for wolfing, and used it once in a pinch on a grizzly. It took 11 shots, but it worked when it had to. Hard to state "The 46 grain bullet slammed into the big grizzly" but I guess it was do or die for Glaser on that one.