Great to be reminded of this.

Seems like a yearly tradition for me to watch this documentary this time of year. Just watched it Saturday night.

When I visited the cabin for the first time it was so much smaller than I imagined, and it has a gravel floor which really surprised me.

There is another video called Arctic Son, about a couple that took their six year old out to the arctic, built a cabin and stayed for 18 months. It is really done too.

...to live deliberately.

Get a copy of “The Final Frontiersman”.

Heimo is the real deal, and tough as nails.

There others still out there, and I’ve had the pleasure to work with another one of the toughest.

MTV

Zzz wrote:6-year thread bump. Alone in the Wilderness Part II was suggested for me today on Youtube. Reminded me of this thread.

"I packed the Bolex, a tripod, and 500 feet of film"

Dude was as stud.

People who haven't done that kind of work with those sorts of hand tools have no idea how physically exhausting it is. Most people his age couldn't physically chop out four notches in a day, even if they had the skill. The craftsmanship is amazing, but even more amazing is having the strength and stamina to do that much work at 51-years-old.

mtv wrote:Get a copy of “The Final Frontiersman”.

Heimo is the real deal, and tough as nails.

There others still out there, and I’ve had the pleasure to work with another one of the toughest.

MTV

+1 on that book. I read it recently and it is great. Just hearing about Heimo's life..his losses and triumphs..amazing to say the least. I had seen him on The Last Alaskans, but reading more about his early life, etc. made it way more interesting. Much respect is to be given for how he has, and continues to live.

There are others out there who’ve done amazing stuff. Unfortunately, Krakauer chose to write about the kid in the damn bus.

John McPhee wrote “Coming Into the Country”, an Alaska classic. He mentioned several “Back to the Earthers”, including one Randy Brown, who I spent many hours with in an airplane, radio tracking fish.

Randy and his wife arrived in Eagle, AK, in a beat up truck with a very long freight canoe on top. They put the canoe in the Yukon River at Eagle, floated downstream to the confluence of one of the northern tributaries, lined and paddled several miles up that tributary, and made camp.

They built a cabin there. They had no gas appliances, no chainsaw, etc. the only fuel they had was kerosine for lamps.

They lived there for several years, had a couple of children, and moved to Eagle when the kids hit school age, even though Randy’s wife was a teacher. She taught school in Eagle, then Fairbanks. Randy wound up working for us as a Fishery Biologist. He did his Masters thesis on Sheefish or Inconnu. And it was an brilliant contribution to science. I learned a lot about the various whitefish species on those flights, and a lot about the country.

I met a similar gent on the Yukon Flats. I met him in September, and winter is not far off at that time of year. His wife and three little girls were with him. A babe in arms, a toddler and a five year old. He was building a log cabin....a two story log cabin. Again, no gas appliances, no chain saw, no four wheeler, no snow machine. Whipsaw for felling trees, axe for notching.

I stopped back when the lakes were frozen on skis, and they had a very comfy cabin.

He, like Randy, trapped on snowshoes, which sounds easy, but in that country, you have to cover ground.

There are fewer of these folks out there these days, but there are still a few.

I used to tell people that Randy was my “survival kit” when we flew together.

MTV

mtv wrote:... Unfortunately, Krakauer chose to write about the kid in the damn bus...

Krakauer is a sensationalist hack with a knack for writing, IMHO.

Hammer wrote:

mtv wrote:... Unfortunately, Krakauer chose to write about the kid in the damn bus...

Krakauer is a sensationalist hack with a knack for writing, IMHO.

I agree with you on Krakauer, but McPhee is an absolute breath of fresh air. Here in Alaska we are still reeling from the Krakauer bus fiction but yearn for the days that McPhee wrote about in "Coming Into The Country," -- at least those of us that lived those years. I still dream of getting back to the simplicity of life that Proenneke carved out of the wilderness at Twin Lakes.

Did my share of welfare checks on folks who had the same kind of dream. Ten minutes in their camp and you'd know if they knew what they were doing or not. Several had to be rescued mid winter for lack of supplies or unstable mental condition.

goldfinch wrote:Did my share of welfare checks on folks who had the same kind of dream. Ten minutes in their camp and you'd know if they knew what they were doing or not. Several had to be rescued mid winter for lack of supplies or unstable mental condition.

There are still a lot of food stamp pioneers out there.

This thread showed up in my analytics as one that's been popular in Google Search lately.

It's also a walk down memory lane with users who long since migrated to Facebook, probably.

This is well known also amongst european outdoor enthusiast born late enough to know their ways around internet, yet not so young that they have their attention span ruined by instagram and TikTok. I.e. us millenials. I think I saw «Alone in the Wilderness» for the first time in 2008 or so. That was back when YouTube was not a big thing, and watching something online usually meant either days of searching pirate material, and/or trying to get some weird media player-codec-something to play the file.

I think it is time to watch it again, thanks for reminding me!

Most of my "do-it-myself" projects start with a trip to Home Depot to buy new tools, clamps and hardware needed for the job at hand. I stand in awe of people that complete major projects with limited hand tools and materials scrounged from the wild. Ages ago I dropped out of college for a year to dive for treasure (I didn't find any). While on my quest, I lived on Utila Island on the Caribbean side of Honduras for a while. There was a local there that built shrimp boats by hand. He felled the trees, dragged them out of the jungle, dried them and cut planks and timbers with a hand saw and an adze. I was dumbstruck by that level of patience and stamina. Sadly, (or maybe fortunately for others) I will never contribute to that body of traditional handiwork. He told me it took him about 10 years to build a boat and selling it gave him enough to live on while he built the next one. His wife wove the hat he was wearing.