Dick Proenneke spent the summer of 1967 in Alaska, exploring the Twin Lakes area and looking for an ideal site to build a cabin.He then set to cutting up logs to be used the next year.
It's thought that this gorgeous old cabin, photographed by Emily, a geology student from Canada and featured recently by Kent Griswold on his Tiny House Blog, is the cabin that Dick built.
It measures 14 feet x 11 with a gravel floor, a dutch door, a fireplace and a moss covered roof.
Dick built the cabin and all the furniture using only hand tools.
He lived a solitary existence there for thirty years. A latter day Thoreau.
When he left Twin Lakes for the last time in 1999, he was 82 years old.
Before he died in 2003, he gifted the cabin to the Lake Clark National Park for all who visited to enjoy...
When I was younger, I always wanted to do something like that. Go off into the woods and dissapear for 20 or 30 years.
ReplyDeleteDick is arguably the godfather of the tiny house simple living movment. He has inspired me and many fits of daydreaming out the window I blame on him.
ReplyDeleteThere are two wonderful films, of and by Dick, showing the process of his making the cabin and furniture, also a cache high off the ground, some utensils he gave as gifts to the wife of the guy who flew supplies to him. They have been shown recently on several PBS stations in California, and are in some libraries, and I believe can be purchased from PBS.
ReplyDeleteHaving lived on the land, helped build a log cabin, and survived from a garden, in a much kinder climate, for a time, he is my hero! Thanks for showing this.
Oh wow, gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteVery nice, FT- I love log houses. I helped my step-father build one in Northern Idaho back in 1983- I was sad when my mother moved out of it a few years ago, but thankfully she held on to it, and rents it out as a guesthouse now. Merry Christmas to you!
ReplyDeleteThe book 'One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey " tells of his building of and life at the cabin. Still available and very inspiring.
ReplyDeleteThat cabin indeed looks wonderful. It is however not the famed cabin Dick built in the film and lived in for 30 + years. Dicks cabin still stands in wonderful shape and can be found in Alaska with some research and strong legs or more often money to fly and see it.
ReplyDeleteCurrrently reading Dick Proenneke's first book after viewing his videos. What .an amazing person and story. You can order the videos on line, not thru PBS which charges much more to support their non-profit endeavors. There are 4 DVDs in all. I would love to see his place one day. I, too, am enthralled by the story. Found myself checking weather report from Twin Lakes today. Minus 4 and foggy.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great pic, but I don't believe that it's Proenneke's cabin. The cabin in the pic seems pretty old and lacks the stone fireplace stones outside the building, that Proenneke put in. The second pic of Dick in the "dutch" style door is obviously him and his cabin...
ReplyDeletePeace,
Rick
Yeah, not Dick's cabin. You can see his actual cabin, which is still in great shape, at the NPS website: http://www.nps.gov/lacl/historyculture/proennekes-cabin.htm
ReplyDelete