The memory of Dick Proenneke has been a welcome presence this Christmas. I gave Brendan a copy of One Man’s Wilderness, and on Christmas Eve, Ms. M and I watched the PBS documentary based on the book and Dick’s vintage film footage. I’m fascinated by the solo process he developed for documenting his cabin-building in the Alaskan wilderness. Remember, this was forty years ago, long before YouTube enabled anyone with a cell phone camera to become DYI documentarians.
Dick’s footage of brown bears, caribou, and a wolverine triggered stories of my own youthful journey in the Brooks Range, a year after the book was published, before the first road was built across the mountains. That’s where I encountered a wolverine for the first and only time. It was excavating a steep stream bank on an unnamed tributary of the Glacier River, looking for a lunch of lemmings. The wolverine cared not a wit for three curious hikers, even though one carried a 30.40 rifle.
As the video below attests, Dick Proenneke’s cabin still stands in Lake Clark National Park. It’s a simple wilderness shrine to which I someday want to journey.
![gustave_caillebotte_paris_street_rainy_day Gustave Caillebotte. Paris Street, Rainy Day (La Place de l’Europe, temps de pluie). 1877. Oil on canvas. Art Institute of Chicago. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]](http://blindflaneur.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/gustave_caillebotte_paris_street_rainy_day_1877_wiki.jpg)
"Brendan, this is what the world looks like all the time to me. Just a little fog. It’s a fine day for boating on the Great Lakes.” Without missing a stroke he turned to dart a skeptical glance at me. Brendan the Navigator. When we named him I didn’t tell his mother everything the legendary Irish name implied. But I imagined him taking on the role of navigator for me. Growing up with Coastal Survey charts and tales of Great Lakes shipwrecks, he came to know Superior as another home. He never doubted the wisdom of canoeing there with a father who was half blind. ![ada_signing_072690_ucp_2 President George H.W. Bush signs into law the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on July 26, 1990 as Justin Dart looks on. [Source: ucp.org]](http://fairuselab.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/ada_signing_072690_ucp_2.jpg)
![shepard_fairey_hope_2008 Shepard Fairey’s “Barack Obama/Hope” image went viral during the 2008 election. Then controversy about the image’s source transformed it into the poster child for fair use in the public debate over copyright and free culture. Now FULAB takes “Hope” as its icon [Image source: Wikipedia]](http://fairuselab.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/shepard_fairey_hope_2008.jpg)

If there is an emerging genetic underclass, I could run for class president or class clown. Read more in
The legendary Kiki of Montparnasse posed for Man Ray’s 
2 Comments
#1. Sara H 12.26.2009
I didn’t know about this man! Watching him build this cabin, I can see my dad doing similar things that all men used to know how to do. My dad built our house himself, in the 20s – he was born in 1892 and my mom in 1903. This brings back their world in the countryside of Virginia, where I grew up. Of course, it wasn’t a log cabin. But there were log cabins in our area, heated by wood stoves or fireplaces. A vanished world now. Worth remembering. Thanks.
#2. Mark Willis 12.26.2009
Dick P. was a carpenter’s carpenter, for sure.
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