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One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey (Annivers | 
 enlarge | Authors: Sam Keith, Richard Proenneke
Publisher: Alaska Northwest Books
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy New: $9.56
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Rating:  102 reviews
Sales Rank: 2436
Format: Illustrated
Media: Paperback
Edition: 26th Anniversary ed.
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.7 x 0.6
ISBN: 0882405136
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.984
EAN: 9780882405131
ASIN: 0882405136
Publication Date: June 1, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new book! Delivered direct from our US warehouse by Expedited (4-7 days) or Standard (usually 10-14 days but can be longer). Expedited shipping recommended for speedier delivery. Over 1 million satisfied customers
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
To live in a pristine land . . . roam the wilderness . . . build a home. . . . Thousands have had such dreams, but Richard Proenneke lived them. Here is a tribute to a man who carved his masterpiece out of the beyond.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 97 more reviews...
 Preserving Alaska's Wonders September 3, 2008
Preserving Alaska's Natural Wonder
Based on the 1960's journals kept faithfully by Dick Proenneck, an archetype of the Sierra Club's advocate, this book presents an amazing story with glorious color photographs. "I don't think a man knows what he can do until he is challenged," p. 211) concludes the man who hewed out a log cabin single handedly in the wilderness. This is a succinct statement of Proenneck's motivating philosophy of personal achievement. Readers follow his non-boastful narrative of trial and error during a remarkable 18-month sojourn in wild Alaska. His survival odyssey (physical and emotional) presents him as the quintessential Mountain Man.
Satisfied to rely on Nature to supply his basic needs (and more contemporary items being flown in at irregular intervals by a cheerful bush pilot, faithful Babe, Proennecke realizes his dreams of carving out a pioneer life in the wilderness near Twin Lakes. Several chapters are quite long but fall into natural, timely categories. I am always interested in How-to descriptions involving caareful planning and manual labor, so I found the BIRTH OF A CABIN chapter fascinating. Even many of his actual tools were made by his own hands, as he started from scratch; his rustic creation is now part of a State Park which tourists may admire 40 years later. The cabin, fireplace and chimney, and cache-on-stilts all bear testimony to his skill and craftsman dedication--proving that a determined man can carve out a hearth after his own heart.
A conscientious chronicler of his own activities (and thoughts) Dick used both his still and movie cameras to capture the cabin in various stages of completion, as well and the flora and fauna of the relatively unspoiled Alaska. With tongue-in-cheek humor he shares his attempts (successful and otherwise) to peacefully interact with the curious or persistent creatures who tried to share his digs and provisions. He seems to feel that critters are a lot like some people-- drawing stoic or amusing conclusions about his attempts to coexist. His gripes with the callousness of humans (seasonal hunters, flown in to bag moose, caribou and Dall sheep) indicate his deep awareness of the fragility of an environment and man's duty to preserve it intact as much as possible--not only out of respect for the animals that inhabit the area, but for future generations of tourists and residents. When he was flown out after his 18-month odyssey he realized that many of the smaller creatures would suffer Hand-Out withdrawal, now that Dick's Welfare was about to dry up. Hats off to a pioneering environmentalist who made us all Aware of Alaska's potential.
Sept. 2, 2008
The Journey August 23, 2008
One Man's Wilderness; ..... Well written, entertaining , I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys adventure in beautiful Alaskan Wilderness .....
 Very inspiring book July 10, 2008
Excellent book to read. I believe everyone will enjoy this and the story of this amazing person. Easy to read diary-like story of Dick Proenneke's 16-month life alone in a beautiful wilderness of Alaska. Page by page you'll be thrilled to continue on reading and it even gets better at the end. You'll probably stand up and clap your hands to this amazing man.
One Man's Wilderness June 23, 2008
This book is written "by Sam Keith from the journals and photographs of Richard Proenneke" - so although I read it and visualized the events within as if it had all been written by Richard Proenneke, it wasn't. Sam Keith tells us in the preface: "Using Dick Proenneke's rough journals as a guide, and knowing him as well as I did, I have tried to get into his mind and reveal the "flavor" of the man. This is my tribute to him, a celebration of his being in tune with his surroundings and what he did alone with simple tools and ingenuity in carving his masterpiece out of the beyond."
I've seen the PBS presentation of "Alone in the Wilderness", which uses selections from the text of this book along with movie footage of Proenneke building his cabin and living there. Those selections are read by someone other than Proenneke, but the voice is a perfect fit to the text and image. Because the text is not exactly Proenneke's and the voice of the video isn't his either, our experience of the man is filtered though these interpreations. Sam Keith hasn't shown us any unedited examples from the "rough journals" he used to compose the book, so it's difficult to know how far this beautifully crafted language matches the character and psychology of Richard Proenneke.
It is an extraordinary book and was a great pleasure to read. I recommend it without reservation.
Alaskan Dream! June 10, 2008
This book is great! As close to the wilderness as you can get. If you find you can never make it to Alaska, read this and you can say how close you were.
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