"Alone In The Wilderness" - Awesome documentary you should all watch!

[ayingerbrau]

Alone In The Wilderness

http://img363.imageshack.us/img363/5139/cabindoorjs8.jpg

A great documentary I just watched about a guy named Richard Proenneke who lived alone for the best part of 30 years in the alaskan wilderness, only occasionally coming out to visit family. He built a cabin using just hand tools, grew his own vegetables and hunted/fished for food. He had an old buddy that flew in by sea plane to occasionally drop off supplies if he needed anything.

The cabin making section was my favourite section of the film, it was awesome watching him carve it all out by hand, fit it together and so on.

http://blog.makezine.com/DickProennekeCabin.jpg

The documentary shows him not only building the cabin but all kinds of things, videos of him fishing as well as planting his vegetables and so on. I believe the majority of it was filmed with a stationary video camera on a tripod. You see shots of the wildlife and surrounding area a lot, but the mainstay of the documentary is all about following him as he builds his cabin and expands on his self build through the harsh winter.

Richard or "Dick" ended up staying out there for 30 years, which is pretty amazing. Returned back to civilisation when he was 82 years old.

I'm sure all you survival/outdoor living/DIY buffs will be interested in his story, and will indeed enjoy the video.

Below is the six part documentary on YouTube (running time approx 58mins.)

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There's plenty of Rapidshare and torrent links about but I won't post them here, may be against forum rules. If you can't find links PM me, but I'm sure google will prevail.

Some more links for your own interest:

http://www.aloneinthewilderness.com is a site with some information and other videos about the man himself and surrounding area.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Proenneke if you want to read more about him.

[drBOX]

seen it- it's fucking excellent - great story

[Azure]

I seen that on PBS, it inspired me to want to live like that for about an hour, I even made a thread about it...the I came back to my senses.

[Monkmaster]

As much as I'd like to live out on my own in the great big nowhere, I wouldn't be able to live in such luxury as Proenneke. He fucking built that cabin like it was nothing. I'd be stuck in a semi-comfortable lean-to or something.

[@@@]

i read his book. loved it, reading it again right now.

[mr.blunt]

Great docu, but not something I could do for 30 years. One or two years, sure, but 30 is pushing it.

[Meguiar]

Bastard didnt have time to watch it the other day and now its been taken down :/

[Dread_Lord]

It's on torrent sites. Has been for years now. That's not even his voice though.

Anyways another one to get on torrent only has 2 seeds but it's called "The last trapper". It's meant to be a movie but comes across as a documentary. In any case it's very similar to the Dick's documentary in a lot of ways.

[mr.blunt]

It's on torrent sites. Has been for years now. That's not even his voice though.

Anyways another one to get on torrent only has 2 seeds but it's called "The last trapper". It's meant to be a movie but comes across as a documentary. In any case it's very similar to the Dick's documentary in a lot of ways.

The Last Trapper isn't the one about that guy in northern Canada where the RCMP pisses him off and he pretty much leads them on the most epic manhunt ever is it? It's either The Mad Trapper or The Last Trapper but I can't remember.

[Dread_Lord]

The Last Trapper isn't the one about that guy in northern Canada where the RCMP pisses him off and he pretty much leads them on the most epic manhunt ever is it? It's either The Mad Trapper or The Last Trapper but I can't remember.

No, it's about a trapper who lives in the Canadian wilderness in a cabin with his ugly ass wife and dogs. He's a trapper but the foresting industry makes life harder for him so he is forced to move further into the woods and build a new cabin. He considers quitting and moving to town but the end suggests otherwise.

[mr.blunt]

Okay, well it's definitely The Mad Trapper then. Good story, guy was nuts.


Albert Johnson’s arrival in Fort MacPherson, July 9th 1931 on the southern edge of the Mackenzie delta (67 degrees N latitude) was by all accounts non-eventful. He was approximately 35 years of age, a very taciturn individual with cold blue eyes coupled with a stocky muscular build. These physical characteristics in men that trapped for a living in the north were nothing out of the ordinary.

What the local people considered strange, however, was the fact that Albert did not bother to obtain a trapping license even though he built an 8' X 10' cabin with a good view on 3 sides in a prime trapping location on the Rat River.

With the trapping season in full swing by early December 1931 some of Albert's neighbours began having someone disrupt their traps. The only change from last season to this one - was Albert Johnson. On Dec. 31 Constable Alfred 'Buns' King and Special Constable Joe Bernard, each of whom had considerable northern experience, decided to call on Johnson to investigate. When they approached his cabin they noticed smoke billowing up from the chimney giving the impression that he was in the cabin. But Albert wasn’t in a talking mood.

After numerous attempts to strike up a conversation in 40 below temperatures and getting nowhere with a man holed up with a gun, they decided to return to Aklavik to get reinforcements.

They returned with 2 more Mounties plus one civilian. After the initial knock on the door and without, warning suddenly a shot rang out wounding Constable King. A hasty retreat and a 20 hour dog sled ride back to Aklavik saved the life of the Constable.

On Jan 4, 1932, with 9 men, 42 dogs and 40 pounds of dynamite, a posse was determined to bring this fugitive in. Once their positions were secure on the cabin MADTRAPP.jpg (10918 bytes)perimeter, the dynamite was thawed out by holding it under their coats close to their bodies.

The dynamite was thrown into the structure and a massive explosion ripped the roof clean off with one of the walls caving in.

As the Mounties entered the cabin to remove the corpse, Johnson stood up from a fox hole he dug firing 2 weapons narrowly missing both officers. A hasty retreat was in order again. After a 15 hr siege and food starting to run low they returned to Aklavik to contemplate their next move.

While all this was going on people in the rest of the continent were fixed to their radios listening to the first live reporting of a RCMP manhunt in Canada's north as it occurred. The whole affair was now dubbed the Mad Trapper of Rat River.

A third patrol was dispatched on Jan 14. But this time Johnson had fled his cabin fortress. For 2 weeks in near 50 below zero weather and 2 blizzards Johnson evaded his captures.

On Jan 30th he was confronted once more. After a short shootout, Constable 'Spike' Millen lay dead - shot through the heart. Johnson made his escape by climbing a sheer cliff in the dead of night.

Albert Johnson seemed to be no average trapper. The Mounties said of him to be capable of great feats and crafty beyond belief. The local Inuit said at one point in the chase that Johnson could snowshoe 2 miles for every 1 mile a dog team had to break trail.

Johnson had been back tracking in ever larger circles for the past month to evade capture. At this time hundreds of men were now tracking him. He had guns but could not use them to hunt for food - they would give away his position. He had means to light a fire to cook what food he could snare but the fire again would aid his pursuers. He also had to build shelters in snow drifts, surely his clothes must have started to get wet from perspiration and/or the elements.

When and where could he build a fire large enough to dry his clothes out or eat properly to help ward off the effects of 50 below zero weather? A tantalizing question.

Now Johnson's greatest feat was about to happen. Johnson could see that the Arctic Red River district was becoming to difficult to manage. His only avenue of escape was to traverse the Richardson mountains and head into the high country of the northern Yukon. The Mounties had already closed the door on that idea by guarding the only two passes through this range. But the quick thinking Johnson pulled another fast one on the Mounties.

During a raging blizzard he climbed over these 7,000 ft mountains with very little food and no climbing gear. With visibility during the blizzard at near zero, trying to cling to sheer cliffs of slippery ice and numbing cold, the mountain men of the area told the Mounties it would be impossible to do at this time of the year even with the proper gear and food.

A native trapper traveling through one of the guarded passes told of strange tracks on the upper reaches of the Eagle River, Yukon. Assuming that this could be Johnson on the other side of mountains, the Mounties knew they were no match in overtaking this fugitive.

In a Canadian first, on Feb 7, 1932 a monoplane piloted by W.R. (Wop) May was pressed into service to aid in the search to finally corner Johnson.

On February 17, 1932 May directed the Mounties to a hairpin turn in the middle section of the Eagle River where a gun battle eventually brought Johnson down. It took 9 bullets to Johnson's body to finally end this 5 week ordeal.

Where did he come from (his finger prints were no help)? No family member ever claimed the body. Before entering the Arctic River area no one had ever heard of him. During the entire man hunt the Mounties never heard him speak a word. And yet he had over $2,000 in cash and some placer gold in his possession.

The story of Albert Johnson is truly a Canadian Mystery that still beckons to be solved.

http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/NWT/madtrapper.htm

Fucking crazy.