Anybody else watching this??
One of the local PBS has this on tonight, year date uncertain as I tuned in late, dates given are only month and day.
Looks like 50’s 16 mm film equipment.
Anyway, guy in AK building a cabin with all hand tools, only ‘modern’ exceptions are portland cement, tar paper, and poly.. One segment. I caught a phrase that is “took only 45 minutes to hand rip a 4 ft log into halves” (paraphrased) for a countertop. Oakum availavility also alludes to 50’s or 60’s. He had some groceries (eggs, butter, etc to go in permaforost cooler) brought in by what looked like a vintage 172 or so, why not fly in a chain saw and a few gallons of gas??
Anyway, only improvement would be “me and DW in the wilderness” <G>, can’t imagine the solitude without one loving presence. Also wish they would show the guy sharpening some of his saws, some very aggressive handsaw cuts on his home film, don’t think the film was doctored, which means the guy really knew sharpening.
Left this unposted 20 min ago, program just ended, guy left AK at 85 YO in 1999, cabin now part of one of the parks. He’d lived there 35 years.
You guys in Fairbanks and Ancorage area ( DT et. al.), have you seen this? DW and I contemplated moving to AK in 1970/71, never did, stayed ‘softies’ ‘down south’.
Edited 9/8/2004 11:54 pm ET by JUNKHOUND
Replies
I missed it.
There have been a lot of guys that have tried that and failed. Some made it out alive and some didn't.
The most recent one was a few years ago when this guy was living in an abandoned bus only five miles from the highway. He didn't take enough rations figuring he could live off the land. He couldn't, he got so weak that he couldn't make it back to the road so he laid there in the bus and died from malnurishment. I think he made only made it two months out there and that was in the summer. Truly a sad story.
I really didn't have any intentions of living in the bush when I moved here. I'm happy enough living in a small town.
Dave
Krauker's book, "Into the Wild". We were hiking in that valley the months that his body was decomposing. Locals took him to be an idealistic idiot from Outside. But Krauker argues that he set himself difficult challanges and, except for some unexpected bad luck, was doing a good job of it.
More contemporary are a few TV features (and treehouse book chapters) done on Gus Gunther. But he is an unusually skilled and capable guy, with tastes and needs well suited to an off-the-grid existence. For every success story like that there are 3 couples and 6 single guys that bail after (or during) the first winter. And several more that just hang on, under-employed, underfed, and just not quite moving ahead. And dozens that come to the "last frontier" but only get as far as flipping burgers in Anchorage.David Thomas Overlooking Cook Inlet in Kenai, Alaska
I read the book on the Bus kid. Seems he was just finding enough food to exist so his body reserves were minimal. Then he gets ahold of some poison berries which put him out of commission for 3 days. Being as he was just physically surviving anyway this pushed him over the edge and he went into full blown starvation. After reading that and few other Alaskan stories I bet you are 100% correct that it happens all the time. DanT