As an effort to spread the gospel of forgotten heroes and understated figures of the past, each Tuesday we will be bringing you the BAMF of the Week, Fontenelle style. Be sure to check in weekly to pay your respects to some of the most badass fellas and gals you've never heard of.
After weighing out the more prominent candidates this week, I thought it only proper to dedicate the honorary first post to one of the last great frontiersmen in recent history, the great Richard "Dick" Proenneke.
Dick Proenneke, born in 1916, grew up in rural Iowa with his mother, father, and five siblings. While serving as a carpenter for the US Navy in WWII he contracted rheumatic fever, which nearly claimed his life, and experienced something of a great awakening. He spent the next few decades honing his craft as a diesel mechanic in Oregon (on a sheep farm) and later Alaska until his retirement at Twin Lakes. Now here's where the badass needle starts maxing out at 10. At the age of 51, he hiked into the wilderness the summer of 1968 to fell and prepare about 44 logs using traditional hand tools he packed in. A double bit cruiser axe, saw, hand drill, chisels, and draw knife. Most of which he fashioned handles for out of spruce once arriving at the building site. He relied mostly on good friend and bush pilot Babe Alsworth to fly in essential foods and special orders he had placed for large tools he was unable to carry with him, necessary for the completion of his 11 x 15 foot castle in the wild of Alaska. This is where he would live for the next 30 years. Oh yeah, and he documented the entirety of his experiences via movie camera and tripod...
If you are interested in learning more about this amazing beast of a man's man, I HIGHLY recommend taking 9 minutes out of your day and filling it with the contents of the video below. You won't regret it. Keep in mind, everything you see was filmed by Proenneke himself.
Dick Proenneke, born in 1916, grew up in rural Iowa with his mother, father, and five siblings. While serving as a carpenter for the US Navy in WWII he contracted rheumatic fever, which nearly claimed his life, and experienced something of a great awakening. He spent the next few decades honing his craft as a diesel mechanic in Oregon (on a sheep farm) and later Alaska until his retirement at Twin Lakes. Now here's where the badass needle starts maxing out at 10. At the age of 51, he hiked into the wilderness the summer of 1968 to fell and prepare about 44 logs using traditional hand tools he packed in. A double bit cruiser axe, saw, hand drill, chisels, and draw knife. Most of which he fashioned handles for out of spruce once arriving at the building site. He relied mostly on good friend and bush pilot Babe Alsworth to fly in essential foods and special orders he had placed for large tools he was unable to carry with him, necessary for the completion of his 11 x 15 foot castle in the wild of Alaska. This is where he would live for the next 30 years. Oh yeah, and he documented the entirety of his experiences via movie camera and tripod...
If you are interested in learning more about this amazing beast of a man's man, I HIGHLY recommend taking 9 minutes out of your day and filling it with the contents of the video below. You won't regret it. Keep in mind, everything you see was filmed by Proenneke himself.
1 comments:
So where is the legendary axe? I see photos on the national park service website of some of Dick Proeneke's artifacts, including his hand axe, but not the cruiser axe.
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