262-A Modern-Day Thoreau
Futility Closet
Greg Ross
4.8 • 748 Ratings
🗓️ 26 August 2019
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1968, Richard Proenneke left his career as a heavy equipment operator and took up an entirely new existence. He flew to a remote Alaskan lake, built a log cabin by hand, and began a life of quiet self-reliance. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll hear Proenneke's reflections on a simple life lived in harmony with nature.
We'll also put a rooster on trial and puzzle over a curious purchase.
Intro:
Joshua Steele preserved David Garrick's line readings in a "prosodia rationalis."
The Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 passed because one large MP was counted as 10.
Sources for our feature on Richard Proenneke:
Sam Keith, One Man's Wilderness, 1973.
John Branson, More Readings From One Man's Wilderness: The Journals of Richard L. Proenneke, 2012.
"Reflections on a Man in His Wilderness," National Parks 91:2 (Spring 2017), 52-58.
Rosanne Pagano, "A Pebble in the Water," National Parks 83:2 (Spring 2009), 24-31.
Rona Marech, "Off the Grid," National Parks 91:2 (Spring 2017), 4.
Leigh Newman, "Cabin Fever," Sunset 234:2 (February 2015), 28-32.
"A Modern Day Thoreau," Alaska 69:7 (Sept. 2003), 78-79.
Jennifer Rebecca Kelly and Stacy Rule, "The Hunt as Love and Kill: Hunter-Prey Relations in the Discourse of Contemporary Hunting Magazines," Nature and Culture 8:2 (2013), 185-204.
Shelley Fralic, "An Icon for Modern Times; He Lived Alone for 32 Years in a Cabin He Built in Alaska," Vancouver Sun, March 26, 2010, A.15.
Jene Galvin, "Alaskan Cabin an Adventurer's Shrine," Cincinnati Enquirer, Oct. 28, 2007, 1.
Jenna Schnuer, "An Alaska National Park as Big as Connecticut. Annual Visitors? 23,000," New York Times, July 16, 2018.
Michael Babcock, "Check Out 'Alone in the Wilderness,'" Great Falls [Mont.] Tribune, Dec. 8, 2011, O.1.
Robert Cross, "Wrangell-St. Elias/Lake Clark: A Pair Too Big to Comprehend," Knight Ridder Tribune News Service, June 16, 2003, 1.
"Proenneke's Cabin," Lake Clark National Park & Preserve, National Park Service (accessed Aug. 11, 2019).
Alan Bennett, "Dick Proenneke – Hiking With a Legend," The Alaska Life (accessed Aug. 11, 2019).
Here's an excerpt from Alone in the Wilderness, a 2004 documentary about Proenneke's life on the lake.
Listener mail:
Wikipedia, "Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!" (accessed Aug. 15, 2019).
"Saint Louis du Ha!Ha! Gets Guinness World Record Nod for Its Exclamation Marks," Canadian Press, Sept. 20, 2017.
Wikipedia, "Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump" (accessed Aug. 15, 2019).
Wikipedia, "Buffalo Jump" (accessed Aug. 15, 2019).
Wikipedia, "Happy Adventure" (accessed Aug. 15, 2019).
Wikipedia, "Swastika, Ontario" (accessed Aug. 15, 2019).
Wikipedia, "Pain Court, Ontario" (accessed Aug. 15, 2019).
Wikipedia, "Punkeydoodles Corners" (accessed Aug. 15, 2019).
(Non-family-friendly Newfoundland place name.)
Jack Guy and Antoine Crouin, "Maurice the Rooster in the Dock in Divisive French Trial," CNN, July 4, 2019.
Henry Samuel, "Trial Over Maurice the Cockerel's 'Rowdy' Dawn Crowing Becomes Gallic Cause Celebre," Telegraph, July 4, 2019.
"Rooster Maurice in Noisy French Court Battle With Neighbours," BBC News, July 4, 2019.
Adam Nossiter, "'The Rooster Must Be Defended': France’s Culture Clash Reaches a Coop," New York Times, June 23, 2019.
"The Londoner: Entreprepurr Jeremy Hunt Backs Larry the Cat," Standard, July 18, 2019.
Boris Johnson, "A very happy #InternationalCatDay to our Chief Mouser, Larry," Twitter, Aug. 8, 2019.
Jimmy Nsubuga, "Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Could Be Ousted Under Boris," Metro, July 26, 2019.
Wikipedia, "International Cat Day" (accessed Aug. 15, 2019).
This week's lateral thinking puzzle was adapted from Edward J. Harshman's 1996 book Fantastic Lateral Thinking Puzzles.
You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Google Podcasts, on Apple Podcasts, or via the RSS feed at https://futilitycloset.libsyn.com/rss.
Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website.
Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode.
If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Futility Clause podcast, |
| 0:11.8 | forgotten stories from the pages of history. |
| 0:14.5 | Visit us online to sample more than 10,000 quirky curiosities from acting notation to a weighty legislator. This is episode 262. I'm Greg Ross. |
| 0:24.5 | And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1968, Richard Prennegey left his career as a heavy equipment operator |
| 0:30.9 | and took up an entirely new existence. He flew to a remote Alaskan Lake, built a log cabin by hand, and began a life of quiet self-reliance. |
| 0:40.8 | In today's show, we'll hear Pranke's reflections on a simple life, lived in harmony with nature. |
| 0:46.5 | We'll also put a rooster on trial and puzzle over a curious purchase. |
| 0:56.7 | Richard Prennerenicki was born in Primrose, Iowa in 1916, and the Depression taught him industry, |
| 1:02.9 | resourcefulness, and frugality. |
| 1:05.0 | In his youth, he explored the western U.S. by motorcycle with a friend. |
| 1:08.7 | He set out with $20 and came back with 10. When World War II broke out, |
| 1:13.2 | he joined the Navy, where he worked as a carpenter, a heavy equipment operator, and a repairman, |
| 1:17.6 | and he quietly developed a reputation as a mechanical genius. All of these traits were fitting him |
| 1:23.1 | for a dramatic step he didn't know he'd be taking. In 1950, he went to Alaska to investigate starting |
| 1:28.6 | a cattle ranch with a friend. The ranch didn't pan out, but he worked around the state as a mechanic |
| 1:33.2 | and a heavy equipment operator, and in 1962, a Navy friend, Spike Carithers, invited him to spend a few |
| 1:39.2 | weeks at a cabin he was building in a remote wilderness area at Twin Lakes, 120 miles southwest of Anchorage. |
| 1:45.7 | There are no roads in that area. They had to fly in over the Alaska Range to a set of lakes |
| 1:50.4 | carved by glaciers in the open forest. That visit changed his life. The lakes were peaceful and |
| 1:56.2 | beautiful, and a life there was one of perfect freedom. He turned it over in his mind, |
| 2:00.5 | and in the spring of 1967, he decided that he would retire of perfect freedom. He turned it over in his mind, and in the spring of |
| 2:01.3 | 1967, he decided that he would retire at age 50. He told his boss that the wilderness had been |
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