One Man's Wilderness, 50th Anniversary Edition

by Richard Louis Proenneke

  Including the brief stop at the log pile, the trip had taken an hour and three quarters. Not bad time with a load. I unslung the ought-six and set down the packboard. My shoulders felt as though they wanted to float to the rafters.

  First thing was to move the Grumman canoe outside and make some room. Next I uncovered the windows to get rid of the gloom and climbed a ladder to take the tin can off the top of the stovepipe. When I got back with the second load, I would make a fire.

  If I could travel the lake ice, I would use the canoe like a sled. I shoved the canoe onto the ice and found it was too rotten and thin. A strong wind would break it up. It was back along the beach the way I had come.

  My second load was about sixty pounds. I huddled together what was left and spread the tarp over it, again weighting the edges with boulders. If the weather changed, the gear would be well protected. This time with the binoculars along, I would have an excuse to stop now and then and glass the slopes for game. With the naked eye you don’t often see the big animals unless they are fairly close, and might think there are none in the country. Through the lenses, with the high slopes drawn into sharp definition, you can spot movement or something that changes shade.

  On Black Mountain I saw six Dall sheep. Farther on against the skyline of Falls Mountain, there was a big band with lambs among them. Just before crossing the log bridge on Hope Creek I spotted a lone caribou feeding along the Cowgill Benches. I could make out the stubs of new antlers. As I plodded along I knew many eyes were watching me. Was the word being passed that I was back?

  At the cabin, once more unloaded, I opened a jar of blueberries I had picked and put up in September. The winter had been hard on them. Juice was two-thirds the way up the jar with the shriveled berries on top. They had a strong aroma and a sharp taste.

  I decided to save the last load for morning. I distributed what I had brought so far into readily available places. I placed the ought-six on wall pegs. I didn’t figure on getting the barrel dirty for a long time.

  At Spike’s cabin, with its weather-grayed antlers.

  A gathering of Dall sheep and the year’s first lambs.

  With the fire going, the cabin took on a cheery atmosphere. A few fat flies awakened and buzzed about sluggishly. When I went outside to get an armload of wood, I stopped to look at the thin blue smoke pluming against the green darkness of the spruce. It began to look and feel like home.

  Supper was caribou sandwiches Mary Alsworth had packed, washed down with a cup of hot beef bouillon. Then I got ready for morning. I uncovered the jar of sourdough starter, dumped two-thirds of it into a bowl, put three heaping teaspoons of flour back into the starter jar, added some lukewarm water, stirred and capped it. If I did this every time, the starter would go on forever.

  To the starter in the bowl I added five tablespoons of flour, three tablespoons of sugar, and a half cup of dry milk, mixing it all together with a wooden spoon. I dribbled in lukewarm water until the batter was thin. Then I covered the bowl with a pan. The mixture would work itself into a hotcake batter by morning.

  Babe did me a real favor flying me in today. I hope he’s a better businessman with others. He’s never yet charged me the going rate of $30 for his mail and grocery runs from Port Alsworth to Twin Lakes. He makes me feel like it would be an insult to question him about the price. “We are not piling up treasures on this earth,” he says. I hope I can make up the difference in other ways.

  My first evening was clear and calm. I wish some of those folks who passed me in my camper and waved could see this place. Mosquitoes are out and working on the sunburn I acquired while packing this afternoon. Listen to them singing a tune. Brings to mind a comment Babe made one time. “Can’t be very good country,” he said, “when even a mosquito wouldn’t live there.” By the sound I allow this is prime country. I wonder if there are any mosquitoes in heaven.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Birth of a Cabin

  May 22nd. Up with the sun at four to watch the sunrise and the sight of the awakening land. It seems a shame for eyes to be shut when such things are going on, especially in this big country. I don’t want to miss anything. A heavy white frost twinkled almost as if many of its crystals were suspended in the air. New ice, like a thin pane of glass, sealed the previously open water along the edge of the lake. The peaks, awash in the warm yellow light, contrasted sharply with their slopes still in shadow.

  Soon I had a fire snapping in the stove, and shortly afterward could no longer see my breath inside the cabin. A pan of water was heating alongside the kettle. That business of breaking a hole in the ice and washing up out there sounds better than it feels. I prefer warm water and soap. Does a better job, too.

  Thick bacon sliced from the slab sizzled in the black skillet. I poured off some of the fat and put it aside to cool. Time now to put the finishing touches to the sourdough batter. As I uncovered it I could smell the fermentation. I gave it a good stirring, then sprinkled half a teaspoonful of baking soda on top, scattered a pinch of salt, and dripped in a tablespoon of bacon fat. When these additions were gently folded into the batter, it seemed to come alive. I let it stand for a few minutes while bacon strips were laid on a piece of paper towel and excess fat was drained from the pan. Then I dropped one wooden spoonful of batter, hissing onto the skillet. When bubbles appear all over, it’s time to flip.

  Brown, thin, and light—nothing quite like a stack of sourdough hotcakes cooked over a wood fire in the early morning. I smeared each layer with butter and honey and topped the heap with lean bacon slices. While I ate I peered out the window at a good-looking caribou bedded down on the upper benches. Now that’s a breakfast with atmosphere!

  Before doing the dishes, I readied the makings of the sourdough biscuits. These would be a must for each day’s supper. The recipe is much the same as for hotcakes, but thicker, a dough that is baked.

  It was a good morning to pack in the rest of the gear. I put some red beans in a pot to soak and took off. Last night’s freeze had crusted the snow, and it made the traveling easier. About a mile down the lakeshore a cock ptarmigan clattered out of the willow brush, his neck and head shining a copper color in the sun, his white wings vibrating, then curving into a set as he sailed. His summer plumage was beginning to erase the white of winter. Crrr … uck … a … ruck … urrrrrrrrr. His ratcheting call must have brought everything on the mountain slopes to attention.

  A stack of sourdough pancakes drizzled with syrup and topped with bacon.

  The last load was the heaviest. It was almost noon before I got back to the cabin, and none too soon because rain clouds were gathering over the mountains to the south.

  The rain came slanting down, hard-driven by the wind. I busied myself getting gear and groceries organized. Anyone living alone has to get things down to a system—know where things are and what the next move is going to be. Chores are easier if forethought is given to them and they are looked upon as little pleasures to perform instead of inconveniences that steal time and try the patience.

  When the rain stopped its heavy pelting, I went prospecting for a garden site. A small clearing on the south side of the cabin and away from the big trees was the best place I could find. Here it would get as much sun as possible.

  Frost was only inches down, so there would be no planting until June. Spike’s grub hoe could scuff off the ground cover later on and stir up the top soil as deep as the frost would permit. I had no fertilizer. I suppose I might experiment with the manure of moose and caribou, but it would be interesting to see what progress foreign seeds would make in soil that had nourished only native plants.

  By suppertime the biscuits were nicely puffed and ready to bake. There was no oven in the stove, but with tinsnips I cut down a coffee can so it stood about two inches high, and placed it bottomside up atop the stove. On this platform I set the pan of three swollen biscuits and covered it with a gas can tin about six inches deep.

  In about fifteen minutes the smell of the biscuits d
rifted out to the woodpile. I parked the axe in the chopping block. Inside, I dampened a towel and spread it over the biscuits for about two minutes to tenderize the crust. The last biscuit mopped up what was left of the onion gravy. Mmmm.

  When will I ever tire of just looking? I set up the spotting scope on the tripod. Three different eyepieces fit into it: a 25-power, a 40-power, and a 60-power. That last one hauls distant objects right up to you, but it takes a while to get the knack of using it because the magnification field covers a relatively small area.

  This evening’s main attraction was a big lynx moving across a snow patch. I had seen a sudden flurrying of ptarmigan just moments before, and when I trained the scope on the action, there was the cat taking his time, stopping now and then as if watching for a movement in the timber just ahead of him.

  I switched to a more powerful eyepiece and there he was again, bigger and better, strolling along, his hips seeming to be higher than his shoulders, his body the color of dark gray smoke, his eyes like yellow lanterns beneath his tufted ears. Even from the distance I could sense his big-footed silence.

  I went to sleep wondering if the lynx had ptarmigan for supper.

  May 23rd. Dense fog this morning. A ghostly scene. Strange how much bigger things appear in the fog. A pair of goldeneye ducks whistled past low and looked as big as honkers to me.

  After breakfast I inspected the red beans for stones, dumped them into a fresh pot of water from the lake, and let them bubble for a spell on the stove. I sliced some onions. What in the world would I do without onions? I read one time that they prevent blood clots. Can’t afford a blood clot out here. I threw the slices into the beans by the handful, showered in some chili powder and salt, and stirred in a thick stream of honey. I left the pot to simmer over a slow fire. Come suppertime they should be full of flavor.

  I took a tour back through the spruce timber. It didn’t take much detective work to see how hard the wind had blown during the winter, both up and down the lake. Trees were down in both directions. That was something else to think about. Did the wind blow that much harder in the winter?

  Hope Creek has cut a big opening into the lake ice. That could be where the ducks were headed this morning. Was it too early to catch a fish? I took the casting rod along to find out. The creek mouth looked promising enough with its ruffled water swirling into eddies that spun beneath the ice barrier. I worked a metal spoon deep in the current, jerked it toward me and let it drift back. Not a strike after several casts. If the fish were out there, they were not interested. No sign of the ducks either.

  When the fog finally cleared the face of the mountain across the ice, I sighted a bunch of eleven Dall ewes and lambs. Five lambs in all, a good sign. A mountain has got to be lonely without sheep on it.

  The rest of the day I devoted to my tools. I carved a mallet head out of a spruce chunk, augered a hole in it, and fitted a handle to it. This would be a useful pounding tool, and I hadn’t had to pack it in either. The same with the handles I made for the wood augers, the wide-bladed chisel, and the files—much easier to pack without the handles already fitted to them.

  I sharpened the axe, adze, saws, chisels, wood augers, drawknife, pocket knife, and bacon slicer. The whispering an oil stone makes against steel is a satisfying sound. You can almost tell when the blade is ready by the crispness of the sound. A keen edge not only does a better job, it teaches a man to have respect for the tool. There is no leeway for a “small” slip.

  While I pampered my assault kit for the building of the cabin, the sky turned loose a heavy shower and thundered Midwestern style. The echoes rumbled and tumbled down the slopes and faded away into mutterings. The shrill cries of the terns proclaimed their confusion.

  The ice attempted to move today. Fog and thunder have taken their toll. I can see the rough slab edges pushed atop each other along the cracks. The winter freight will be moving down the lake soon, through the connecting stream and down the lower lake to the funnel of the Chilikadrotna River.

  After supper I made log-notch markers out of my spruce stock. They are nothing more than a pair of dividers with a pencil on one leg, but with them I can make logs fit snugly. This is not going to be a butchering job. I can afford the time for pride to stay in charge.

  These simple hand tools would challenge anyone’s self-reliance.

  I sampled the red beans again before turning in for the night. The longer they stay in the pot the more flavor they have.

  The woodpile needs attention. I must drop a few spruce snags and buck them up into sections. Dry standing timber makes the best firewood.

  Ho, hum. I’m anxious to get started on that cabin, but first things first. Tomorrow will have to be a woodcutting day.

  May 25th. The mountains are wearing new hats this morning. The rain during the night was snow at the higher levels.

  I built up the wood supply yesterday and this morning. There is a rhythm to the saw as its teeth eat back and forth in the deepening cut, but I must admit I enjoy the splitting more. To hit the chunk exactly where you want to and cleave it apart cleanly—there’s a good sound to it and satisfaction in an efficient motion. Another reward comes from seeing those triangular stove lengths pile up. Then the grand finale! Drive the ax into the block, look around, and contemplate the measure of what you have done.

  Bedding the side foundation logs in the beach gravel cabin site. Soon the cabin will be born.

  Breakup was not the spectacular sight it was last year. A big wind would have cleared the thin ice out yesterday. As I loaded tools on the packboard this afternoon, the rotted ice began to flow past in quiet exit.

  At the construction site several hundred yards down the lakeshore, I found my logs were not as badly checked as I had first thought. The checking was only evident on the weathered sides. The logs were well seasoned and light in weight for their length.

  When you have miles and miles of lakefront and picture views to consider, it is difficult to select a building site. The more a man looks, the fussier he gets. I had given much thought to mine. It sat atop a knoll about seventy-five feet back from a bight in the shoreline. There was a good beach for landing a canoe, and a floatplane also could be brought in there easily.

  The wind generally blew up or down the lake. From either direction the cabin would be screened by spruce trees and willow brush. The knoll was elevated well above any visible high-water marks. Just over 100 yards away was Hope Creek, and even though the water from the lake was sweet and pure, Hope Creek carried the best ever from the high places. At its mouth could usually be found fish, too.

  There were two things that bothered me just a little, and I gave them serious consideration before making the final decision. It was possible that after a continuous heavy rain and the resulting runoff from the mountains, Hope Creek could overflow and come churning through the timber behind me. If that happened, I felt I was still high enough to handle the situation. Perhaps some engineering would be necessary to divert the flow until the creek tamed down and returned to its channel.

  It was also a possibility, though quite remote, that a slide or a quake might choke the Chilikadrotna River, which was the drainpipe of the Twins. Anytime the volume of water coming into the country was greater than what was going out, the lake level was going to rise. If the Chilikadrotna were to plug seriously, the country would fill up like a giant bathtub. I didn’t like to think about that. Finally I decided such a catastrophe would rule out any site, and if a man had to consider all of nature’s knockout punches, he would hesitate to build anywhere.

  So I had taken the plunge and cleared the brush. I had grubbed out a shallow foundation, had hauled up beach gravel and had spread it to a depth of several inches over an area roughly twenty feet by twenty feet. I felt I had made the best possible choice.

  I stood with hands on hips looking at the plot of gravel and the pile of logs beside it. The logs were decked, one layer one way and the next at right angles to it so air could circulate through the pile.
On that floor of gravel, from those logs, the house would grow. I could see it before me because I had sketched it so many times. It would be eleven feet by fifteen feet on the inside. Its front door would face northwest, and the big window would look down the lake to the south and west. It would nestle there as if it belonged.

  A pile of logs. Which ones to start with. Why not the largest and most crooked for the two side foundation logs? They would be partly buried in the gravel anyway. Save the best ones to show off to the best possible advantage. I rolled the logs around until I was satisfied I had found what I was looking for.

  One log in particular required considerable hewing to straighten it. I must say white spruce works up nicely with axe and drawknife, much like white pine. If I keep the edges of my tools honed, it will be a pleasure to pile up chips and shavings.

  I bedded the two side logs into the gravel, then selected two end logs, which I laid across them to form the eleven-by-fifteen-foot interior. Next I scribed the notches on the underside of the end logs, on each side so the entire pattern of the notch was joined and penciled. Everything inside the pencil patterns would have to be removed. Four notches to cut out.

  To make a notch fit properly, you can’t rush it. Make several saw cuts an inch or two apart almost down to the pencil line and whack out the chunks with the axe until the notch is roughly formed. Then comes the finish work, the careful custom fit. I have just the tool for the job. At first I thought the character in the hardware store gouged me a little when he charged more than seven dollars for a gouge chisel (half round), but next to my axe I consider it my most valuable tool. Just tap the end of its handle with the spruce mallet and the sharp edge moves a curl of wood before it, right to the line. It smooths the notch to perfection.