One Man's Wilderness, 50th Anniversary Edition

by Richard Louis Proenneke

  I heard a plane leave the lower end. Surely that is the last of the hunters. Tomorrow I will go on a scavenger hunt.

  September 25th. Thirty-five degrees and overcast. Strange to be free of frost this morning.

  Doctored my injured thumb. Washed it thoroughly with soap and warm water and changed the dressing. The slash looks clean. Can’t afford any complications. No house calls out here.

  I paddled down to the lower end to the remains of the tent camps there. I brought my round-point shovel along.

  Why men come into this big clean country and leave it littered the way they do, I will never know. They claim to love the great outdoors but they don’t have respect for it. Beer cans, bottles, and cartons were scattered all over the place. Look at the sharp edges of the mountains in the crisp clean air, listen to the creek pouring water you can drink over the stones. Then look around and see all this junk. It’s enough to turn a man’s stomach. I cleaned up several areas, digging many holes and burying those ugly reminders of thoughtlessness. There were a few rewards, however. I found a big Styrofoam chest with a box of wooden matches inside and some dry soup mix, and collected several empty gas cans. Always a use for them. And finally a bonus, a small roll of haywire.

  Seven miles later, on the upper end of the lake, I found the same disregard for the purity of the wilderness. I did my best to erase the ugly scars the visitors had left in their wake.

  Must have traveled close to twenty miles today, but it was something I felt I must do. It was payment for the useful items I had found.

  September 26th. Overcast and thirty-eight degrees. Lake water forty degrees, down two degrees from a week ago.

  Today I would cut wood to build up my supply. This business of taking wood out of the savings bank and putting none back has been bothering me no end. I filed the one-man crosscut and sharpened the axe to a razor edge with my stone. Then I dropped a few spruce snags. All day long sharp tools ate into wood, and by evening the woodshed had the look of plenty. In its vicinity, beneath the spruce trees and leaning against their trunks, were many logs standing on end, awaiting the saw when the snow deepened.

  Plenty of meat hanging from the meat tree, plenty of wood, my cabin tight and warm. I looked forward to freeze-up.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Freeze-up

  November 28th. Thanksgiving day. Clear, calm, and a minus four degrees. The stars are still out at eight o’clock this morning. The lake is white with frost and in front of the cabin, frozen to a depth of one inch during the night. I could hear the ice groaning on the lower lake, which is shallower and had started to ice over as early as November 2. I hiked along the beach beyond the point to check the upper end of the lake. There was ice along the shore but a big lead of open water beyond Glacier Creek, and a cloud bank of fog was rising where Beaver Creek empties into the upper end.

  A special meal today. Fresh suet for the chickadees and a few generous handfuls of meat dust on the stump for the camp robbers and the spruce squirrel. I sawed off loin chops for the main course. The rest of the menu was mashed potatoes and brown gravy, a salad of chopped cabbage, carrots, and onions; sourdough biscuits and honey; sourdough shortcake with fresh blueberries for dessert; and all this washed down with a cup of hot chocolate topped with my last marshmallow. I still had room, so I opened a two-pound tin of cookies that I have been saving since early September. As a result of all this I felt more uncomfortable than I have for a long time.

  In preparing for freeze-up, I made a sled out of spruce poles, using the spruce runners I had put in traction. The frame was held together with pegs and short pole bracings. I planed the runners smooth and painted them with a film of wood glue. With its deck poles, handles, and crossbar, it would be a vehicle in which I could push a good-sized load. Too bad I didn’t have a pet caribou to pull it.

  I mended my snowshoes with the dollar-a-string babiche I had brought in with me. Soaked in warm water for a spell, it became very pliable, and I was able to replace the weakened strings. A fresh coat of shellac and the webs looked ready for miles of trail.

  I made a snow shovel out of a fifteen-gallon oil drum Babe had left me. With the wide chisel I cut out the ends, then split the cylinder down the middle. At twenty-two inches around the arc, I split it again. I took some of the curve out of the lower half to give it the proper contact with the ground. For a handle I used twin spruce poles spaced about six inches apart with two crossbars for grips.

  From the ends of the drum I made a pair of ice creepers for slick ice and another pair with cleats for climbing in the crusted snow. I accomplished a rough surface on the creepers by driving the point of a spike through the metal in many places. The cleats were three-quarter-inch strips of oil drum folded at the center, and then flattened out a half inch from each end. They were fastened to a metal sole by small sheet-metal screws.

  I made an ice chisel out of the wide chisel by fastening it on the end of an eight-foot peeled spruce pole. The pole was augered at the end and split so the chisel handle would lay into it from the side. Then I wrapped it with haywire to make it snug.

  Babe had brought me a real glass window that I thought would be a bit of a luxury, but it kept steaming and frosting up and I replaced it with homemade thermopane. This I was able to do by fastening a sheet of thick Mylar plastic (which I got from Sears and which was the mystery package Babe had told me about back in September) with masking tape on each side of the mullions. This left an air space between the two sheets, and the small holes I had bored through the mullions made it really one air space instead of many trapped within the panes.

  In the corner of the lower right-hand pane I made a small wooden frame between the Mylar sheets, forming a tiny pane within a pane. Here again a few small holes were bored through the frame to make the air space one. Into this framed compartment I placed a bag of silica gel which absorbed all the moisture between the Mylar layers and kept the window clear. This small pane also had a flap of Mylar over it.

  I made some improvements in my fireplace and even installed a fancy damper which brother Jake had sent to me. Many fires had blazed merrily away in the hearth with no smoke at all.

  I picked many high-bush cranberries and had made several bottles of syrup for my hotcakes. This gave the maple syrup a rest now and then.

  Last week I completed my logging operation on the far side of Hope Creek. I was thinking ahead to the cache project in the spring.

  Just yesterday I took my last tour with the canoe. When I beached it, ice was already forming on the metal skin. Now it is stored in Spike’s cabin for the winter once more.

  Stars and a pale half-moon are rising at four-thirty in the afternoon. The strong wind continues. A fire flickered in the fireplace almost all day. It is good company with its warmth and its wheezing. I like the cast of my big wolf track in its special place atop the log slab mantel.

  November 29th. A thin overcast and a minus two degrees. The wind died during the night.

  Chipped through three inches of ice to fill my water bucket a few hundred yards offshore. Yesterday morning I checked the water temperature under the ice. Thirty degrees. No wonder the ice thickens at a rapid rate. Ice as far as I could see up country. In a short time I will have a safe highway for miles in each direction. Freeze-up has arrived.

  Highbush cranberries for pancake syrup.

  November 30th. Dead calm and zero degrees. Frost crystals are building up on the ice. It is like walking on a thick pile rug. The tufts of frost are packed tightly together and over an inch high. The lake ice has increased one inch in twenty-four hours.

  The temperature dropped to minus three degrees at noon. I decided to take a trip to the lower end. It’s a pleasure to travel the ice. It took one hour to the gravel bank of the connecting stream—not quite as fast as paddling.

  I saw big wolf tracks in the drifted snow. They broke through the packed snow where I stayed on top. I saw many more wolf tracks, then a magpie farther down—a bad sign. Blood on the snow. Moose calf
tracks, and then about 100 yards farther on, the calf dead on the bank. Blood was frozen on his hind leg above the hock joint. Evidently one of the wolves had hamstrung him while the rest of the pack had held his attention. Had they done it just for sport? Or had they been teaching their young how to go about it? There were smaller tracks in among the larger ones. They had not fed on the carcass at all. Had they actually killed this young bull or did they just disable him and leave him to die? Suddenly the wolves lost a few points with me.

  December 1st. During the night the wind swept the ice free of the frost. I was anxious to be on my way down to the lower end again to check on the calf. If nothing else, it would be meat for my birds and animals.

  I tied on my ice creepers and headed down the ice pushing my big sled. The wind drove against my back and squiggles of snow, like frosty snakes, raced over the ice before me.

  The long hair on the calf was drifted full of snow, and I soon found that the meat was no good. I could pull hair out by the handfuls and the carcass smelled pretty ripe. I butchered it up into sections, loaded up the sled, and headed for home.

  Quite a difference, going against the wind. One gust held me to a standstill. Without my ice creepers I never could have made it. I stowed the meat in the half fifty-gallon drum to freeze, and hung the head in a tree. The magpies soon took command, but there will be plenty for all.

  Just before dark I cruised up to my stand on the edge of the log timber. I brushed the snow from a chunk under the spruce and just sat there to think and look and listen. Many sights I had seen there, and many storms. An hour later the temperature took a nose dive and a strong wind started driving snow from down country.

  December 2nd. Minus twenty-two degrees and the continuous complaining sounds of the ice.

  I opened up the waterhole. Six and one-half inches—an inch and a half in the last twenty-four hours. Out on the lake, the wind drove the cold right into bones. How many clothes would it take to shut out the cold? Shorts and T-shirt, Frisco jeans and wool shirt vest, red sweatshirt with hood, heavy Navy sweater and insulated coveralls. Then Navy cold-weather wool-lined overalls, watch cap, Navy wool-lined cold weather cap, two pairs of felt inner soles and one pair of cardboard inner soles in my pacs, two pairs of woolen socks, two pairs of woolen mittens, and my heavy woolen scarf. I took a hike up the lake and felt I was dressed about right except I needed more protection for my hands. I came back over the timber trail rather than face a wind that stabbed pain through my cheeks.

  Back at the cabin I took a piece of my Glacier Creek ram skin and sewed it into a long tube, hair side in. I fastened a cord to each end so it would hang around my neck. Bare hands shoved into the ends—no wonder those sheep can survive up on the crags!

  I filled my kerosene lamp this evening. I made sure the wick was well saturated, then touched a wooden match flame to it. It gives off a soft yellow light and is as quiet as the wilderness, a welcome change from the hissing of the Coleman lantern even though the Coleman throws a whiter, brighter glow. The old kerosene lamp seems to fit into the scheme of things out here—the cabin, the wilderness, and the cold.

  I noticed a few air leaks in the cabin. There’s frost on the outside of the logs. I plugged up these places with oakum, and I also tacked on more oakum for the door to close against.

  December 3rd. My work on the cabin last evening paid off. It held the heat better last night.

  The ice is now eight-and-a-half inches thick at the waterhole, an increase of two inches from yesterday.

  It’s not too bad working in the woodshed at minus twenty-two degrees. I chopped off a chunk of moose hind quarter. The meat shattered like ice.

  Even when they are not feeding, the magpies huddle around the moose head. A chickadee, fluffed to twice his normal size, sat motionless among the spruce needles. There was a ring of frost around his jet bright eye.

  December 4th. Not a breath. Minus thirty-two degrees. The ice groans like a huge wounded animal all through the day. Now that the ice is thicker the sound seems in a different pitch.

  Nine-fifteen when Spike’s Peak across the lake caught the first rays of the sun.

  At minus thirty degrees the moose meat saws like wood. Some prime meat dust for the chickadees, who are puffed up like little gray balloons today and sitting low in the branches to protect those spindly legs. The camp robbers arrived. They looked like giants with their inflated feathers.

  While coming back from a trip to the lower end, I saw a movement on the beach, a trotting and a stopping and a trotting again. It was a red fox. He came closer. In this very cold and half-dead world he had smelled the moose meat. How handsome he was in his thick orange coat, black boots, white chest piece, and a white tip on the fat banner of his tail. He came still closer. At fifty feet he started to circle me and not until he crossed my tracks did he get alarmed. Then off he flashed over the ice, his tail flopping this way and that. Abruptly he stopped. He sat on his haunches and studied me.

  I put a big chunk of moose meat out on the ice in front of the cabin. Maybe he will come to call by moonlight.

  It’s very warm in my cabin. At three in the afternoon the shadows are near the tops of the mountains across the lake.

  I found it not bad traveling today. The wind is the villain when the thermometer is low. Nature’s invisible knife.

  December 5th. A full moon sharply focused in the very clear air. Minus thirty-two degrees. The ice is now twelve inches thick.

  Today I would experiment with the cold. Hands and feet are the weaknesses in my protective armor. I cut a pair of insoles from caribou hide. I was sure they would be very effective, but they are too thick with the hair on and make my pacs fit too tight. A thermal insole, a cardboard insole, a thick felt insole, two pairs of woolen socks, one of heavy worsted wool and the other of medium weight, with woolen boot socks seems to be a good combination. A loose fit helps, too. I tried paper between two pairs of socks. It seemed better for a time, then colder. For my hands nothing beats the little “Jon-e” handwarmer fueled with Blazo. Two pairs of woolen mittens with this little handwarmer traded back and forth is surefire protection. I tried paper between two pairs of mittens. That helps, but nothing like the little stove. The Glacier Creek ram skin tube is great protection but a man can’t cut wood with his hands shoved into a muff. During these experiments I was working in the woodshed, so I was handy for a quick change of gear.

  December 6th. A yellow pumpkin moon and minus thirty-five degrees.

  Good that it is calm. Even a light breeze will make thirty-five below penetrate right into your vitals. By working fast in the woodshed I find I can stay on the comfortable side.

  I had another experiment to perform. Protection for my face has been another problem, especially in a wind. A woolen scarf is good for a short while, then it ices up and becomes uncomfortable. I needed something that would stand away from my face and still allow me to see.

  A big paper bag might do it. I had not thrown the empty cement sacks away. I shook one out and turned it inside out. Then I cut it in front so it came down to my chest. Next a one-inch slot four inches long to see through. It looked ridiculous, but looks don’t count when you’re traveling over the ice at thirty-five degrees below zero.

  I shoved off for the lower end in my new headgear. It was surprising how warm it was inside my hood. Frosting up a bit, but that was no real problem. I was also wearing a pair of heavy paper mittens between two woolen ones. My hands were fair. Much frost collected on my hood when a breeze hit me. By nearly closing the slot with my stocking cap, I had good protection. A six-mile jaunt round-trip. Next time my little hand warmer goes with me. It is good to know how much cold one can stand and how to dress for it. On taking off my pacs I found my thermal insoles frozen to the soles of the pacs. With the thick felt insoles on top, my feet were warm. I think walking on ice is much colder on the feet than in snow.

  December 7th. Clear, calm, and minus thirty-eight degrees. It seems that below minus thirty-five degrees the
air gets hazy as though it is full of tiny frost crystals.

  I broke through my waterhole. It was a mass of ice almost immediately.

  I was in and out of doors many times today and in my shirtsleeves, too. I must be getting used to this deep freeze.

  Strange that I have seen no northern lights yet.

  The ice complains less, but when it does, it sounds like a jet plane going by at low altitude. Sometimes it makes a ripping noise as the cracks race through it.

  December 8th. A mild thirty-six below zero. Near sunrise seems to be the low reading.

  A good day to check on the mystery trail down the slope of Falls Mountain. I wanted to try out a new device to protect my face, too. I unlaced my Glacier Creek ram skin handwarming tube and made a ruff such as borders a parka hood. Tied the ends together under my chin. With more string I laced the two sides loosely together in the back of my neck. Better visibility than my paper hood.

  Fire’s cheery flame glows within the façade of varicolored stones, which were collected from up and down both sides of the lakes. The cast of the wolf track above the orange stone in the arch measures 7" x 5".

  I crossed the ice to investigate the trail. In the loose snow it was too hard to make out tracks, but I found sheep hair on the brush and many branches broken. I think maybe a lynx attacked the sheep, dragged it down the mountain, then lost its hold, and the sheep escaped. There was no blood on the snow.

  It didn’t seem like minus thirty-five degrees. I had up a good head of steam going through the spruce timber. Then I saw an odd sight, a small column of vapor rising from the ridgeline.

  I had heard bush pilots say that sometimes you can locate a bear in hibernation by the vapor rising from his bunk. I couldn’t tell if it was coming from above or below the ridge. I climbed toward it. Sheep tracks and scuff marks exposed grass. Then just above me a few hundred yards I saw three ewes feeding. Their warmth was causing the vapor column that rose perhaps seventy-five feet before it faded out.