Subsistance Hunter/Fisherman of the Week: Dick Proenneke
Dick Proenneke may be the ultimate modern subsistence hunter and fisherman in so far as the Western World is concerned.
Proenneke was born in Iowa in 1916. His father was sort of a jack of all trades laborer, which is and was common to rural areas. His father was also a veteran of World War One. Dick followed in his father's footsteps prior to World War Two, leaving high school before graduation, something extremely common in that era (less than 50% of males graduated from high school prior to World War Two He joined the Navy in World War Two and took up hiking around San Francisco while recovering from rheumatic fever contracted in the service. Having the disease was life altering for him, as he became focused on his health. He received a medical discharge from the Navy in 1945.
After the war he became a diesel mechanic, but his love of nature caused him to move to Oregon to work on a sheep ranch, and then to Shuyark Island, Alaska, in 1950. From 1950 to 1968 he worked for a variety of employers, including the Navy and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. He moved to the wilderness in 1968, at age 52, the year that in many ways gave us the Post Post World War Two World we are now seeing collapse. He lived there, as a single man, until 1999, when old age forced him out of the woods and to his brother's home in California. He died in there in 2003, at age 86. His cabin now belongs to the Park Service.
Proenneke loved photography and left an extensive filmed record of his life in Alaska.
There's a lot that can be gleaned from his life, some of which would probably be unwarranted, as every person's life is their own. Having noted that, however, it should be noted that Proenneke is not the only person to live in this manner in Alaska's back wood, including up to the present. So he's not fully unique, but rather his high intelligence and filmed record has made him known.
It's also notable, fwiw, that he was a single man. Basically, if looked at carefully, his retreat to the woods came in his retirement, as he had very low expenses up until 1968, and had worked for the government for many years. He never married, so he never had a family or responsibilities of that type. Many of the men who live in wild Alaska have married into native families, so their circumstances are different.
Probably every young man who loves the outdoors has contemplated doing something like what Proenneke actually did, while omitted the decades of skilled labor as a single man that came before it. And in reality, Proenneke, had lived over half his life as a working man with strong outdoor interests, rather than in the wilderness. People really aren't meant to live the way he lived, in extreme isolation, save for a few.
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