Alone In The Wilderness

I found this brilliant video while reading the Oi Polloi blog archives. It follows Dick Proenneke, who in line with that tradition of American men- from Walden to Christopher McCandless, schleps off into the wild to tune out of modern life. We watch him in the Summer of 1968 (while the rest of America reels from multiple high-profile assassinations and social turbulence) build a cabin from scratch in Alaska, in a series of footage shot by himself. Luckily there is no Timothy Treadwell-style Bear gore, just instead the vaguely entrancing process of chopping and laying logs to make his home and canoeing in lakes. The soundtrack sounds like one of those free relaxation CDs that I sometimes find in my bedroom, with no memory of how it got there. No panpipes..but it comes close! I especially like Dick's blue Dickies trousers. They remind me of the clean blue Dickies overalls that Ken wore on the avocado farm, with a white shirt, a vaguely feminine straw hat and a serious expression.