One Man's Wilderness, 50th Anniversary Edition

by Richard Louis Proenneke

  My cabin logs have magically changed form in the ten days since I cut the first notch. There are only four full-length logs left, and only one of those is halfway decent. Before it’s over, there will be a use for all of them.

  June 7th. I do believe the growing season is at hand. The buckbrush and willows are leafing out fast now. The rhubarb is growing, and I notice my onion sets are spiking up through the earth.

  Those window frames have been on my mind. I decided to do something about it. First I built a sawhorse workbench, then selected straight-grained sections of logs cut from the window and door openings. I chalked a line down each side, and with a thin-bladed wide chisel, I cut deep along the line on each side. Then I drove the hand axe into the end to split the board away from the log. That worked fine.

  I smoothed the split sides with the drawknife to one and three-quarter inches wide. The result was a real nice board, so I continued to fashion others. Put in place and nailed, they look first-rate.

  I finished the day cleaning the litter of wood chips. I mounded them in front of the door, beaver lodge style. Quite a pile for eleven days’ work—enough to impress that beaver.

  I have given a lot of thought to chinking. I think I will try mixing moss and loose oakum to cut down on the amount of oakum. If oakum with its hemp fibers can caulk the seams in boats, it should be able to chink logs.

  June 8th. I moved my mountain of wood chips and shavings. Then I gathered moss and spread it on the beach to dry. There is still ice under the six-inch-thick moss in the woods. I used oakum in the narrow seams, and a mixture of oakum and moss where the opening was more than one-quarter inch. Straight oakum is easier to use. I will have a tight cabin.

  Much trimming to do. The framework improves with a “haircut” of the log ends.

  June 9th. Today would be a day away from the job of building. I’ll look for pole timber up the lake.

  I proceeded to the upper end of the lake, where I beached the canoe on the gravel bar and tied the painter to a willow clump. A “down-the-lake” wind might come up and work the canoe into the water, and it would be a long hike to retrieve it.

  I walked along the flat, crossing and recrossing the creek that had its beginnings in the far-off snows. I found a dropped moose antler, a big one, and decided to pick it up on the way back. There were fox tracks and lynx tracks in the sand, and piles of old moose droppings.

  The rockpile was finally before me, a huge jumble of gray-black, sharp-edged granite chunks all crusted with lichens. It was a natural lookout that commanded three canyons. I set up my spotting scope, wedging the legs of the tripod firmly amid the slim-fronded ferns that grew dagger-shaped in single clumps out of the rock crevices. Right off I spotted four caribou bulls grazing along the right fork of the creek bed. Then high on the slopes five good-looking Dall rams, one in a classic pose with all four feet together atop a crag, back humped against the sky.

  Below them, four ewes moved in my direction. At mid-slope a bull moose on the edge of some cottonwoods was pulling at the willow brush, changing black and brown as he swung his antlers among the foliage. I saw an eagle wheeling in the air currents, pinions stiffened like outstretched fingers. Ground squirrels whistled. Life was all around.

  On the way back to the beach I stooped to nibble on last season’s mossberries. They were a little tart to the tongue. I picked up the moose antler and wondered where the other might be. To my surprise I found the mate not 200 yards away. They made quite an awkward load to pack. It must be a relief to an old bull when the load falls off.

  Just as I reached the canoe, it had to happen. An up-the-lake-wind! I battled against it for a spell, then decided to beach. Finding a warm spot in the sun I napped, waiting for the lake to flatten. It never really did, and I paddled back from point to point until I finally reached the cabin.

  A good day. I forgot only one thing—something for lunch.

  June 10th. Bright and clear. I hear the spruce squirrel, but he stays out of sight. He likes to shuck his spruce cones in private. The blueberry bushes are nearly leafed out and loaded with bloom.

  I finished chinking the cabin. Then I put a log under the bottom log in front, to plug an opening there. I did the same in back and chinked them both. Now I am ready for the roof poles, which I will start cutting tomorrow.

  The little sandpipers flying back and forth along the edge of the beach have a characteristic flight. A few quivering strokes of their wings, a brief sail, some more wing vibrations, and then wings rigid again as they glide to a landing and vanish. They blend in so well, they are invisible against the gravel until they move.

  June 11th. I paddled up the lake to the foot of Crag Mountain. This was a pole-cutting day.

  Good poles were not as plentiful as I figured, and I worked steadily to get forty-eight cut and packed to the beach by noon. The mosquitoes were out in force.

  To peel the poles, I made a tripod of short sticks on which to rest one end of the pole while the other stuck into the bank, and put the drawknife to work. The bark flew.

  June 12th. Today I finished peeling the poles, fifty in all, rafted them up, and moved them down the lake to my beach. A good pile, but I doubt there will be enough.

  June 13th. Rain. Wrote a batch of letters—not a job to do on a good day. It cleared in the late afternoon, so I gathered sixteen more poles and peeled seven.

  Readying the roof poles for installation.

  June 14th. Not a cloud in the sky. A cool morning but no frost. My garden is all up except the potatoes, and they should be showing soon. The green onions are more than three inches tall.

  I peeled the remainder of my roof poles and trimmed the knots close. Now to put them on, but how close? I decided on five inches center to center as they lay at right angles to the ridge log.

  One side is nearly roofed and the other, about half. With only ten left, I must hunt more poles—about thirty if my calculations are right.

  June 15th. I tried for a fish this morning at the mouth of Hope Creek. No luck. I did see the flash of a light-colored belly behind the lure. They are there.

  I went pole prospecting below the creek mouth in the fine rain and cut fifteen—enough for one trip back up the lake. I tied the small ends side by side, ran the canoe into the butt-ends far enough to tie them to the bow thwart. It left me enough room to paddle from just forward of the stern, which worked real well—slow but effective transportation.

  In the afternoon I finished the front end of the cabin roof and took count. I would need seventeen more poles. After scouting in the timber behind the cabin, I found seven.

  A beautiful evening with a light breeze down the lake. A loon rode low in the water and trailed a wake of silver as it took flight.

  June 16th. Where are my spuds? Maybe I planted them too deep.

  Today I secured the roof poles over the gables and chinked them. A cabin roof takes time. A hundred poles to gather, transport, and peel, trim the knots, and notch them to fit over the purlin logs. I see where one more pole is needed. Soon I will be ready to saw the ends and fill the slots between the pole butts under the eaves. These fillers should be called squirrel frustrators. Give those characters an entrance and they can ruin a cabin.

  June 17th. Up to greet the new day at 3:45 a.m. I am not sure of the time anymore. I have kept both my watch and clock wound but have not changed the setting. Now they are thirty minutes apart. Which one is right? No radio to check by. I don’t miss a radio a bit. I never thought one was in tune with the wilderness anyway. A man is on his own frequency out here.

  On the job at five-thirty. I sawed the roof pole ends off to a proper eighteen-inch overhang. Now I am ready for the chore of plugging the gaps between the roof poles on top of the wall logs. If varmints are going to get into my cabin, they will have to work at it.

  The camp robbers are back. Four were near the cabin today. They are marked somewhat like king-size chickadees. I like the way they come gliding softly in to settle on a spruce tip and tilt their he
ads from one side to the other as if they are critical of what I am doing. Some have a very dark plumage, almost black.

  Tomorrow should see the roof ready for the tar paper, polyethylene, and moss. I feel guilty about the tar paper and polyethylene because they are not true wilderness cabin materials, but I am convinced that they will do a better job of keeping the weather out. Next I will finish the inside kitchen counter, table, and bench and make stands for the water bucket and the wash basin. The more I think about it, I should build a double-deck bunk. Might have some company.

  June 18th. Everything looks as though it had a bath last night. Must have been a good shower and I never even heard it.

  My garden looks perky. The green onions are five inches tall or more. Peas are up an inch. Everything is growing first-class but my spuds. Not a sign of them yet.

  A check on the livestock before going down to the roof job. Two caribou bulls just up country from Low Pass Creek. Nothing else in sight. Should be a bear passing through one of these days.

  I finished filling the slots between the roof poles and caulked joints with oakum. Then I put a strip of the oiled oakum down each side and over the gables. I chinked around the blocks on the outside and also caught the windows and door frame. I chinked all the corner joints of the logs. Any place I could get a table knife blade in got oakum.

  With poles in place, the slots between the pole ends under the eaves need to be filled in. These fillers should be called “squirrel frustrators.”

  I was surprised to look up and see it raining on the other side of the lake. It was darkening fast. The rain was advancing on the double. A get-wet rain was upon me before I made it to Spike’s cabin. Six o’clock by the Baby Ben. Time for the sourdough biscuits and those red beans.

  Once I get my roof on, I can work on the cabin rain or shine.

  I do believe this rain will help the blueberry crop. Seems to me there are more blossoms than last summer.

  Twenty days to get the cabin to its present stage of construction. A lot of chips ago.

  June 19th. I need a fish. No luck at all at Hope Creek. I decided to paddle down to the upper end of the lower lake. There ought to be some action where the connecting stream pours in.

  It took an hour and ten minutes to make the run on the calm water. Then instant action. I took two seventeen-inch lake trout out of the eddies near the fast water. That’s enough for my needs, so I packed up and lined the canoe against the current to the upper lake. I saw a sharply defined wolf track in the mud. Next time down I must try a plaster cast of that.

  In the afternoon while checking the country through the spotting scope, I gasped right out loud. I saw caribou all over the place! I couldn’t pass this up, so I loaded the canoe with my camera gear and the plaster of paris. These cows and calves were just beyond where the big wolf track was. I made record time down to the lower end of the lake.

  First things first. I prepared the wolf track. It should be ready by the time I get back from stalking the caribou. The mud was very wet and I wondered if the plaster would set, but I filled the track up anyway with the thick mixture.

  As I climbed through the timber, the herd started to move down country. There were at least 150. The breeze was in my favor, with plenty of cover to get close. I never saw so many caribou in the viewfinder at one time. There they were, bedded down in that wild setting, and when they started to move suddenly, the whole land seemed to move with them. I should have some good footage from that show. On the way back to the canoe I looked back and there were the tail-enders trailing up through the pass.

  The plaster had not set up in the track. It was as soft as when I had put it down. I cut a piece of cardboard from a box I had in the canoe, for a base. I cut around the track and the plaster, pushed my fingers under from opposite sides, lifted up, and set the whole blob like a cake onto the cardboard.

  A breezy tailwind helped me paddle home.

  More good luck. The trotline pulled heavy. A twenty-inch burbot. I’m back in the fish business.

  June 20th. A fog barrier hid the peaks.

  The wolf track measured a good five inches.

  There’s more chinking to do around the filler blocks and the roof poles, around the purlin logs where they go through the gables, and at the corner joints on the inside as well as the outside.

  Next was a job I had been thinking about, a table top, a counter top, some window ledges, and some shelves. I could split the logs straight enough but there were many slivers, and it was a real chore to get them halfway smooth. I made two, then decided to try ripping one with the ripsaw. That was the answer. I could go down the middle of a log five inches in diameter and forty-two inches long in fifteen minutes. Couldn’t complain about that.

  I think I have sawed nearly everything that I need. Now to trim the edges and start building.

  A few rain showers forced me to get the sixteen-foot by ten-foot tarp of polyethylene, and I covered the overhang in front of the cabin with it. A dry place to work, and my tools will keep as well.

  What about that! One of my spuds has appeared!

  June 21st. big surprise this morning. A white frost and a good one. The leaves of the rhubarb were white. I wondered how my garden would fare with this sneak attack. When the sun started bearing down, I would know.

  I was sitting in my doorway filing the teeth of the ripsaw. When I looked up for a moment, I noticed a movement on the gravel path leading up from the lake. At first glance I thought it was the squirrel, but the movements were even more furtive and the animal was too skinny to be a squirrel. Surely enough, it was a weasel. He stopped within six feet of me. His eyes held the glint of black beads as they peered at me out of a triangular-shaped head. His ears were rounded. He was wearing his summer coat of pale brown with white undertrimmings. His tail was black from the tip right on up to the middle of it.

  My hand moved to brush at a gnat crawling on my eyelid. In a flash the weasel was off, scampering over the hummocks of moss.

  The squirrel chattered from the very top of a spruce. There he was against the sky, sitting on his haunches, tail curved over his back, nibbling on a spruce cone that he held in his forepaws. The scales were raining down on the boughs below him.

  “Quiet up there,” I warned. “You better watch out. That bloodthirsty guy will have you for breakfast.”

  A day to make lumber. Hew off the round side of my slabs and trim the edges. I ripped out two planks for my door, and will need two more. Soon I will be ready to put things together.

  The frost seems not to have hurt the garden one bit but something else almost did. Fresh moose tracks that just missed. I hope the frost didn’t bother the blueberries.

  June 22nd. Got up before the sun and watched it light the peaks of the shadowed mountains.

  The sound of a plane. In came Babe, landing downwind. I saw his boy, Glenn, climb out on the pilot’s side. That little fellow in the eighth grade next year was flying the old T-craft!

  They’d brought lots of groceries—rhubarb and oranges and grapefruit and bananas—and mail. Some spikes and two goodhand saws. Also a cake from Mary Alsworth.

  Babe was satisfied the cabin was coming along fine. We sat on the beach for a spell. He would be using the old Stinson to ferry gas for a prospecting outfit. Did I want anything big flown in? Could I use a fifty-gallon barrel or two? Good to store stuff in, so the varmints can’t get at it. I allowed they might come in handy.

  I watched them go out of sight over the volcanic mountains.

  I got some really sad news in my mail. Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated.

  I must admit Mary Alsworth bakes a better cake than I do.

  June 23rd. Sunday. A day to take up the slack.

  Saws to sharpen. That’s an easy job. Then a hunt for a log to make some two-inch planks for my cabin door. I found one in my wood supply. It would make two planks nine inches wide. With the two I already had, that should give me enough. I marked out the planks. It would take some ripping to make t
hree cuts fifty-one inches long and ten deep. But I went at it and in time the job was done. I could use the slabs for bench tops or stool tops, or whatever. I loaded the whole business into the canoe and paddled down to the cabin.

  Pleased with what has been accomplished. Chips littered like fallen leaves. A man who made reality out of a dream.

  Fog wisps around the peaks, and a sprinkle dimples the calm lake this evening.

  June 24th. A dusting of new snow on Spike’s Peak.

  A few more boards to hew out and then I will start on the inside. Window ledges for three windows. A five-foot shelf over the door and the start of the kitchen counter cut out and ready to put on the wall. I augered one-and-a-half- inch holes into the wall logs to take the supports for the counter. There will be no legs on the floor. Tomorrow I will do what I can toward the construction of the table, make the door, and then the double-deck bunk.

  More spuds waking up.

  A strong breeze is coming down the lake this evening. Best repellent I know; it keeps the mosquitoes grounded.

  June 25th. Sunlight on the slopes down country. A beautiful day.

  Put some finishing touches on the door planks I made Sunday. Now the door is ready to put together. I think I shall make it a Dutch door. I made the legs for a table. All I have to do is auger four holes and it will be ready to assemble. Installed three window ledges and cut the window sash to fit the frames. I installed half the kitchen counter framework. Made and put up three shelves in the kitchen area. Tomorrow I will work on my double-deck bunk. To look around at what you have accomplished in a day gives a man a good feeling. Too many men work on parts of things. Doing a job to completeness satisfies a man.

  June 26th. A cool morning. My garden is like a turtle with its head pulled in. It needs the warm sun to respond.

  Today I built the double bunk. Four posts with two rails on each side, and two large and two small rails on each end. I augered one-and-a-half-inch holes and trimmed the rail poles to fit. I got it put together and it looked too big so I shortened the end rails. Still too big, so I cut them again. I have it down now to twenty-seven inches wide inside the side rails, and it looks much better. Now when I get some glue, I will knock it apart and glue it back together.