Alone in the Wilderness is an hour long film that is played frequently on PBS. After watching five minutes of it, I went ahead and bought it (not from PBS shame on me). This film was created by taking pieces of home movies taken by Richard Proenneke (my hero) while living alone in Alaska.
Richard decided at age 51 that he wanted to live in isolation in the beauty of nature. So one summer he fell several trees with a hand saw near a lake in Alaska. The next spring he went up and built a log cabin. He filmed himself as he first built his hand tools and then built the cabin by himself. He shows how he made boards by hand and a wooden lock by hand. He showed how he made the notches in the logs by hand and he had completed the cabin structure in 11 days! I couldn't build a cabin with help and unlimited credit at Home Depot in that time.
Richard ended staying there for 30 years and would record these films and send them to his brother so he could see what he was up to. The scenery in the movie is breath taking.
For me, watching this movie would be like an artist getting to watch a self documentary of Leonardo da Vinci painting the Mona Lisa.
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