Dick Proenneke

the lone gunman

the lone gunman

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May 29, 2008
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I watched "Alone in the wild " On PBS last night . The story of Richard Proenneke, Fantastic show. He lived alone in Alaska Wilderness for many years alone. At one point in the show he had a bush plane come in and drop supplys and One item mentioned was 50lbs of Sugar. I wonder, What the Hell would one do with that much sugar living in the wild like that? I cant come up with any reason I would need sugar if I was doing his thing. Any thoughts on Sugar??
 
Maybe he got a sweet tooth...
I understand spices and sugar make all the difference when one chooses to live by himself in the wild...
 
Good for preserving

Also makes for a slightly bland but easily made booze
 
My brother-in-law had this on video, and it was a really intriguing story.

As for the sugar, another use may be that Proenneke was also feeding humming birds, or something like that. In Montana in the 80's, we had hordes of humming birds fly in every year, as soon as we got the feeders up. Those little buggers go through sweetwater FAST. I don't know if they'd go through 50 lbs. of sugar in a season, but I'm sure Proenneke had other uses for it too.

~Chris
 
Noddy said:
Good for preserving

Also makes for a slightly bland but easily made booze
Click to expand...

After looking into sugar more, I see it is used to preserve fruit . He did mention eating blueberrys often so maybe hes using it in that way. Maybe I will have to rethink this, Never really included fruit in my survival stash. I personally dont eat /use sugar for anything else that I know.
 
I think its safe to say that his supplies consisted more of basic ingredients than prepared foods. A good cook can do quite a bit with the basics.
 
have his dvd, great man. been watching it once a week with the family for years. he was a carpenter during WW2 and the war left him physically spent, so he decided to get back into shape and due to his frugality he was able to retire at age 50. then he decided to test his limits up in twin lakes alaska. he went up there to brave the arctic for a year alone. his cabin was made in 4 months (awsome job)

he didnt spend 30 years alone there though, just the first year.
 
My best friend and his family grow most of their own food and the use alot of sugar and salt, you wouldn`t think it but homemade food takes a large amount of these simple items. Canning , jams and jellys are a staple when you can`t rely on refridgeration suger and salt are key to these types of preservation.
 
Its tough choking down pancakes without it! He got supplies fairly regular that includind things like flour sugar levening agents and such. 4 months to build the cabin!!!! Only took abt 20 min on my video.......
 
I have the video. He picked cranberries to make a syrup for his sour dough pancakes. Here's a shot from the movie.

vlcsnap-2011-03-25-18h10m04s228.png
 
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