Living Secluded, Alone and Totally Isolated (Fairbanks, Ruby: job, college, company)

[karibear]

Originally Posted by Delaneyland

I'm surprised its not yet been mentioned, but Dick Proenneke lived at Twin Lakes from 1968 until 1998. He began his journey to test himself, to build a cabin and stay one winter....thirty years later he moved to his brothers in California as he couldn't take the winters anymore. Since his death, theres been a video made of real footage he shot over his years in the bush and a couple books. Good stuff.

Funny you should mention him. "One Man's Wilderness" is one of the books I unpacked a few weeks ago and am trying to dry out and save. [many cartons sitting ouside for a year, after spending many years in unheated storage] It's still readable, but most of the photos are trashed. I just looked and there wasn't even a price on it, it was one of the old Alaska Geographics that came with an annual subscription - 16.00/year, as I recall.

[willdufauve]

If you live for a very long period of time without any social contact your conversational sense of timing slows way down. You listen differently and respond differently, if at all. Your voice quality changes a lot, even if you sing or chant. In other words, you become unaccustomed to speech. There's a bit of a re-entry period, maybe 2 or 3 days, no matter how long you've been isolated.

Isolation, self imposed, I don't mean like going to prison, is a sublime luxury if you have the time and resources to do it. The internet or television would be superfluous, there's so much else out there to experience, you'd just shed it. A musical instrument or two worked for me.

[RayinAK]

Originally Posted by Sciamedia

Living alone for a year or two, hunting and fishing as much as you like, reading as much as you like, no utilities etc just you and Mother Nature to me sounds very spiritual and peaceful. Are you projecting this Dr Phil thingy? Have you called him?

Of course it sounds "very spiritual and peaceful," but you have to take into consideration that this is Alaska, not Nevada. In Nevada I could very well spend lots of time in the wilderness, but the same is very difficult to do in Alaska, specially where it gets very cold (Alaska's interior, for example). How peaceful do you think you will be, when it's -65 degrees outside? How about -70 degrees for a a few days having to haul snow or chunks of ice to the shelter just to melt it to have a drink? I have no idea of what you are saying about Dr. Phil. I seldom watch TV.

Read books about Alaskans who long ago lived in the wilderness. Not a TV documentary or movie, just books about real people living out there. I would recommend a couple:

-Alaska's Wolf Man
-The Final Frontiersman
-On the Edge Of Nowhere

[DannyL]

Ray, we're just gonna have to surrender to them on this. We're honestly dealing with a few discovery channel junkies (not all, but a few naive ones) and a whole bunch who they're idea of "the wilderness" is a weekend out at a national park or a 3 day weekend in an RV. Using a "pop-up" is really roughing it.
Just let it go, I have.....

[karibear]

Originally Posted by nkotb

I think your problem goes deeper than your hair folicles

Oh, no, I can totally relate. Once I finally got to AK, I quit dying my hair [the ex's idea], and once it started growing out, I cut all the colored stuff off. I didn't stay in seclusion, but I did wear a cap until it finally got longer than the hair of the men I knew. If I could have hid out, I would have. I think I lived in that hat for about 5 months...

[CometVoyager]

Originally Posted by Delaneyland

I'm surprised its not yet been mentioned, but Dick Proenneke lived at Twin Lakes from 1968 until 1998. He began his journey to test himself, to build a cabin and stay one winter....thirty years later he moved to his brothers in California as he couldn't take the winters anymore. Since his death, theres been a video made of real footage he shot over his years in the bush and a couple books. Good stuff.

In Sweden, Dick Proenneke is actually a folk hero. From 1974 to 1975 I was alone for 2 3 week periods during February approx 40 miles NW of Jokkmokk, Sweden. Although I had hunted there many times during the fall, the winter was very challenging but at the same time there was never any down time whereas I was very busy during the dark twilight setting land traps and checking my ice traps as well. Reindeer Meat and Moose were not as available as I thought because they were monopolized by what the Swedes call the Reindeer People. When I was in my hut all I had to sleep because of so much fatigue using snow shoes all day. So little time for reading and writing. I did have a satellite cell phone but was determined to never turn it on and I really did have the ability to contact a Reindeer person within 5 miles from where my hut was. The time went by very fast but if I were to do it again I would try my best to follow the Dick Proenneke model, as he was a true wilderness man and more so a renaissance man. His ability to prepare and improvise was incredible, as was his discipline for detail.

[Metlakatla]

The best way to go about it is to buy a small piece of land in the bush. If you try to do this on federal land you could end up being escorted out and I don't believe it's legal to build a dwelling on it. The Forest Service does have a program here where they will fly you out to remote cabins for a period of time though.

[karibear]

These are some sites:

[SIZE=5]http://www.landinalaska.com/[/SIZE]

[SIZE=5]http://www.dnr.state.ak.us/mlw/landsale/[/SIZE]

Just keep in mind that if it's remote, you'll either need to fly in with a float or ski plane, or be stuck until after freeze-up and you can use a skidoo. An awful lot of the land, depending where the plot is, is muskeg, and you don't even want to try to walk on that, much less drive anything on it.

[CometVoyager]

Originally Posted by karibear

These are some sites:

[SIZE=5]http://www.landinalaska.com/[/SIZE]

[SIZE=5]http://www.dnr.state.ak.us/mlw/landsale/[/SIZE]

Just keep in mind that if it's remote, you'll either need to fly in with a float or ski plane, or be stuck until after freeze-up and you can use a skidoo. An awful lot of the land, depending where the plot is, is muskeg, and you don't even want to try to walk on that, much less drive anything on it.

Thanks for the heads up karibear! I also was interested if Canada still had any homestead land available as well. I never hunted in Canada so maybe I could begin there!

[karibear]

Originally Posted by CometVoyager

Thanks for the heads up karibear! I also was interested if Canada still had any homestead land available as well. I never hunted in Canada so maybe I could begin there!

I used to have a website for Canadian remote lands too, but it's vanished in the fog of computer rebuildings. There was one site that listed mostly their own hunting land all over the western 2/3 of Canada - from north of the Great Lakes to the Pacific Coast - along with properties in other parts of the world. The prices were low, but that was in a different economy than we now have, so they wouldn't seem all that low now. Most of it was bare hunting land, some had marginal improvements [ie, a cabin and outhouse], a few were on road systems. Unless things have changed, which they may well have, buying/owning real estate in Canada gave one citizenship, so it would be possible for a US citizen to have dual citizenship. But that was then, this is now. And it was still the same kind of remote land, muskeg, insane mosquitoes the size of a B-57, easily accessible only in the winter.