Looking to move to the North Slope

[warptman]

[AKStafford]

Originally Posted by stiffnecked

Richard Proenneke and Heimo Korth lasted 200 times longer then your hero.

Thanks for the video links. I've always heard of Dick Proenneke, but that was the first time I watched anything on him.
He was an impressive guy. But he came from a generation that knew how to do a little bit of everything: woodworking, mechanicing, etc. And people knew how to make do with what you had. And hard work was just something you did.
My wife's grandfather homesteaded in Wasilla in the 50's. He passed away a few years back and recently we took apart the old house. He built it out of lumber he scavenged off of Elmendorf when they were dismantling buildings left over after WWII. For a ridge cap on the roof, he cut the tops and bottoms out of tin cans and cut them open to create a flat, rectangular piece of metal. He nailed them down and coated everything with tar to prevent leaks. Where there was a knot-hole in the board, he did the same thing to cover it up. The insulation was old newspaper.
You'll notice I said we took the house apart... The wife's father (who grew up being taught by his dad to let nothing go to waste) wanted to salvage all that he could out of it. Us son-in-laws wanted to just push the thing over and let it burn.

[stiffnecked]

Back in the early 80's I spent a few nights in a very old miners cabin on the Casadepaga River outside of Nome. That was the first time I'd every seen the old fuel cans that had been made into shingles. The more I looked the more stuff I found like that. It seemed like everything served more then one purpose.

Their is also a longer Proenneke video. Almost an hour. PBS airs it everyonce in a while and they've also go it on dvd. I was amazed at what the guy was able to do.