Samuel "Sam" M. Keith grew up in New England and worked in the CCC
during the Great Depression. During World War II he served as a air
combat crewman in the Pacific. After his military service ended,
Sam attended and graduated from Cornell University. He followed his
dream to go to Alaska where he met Richard "Dick" Proenneke in the
1950s on Kodiak Island. He also worked on the Alaska Peninsula and
at Kenai for a total of three years before returning to
Massachusetts where he met his future wife, Jane. Then he married
Jane and began a 26-year career teaching English and eventually
becoming an assistant vice principal. In August 1970 he visited
Dick's new log cabin on Lake Clark in the wilderness of Alaska. Sam
convinced Dick to let him borrow his journals from 1968-1969 as the
factual basis for writing the now best-selling book, ONE MAN'S
WILDERNESS. Sam passed away in Anderson, South Carolina on March
28, 2003.
Richard "Dick" Louis Proenneke was born in 1916 in Primrose, Iowa
and dropped out of high school in nearby Donnellson, Iowa to work
on farms during the Great Depression in the early 1930s. In 1939 he
undertook a long "working" road trip through the West. On December
8, 1941 he joined the U.S. Navy and served with distinction until
he developed rheumatic fever and was given a medical discharge from
the Navy in 1945. After some work in Oregon after his discharge, he
left for Alaska in 1950. His work in Alaska centered around
commercial fishing, a mechanic, and a heavy equipment operator. He
first visited Twin Lakes in 1962. He build his cabin at Twin Lakes
by cutting logs for it in the summer of 1967. He lived in his cabin
until 1998 when he donated the cabin and his possessions to the
U.S. National Park Service and left to live with his brother in
California. Today, Dick Proenneke's cabin still sits on Upper Twin
Lake in Lake Clark National Park and Preserve. Dick passed away in
Hemet, California on April 20, 2003, a few weeks after his friend,
Sam Keith had pass away.
One Man's Wilderness is the best modern piece of prose about
Alaska, the one that gives the truest picture of what living in the
bush today is like for the lone individual. ---Anchorage Daily
News
[Proenneke's] journals froms the text of this handsome book, and
his parkling color slides illustrate it with a beauty that tugs at
your heart and sets your heels to itching just a little. You owe
yourself the pleasure of this book. ---Biloxi Sun Hearld
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