Catbird
05-11-2012, 09:18 AM
"Alaska man plans year on uninhabited island" (htthttp://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57431786/alaska-man-plans-year-on-uninhabited-island/p://)
"Charles Baird is going off the grid for a year.
The 40-year-old oil company employee and filmmaker from Anchorage will move to the mostly uninhabited Latouche Island in Alaska's Prince William Sound at the end of May, completing a dream he's been contemplating for 17 years.
Baird will build a 12x12 shed to shelter him from the elements, and he plans to hunt and fish and fend off an occasional black bear during his sojourn to the Alaska wilderness.
He'll be incommunicado, only allowing himself to send short messages out via a satellite uplink to http://www.facebook.com/AlaskanPioneer and no way to receive any in. He won't even know who won the November presidential election for six months. He calls his experiment more modern-day homesteading than a survival game, but he's heading into the adventure well-armed.
"I may see some hunters and fishermen come by but otherwise I will be on my own, just me and my dog," he said.
...He also plans to keep busy by reading, taking a couple thousand books on an electronic reader. He'll keep it charged with wind and solar systems he's taking with him.
Baird is planning to keep a diary, which could be turned into a book. He's also thinking of writing an instructional book of how to live in the remote wilderness.
Then there's also the filming, day in and day out, of his experiences alone on the Alaska island.
Once he returns to civilization, he'll edit the video and try to sell it as a documentary series.
Baird is not the first to make or film such an odyssey.
Dick Proenneke lived alone in a remote cabin and kept journals published as the classic Alaska memoir "One Man's Wilderness.""
I always enjoy watching One Man Wilderness when it's shown on PBS. I bought the book which is an expanded version of the diary and gives more detail on how he lived. There was just something so Zen about Proenneke - he needed a big spoon to stir his pancake batter and so he just sat down and made one. That level of simple living isn't feasible for many, but it will be interesting to see if this guy can make it work. I don't really do Facebook but I may try to check in there once in a while just to keep up with how he's doing.
http://www.facebook.com/AlaskanPioneer
"Charles Baird is going off the grid for a year.
The 40-year-old oil company employee and filmmaker from Anchorage will move to the mostly uninhabited Latouche Island in Alaska's Prince William Sound at the end of May, completing a dream he's been contemplating for 17 years.
Baird will build a 12x12 shed to shelter him from the elements, and he plans to hunt and fish and fend off an occasional black bear during his sojourn to the Alaska wilderness.
He'll be incommunicado, only allowing himself to send short messages out via a satellite uplink to http://www.facebook.com/AlaskanPioneer and no way to receive any in. He won't even know who won the November presidential election for six months. He calls his experiment more modern-day homesteading than a survival game, but he's heading into the adventure well-armed.
"I may see some hunters and fishermen come by but otherwise I will be on my own, just me and my dog," he said.
...He also plans to keep busy by reading, taking a couple thousand books on an electronic reader. He'll keep it charged with wind and solar systems he's taking with him.
Baird is planning to keep a diary, which could be turned into a book. He's also thinking of writing an instructional book of how to live in the remote wilderness.
Then there's also the filming, day in and day out, of his experiences alone on the Alaska island.
Once he returns to civilization, he'll edit the video and try to sell it as a documentary series.
Baird is not the first to make or film such an odyssey.
Dick Proenneke lived alone in a remote cabin and kept journals published as the classic Alaska memoir "One Man's Wilderness.""
I always enjoy watching One Man Wilderness when it's shown on PBS. I bought the book which is an expanded version of the diary and gives more detail on how he lived. There was just something so Zen about Proenneke - he needed a big spoon to stir his pancake batter and so he just sat down and made one. That level of simple living isn't feasible for many, but it will be interesting to see if this guy can make it work. I don't really do Facebook but I may try to check in there once in a while just to keep up with how he's doing.
http://www.facebook.com/AlaskanPioneer