Dick Proenneke - Alone In the Wilderness

Dick Proenneke loved and respected nature. He must have in order to have spent so many years "Alone In the Wilderness". Proenneke talked about the peace and beauty of nature, how he had dreamt of it, and how he was happy to finally be surrounded by it. He wanted to see if he could enjoy his own company for a whole year, I'm not sure why, but Poenneke wanted solitude. All of this fits in perfectly with what Emerson wrote about in Nature; "To go in to solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society... But if a man should be alone, let him look at the stars." Poenneke was definitely retiring from society, and taking Emerson's advice about being in "the perpetual presence of the sublime".

While I was watching that video clip I kept being reminded of Self-Reliance by Emerson; "A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work." Proenneke must have taken pride in his hard work, otherwise he would have just bought a cabin, or used power tools to build one. Instead, Proenneke painstakingly went about the process of constructing his log cabin with nothing but hand tools and determination.
I think Pronneke embodied many of the Transcendental beliefs. I'm not sure whether or not Proenneke thought he could transcend the barrier between himself and God by going into nature, but he did think that he could become more in touch with himself.