Living in the remote wilderness is not harder, it is a mindset. You have to have a true desire to want to live that way or you will fail. . .PERIOD!! Most people of today are too soft both mentally and physically to make it.
It becomes a lifestyle that makes you feel good. It's a lifestyle that is conducive to keeping you healthy and fit. You sleep peacefully and soundly at night. . .don't need a sleeping pill. Don't have credit cards to worry about. A mortgage to worry about paying off. Being in debt up to your eyeballs, etc.
You can live alone and survive without a problem, I've done it for many years. But, the key to living a solitary (away from society) lifestyle, whether by yourself or with another person or family, must be undertaken in steps.
You can't expect to go from Chicago to the mountains of Alaska in a years time. You have to start small and work your way up to full-blown, full-time "Grizzly Adams" type of living.
1.) If you live in a big city or metropolitan/suburban area, you have to move to a rural "farmland" area. Live in a house that uses only firewood for heating & cooking. Practice cutting firewood (enough to heat the house for the winter & cooking). It will take some time to figure out how much you will actually need.
2.) Finding a house with no indoor water or don't use the plumbing and learning to haul water from a well to use for bathing, cooking, washing clothes, etc
3.) Learn to use oil lamps for lighting. NO grid or generator lighting. And learn to render animal fat to make your own lamp oil.
4.) Learn to grow a garden, harvest the crops, can or dry the fruits and veggies for storage.
5.) Mend your own clothing, or even how to make your own clothes.
6.) Learn a craft that you can make money for supplies. Making jewelry, or leather-crafting, or rustic furniture, or canning things like: preserves, salsas, apple butter, sliced fruit, etc.
7.) If you're not a hunter, learn to hunt. If you are a hunter, learn to gut and butcher the meat. Learn how to salt, or smoke, or dry the meat for storage.
These are just a few of the of the beginning basics to get started on the path to being just like Grizzly Adams.
I've been in the woods my entire life. I am very comfortable and adept living out here, but before I took the big plunge I, too, tested the waters before jumping in head first.
I lived in the country, on a farm for 5 years, all the while teaching survival. Next I lived in a cave for two summers and one winter, in WY. During these seven years I was planning and preparing for the big leap into solitude.
Two years before I moved full time I lived for a year in AK. 80 miles from the nearest town, in an old trappers cabin.
It took me 8 years of planning and progressive remote living before taking the plunge. Now I live 240 miles from the nearest town and only go into town twice a year for supplies, and once every other year to visit family for the holidays.
I schedule my trips to town during the times when the trade & swap shows are taking place. I sell the things that I've canned and the furniture I make throughout the winter. I live off $2500 - $3000 per year.
So, there you have it. Nativedude's beginning steps to living like Grizzly Adams, Sourdough, and Me!
Bookmarks