Living In The Remote Wilderness. . . .
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! :thumbup:
I'd like to hear more about your day to day living. . . .
Thanks everybody for the kind acknowledgments, much appreciation!
As for answers to the questions. . . .
1.) No roads. Fly-in or canoe/portage only. I have 2 freighter canoes, 1 - 18' & 1 - 21' for hauling supplies and getting back and forth.
2.) If you can find a girl willing to go that far (*snicker*)
3.) No electricity. All lighting courtesy of oil lamps and homemade lamp oil.
4.) All heating and cooking is done by fire. My fireplace is built to heat my 16x20 cabin, a built in stone bread oven for roasting and baking and a swing arm kettle for cooking stews, soups, beans, etc.
4.) I do have a satellite cell phone w/3 long life batteries (to keep in touch with family, emergencies, etc.) I have connection to internet through satellite link up.
5.) I use 3 Brunton portable solar chargers to keep my phone and laptop batts. charged, and I have 2 Optima deep cycle batteries for extra pwr. (if need be.)
I teach survival and primitive living skills so I have to keep in touch to keep it running, schedule clientele, and keep informed as to their arrival times.
What do you do about reading material. . . .Subscriptions, 2nd hand books? . . . .
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Stony wrote: "my cudos, ND.
with about $ 200/month living costs, what do you do about reading material?
subscriptions? 2nd hand books?"
I was 8 years old when I saw the Rocky Mountains of Colorado on TV. After seeing them, I told my Mom, "That's where I want to live when I grow up!" At age 12 I started to collect books and magazines. I never read them, just collected them for a future date. I was preparing for a life in Colorado (back in the 70's).
The summer I turned 18 I headed out to Colorado to see the Rockies for myself. While the mountains were beautiful, I was sorely disappointed at the lack of truly remote areas.
After doing much research, I found three main places I wanted to live. Montana, The Yukon Territory, or Alaska. These were the only places with enough remote wilderness to meet my needs.
Well, long story short, by the time I was ready to move to AK, I had collected over 325 books and 500 periodicals (magazines). To date, I have read 75 books and 92 magazines. Also, I do pick up a book here and there at swap meets and used magazines from a bush pilot friend of mine when he and his wife come to visit and hunt thrice a year.
Maybe we should make this a sticky for all of the newbies. . . .
Maybe we should make this thread a sticky for all of the newbies to read?
You did it the smart way, slowly over time. . .
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WildWoman wrote: "Great post :) You did it the smart way, slowly over time. How far to the closest road? Chainsaw or handsaw, and how do you haul in your wood? Canning or drying, root cellar?
I find it funny how people who flirt with the idea always immediately spell out why they can't do something like this, instead of focusing on the reasons why they can."
First, let me say thank you Wildwoman. There are no roads within 240 miles. Everything done by double bit axe and Swedish bucking saw. I cut and haul the trees close to my cabin. I let them stand for at least 6 - 10 months before cutting and splitting into firewood size.
I can fruits and veggies, smoke & dry meat, and I have a Cedar box, lined with tin, that is buried in the ground. It holds all that I need it to. It is topped with a Cedar covered piece of tin and then covered with 8" thick moss. It stays at 38 to 44 degrees in the summer and 28 - 30 in the winter. Anything I don't want to freeze I bring inside and it keeps nicely!
I got the idea when I visited Dick Proenneke in 1995. :)
In the wilderness you're never alone!!
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Mtnman Mike wrote: "That is interesting and nice to hear about some living their dream. But Alaska surely is not for everyone. People should do much planning, learning and preparing before just going into the wild. The book and/or movie "Into the Wild" is good to show what Not to do about going into the wilds of Alaska and trying to survive.
It has taken me since 1987 to build a remote Wyoming mtn survival retreat and I might not ever be completely finished. And there is Always something to do from cooking, cutting, splitting and stacking much firewood, gardening etc., etc.
And people do get to like solitude the more they live alone. I never feel lonely in the wild but have felt lonely in the middle of a huge city. The wilderness is the opposite of cities, in about every way possible. Good or bad, I think the wilderness is much better than any city."
Well put Mike. Whenever I go back to the city I feel very alone. There is absolutely nothing to do (for me anyway). I feel like a lion in a cage at the zoo, I feel "on display". So many people, all milling about like ants in an ant farm. Seeming not to have a purpose. Without wood to cut, water to haul, crops to tend, meat & fish to cure and/or smoke, etc. and most of all no wild life (the four-legged kind) to see, it surely gives me a feeling of loneliness.
While 'Into the Wild' is a good reference to show people what NOT to do when going to live in the wilds of AK, 'Alone In The Wilderness' (Dick Proennecke's life in Alaska) surely is a great reference about what to do when going to live in the wilds of AK!
