Off Grid and Free: My Path to the Wilderness

We wanted to take a little time to show you what we have accomplished since our last update. We’ve made some real progress. I especially, am results driven and things don’t always look like they’re progressing fast enough. But when I take a reality check and consider this was nothing but young forest and thick brush and wasn’t even accessible by road until sometime in May, I’m pleased with what has transpired thus far. I’ll elaborate and write specific posts to provide more information on all this stuff but this gives you a good sense of our progress. We feel considerable pressure to keep pushing since winter is fast approaching. Here’s our mid-summer homestead update.

The Beginning

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Most of us live in some form of traditional home complete with the typical layout. We probably have a living room, dining room, bathroom, kitchen and utility area. Unless a person is a tiny home enthusiast, most homes are of modest size and comfy. Because we are living in an expedition wall tent while we build our home, we were faced with a bit of interior design when it came time to make our living space as efficient as possible. This would be home for the foreseeable future and it needed to be thoughtfully laid out. In my last post, I explained how we built a tent platform and frame, then erected our temporary home. Come on in, make yourself at home and we’ll talk about how we squeeze a house into a tent.

We were fully aware of potentially having to use a tent for a year while we built our new home. The tent would serve as our shelter for many months and would need to protect us through summer heat and winter cold. Throw in gale force winds at a minimum on occasion and we were asking our tent to do a lot. With this tent we have a roof over our heads and with the added rain fly, we have zero concern about rain and snow.

Easy Tent Access

Wood Front Door

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Have you ever heard of a wall tent? You may be familiar with backpacking and family camping tents put out by various companies but there is another breed of tent used by hunters as well as the mineral and oil exploration industry. And that’s the wall tent. The wall tent has been our home multiple times over the last 17 years. If you read my book, Off Grid and Free: My Path to the Wilderness  or listened to the audio version  you know we lived in an exploration tent for about 4 months while we built our Saskatchewan home. While working in the mineral exploration field, I helped build and manage “tent cities.” These tent cities usually consisted of 12 tents including one designated as the kitchen. The wall tent is perfect for those who need a substantial “home” while building a new homestead as we are, preppers who want a back up shelter as well as those who enjoy the outdoors and would like a semi-permanent set up. Let me tell you how we made a wall tent, our temporary home.

Tent with Rainfly over Porch

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Welcome back! Continuing on from yesterday’s discussion, I asked numerous questions and suggested ascertaining all the different attributes of your property and mapping them out. Now let’s start to lay out your homestead plan using that information.

Laying Out the Elements of Your Homestead

If at all possible, I would situate the house so that the living areas face south. Why? Admitting natural light to the living room, dining area and kitchen makes for a brighter home, helps combat SAD(season affect disorder) and may mean needing artificial light for fewer hours in the day, a plus for any off-grid home. Having large picture windows that face south guarantee all of the above. Two other positives, in winter you will gain much heat from solar radiation on sunny days and come spring, you will have full sunny window sills for your garden seedlings. At the Maine homestead, the living room picture window faced west. The house was rather dark even on sunny days and our garden seedlings weren’t the best. Here at the wilderness homestead, we have 2 big picture window that face south. The difference in the brightness of the living spaces is dramatic as is the quality of my seedlings.

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Since the start of our posting, we have made a logical step by step analysis of the many considerations a person needs to ponder when contemplating a move to an off-grid homestead. Having done this for 37 years, it is second nature to us and has become our natural way of life. Personally, we can’t imagine any other lifestyle, but we realize that many of the aspects and concepts of off-grid life are foreign to the general population. We want you to share in the good life. It is our hope that our website and posts increase your chances of homesteading and prepping success.

Maine Home under Construction

To that end, I write this post as a reality check. It is a gentle prod for you to think everything through completely. It is so nice to fantasize about the simple little cabin in the woods surrounded by a lush garden with no cares in the world when you are stuck in a traffic jam or seated behind your desk at work. However, when it comes time to make your dream a reality, the path to success is often strewn with unanticipated pitfalls, any of which may seem insurmountable at the time unless you’ve thought ahead and have at least the seed of an alternative strategy in your mind. We hope we can help you achieve your goal of self-reliance by sharing our experiences with you. We encourage you to ask questions and comment. Continue reading →

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