Moving to The Woods

My name is Lindy, I live in the woods.  There are no roads, running water, or power to the off grid homestead I am building with my partner Ashlee.  We live on a very large island along the southern edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA), though we own no lake shore, and must hike a quarter mile in to our land. Living here is a commitment to living simply,  to learning traditional skills, to reconnecting with nature and who we are as human beings that evolved in similar landscapes, it is a commitment to environmental sustainability, social justice, and creating a world in which people are not viewed as separate from or above nature.

Full Scribe Log Cabin Building.

We are currently building a full scribe round log cabin with simple hand tools out of logs from our land. The ax, crosscut saw, gouge, mallet, drill, draw knife, and scribe are our principal cabin building tools.  The cabin which is about half built right now is 10’x12’ on the inside with a 4 foot porch, and will feature a sleeping loft.  This may seem exceedingly small to many people, but we did not move out here to live our lives inside, nor did we move out here to cut firewood day in and day out.  This simple little structure will set us free.  It will be easy to heat, does not require a mortgage, nor will it take years of our lives to build. 

Cutting the long groove in a wall log.

Ashlee and I have many different reasons for wanting to live a simple life in the woods, things like a love of nature and Wilderness exploration, a yearning for freedom and a greater sense self reliance are common themes, but there is so much more.  Thoreau said it well when reflecting on why he went to the woods,

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.” 

― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods 

Like Thoreau we have moved to the woods to live deliberately, to reduce life to its lowest terms, to live life as directly from its’ source as we can bare.  However, I would add to his words, that I have moved to the woods because I am following my heart.  In my heart I know that I am a part of nature, and I do not wish to insulate myself from it by living a domesticated life in the city where all the realities and messiness of life are hidden from my view.  In the city, I feel like a wild animal trapped in a zoo, unable to do the things I was born to do. I want to take part, to feel the joys and the sadness of living an honest life from the land, to take only what I need, to work with nature and not against it, and to be free to just live.

Trapping Beaver near home.

As a human being I am (I believe we all are) biologically wired to go out into the natural world to seek, find, and harvest the things that bring me life, I am wired to take those things and create the necessities of life with my hands: food, shelter, clothing, tools, and transportation.  This is not some academic understanding I have reasoned my way into (though it can be reasoned), this is a conviction, an innate knowledge that was awakened in me some years ago through a series of events that might  be termed rewilding experiences in today’s lingo.


As I began participating in the natural world (where it has not been paved, plowed, dug, scraped, flattened, drilled, and polluted into oblivion): traveling Wilderness areas on foot and by canoe, making fire by friction, hunting for food, fishing, and gathering engaged in the direct acts of gaining life from the land, I had the all encompassing sense that I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing.  I thought "this is me...this who I am, it was like I found a huge part of myself that had been missing all my life. I felt grounded, and more like myself than I can ever remember. Not only that, I felt alive! I was at once more alive then I had ever been, and yet, I was at complete ease.  I felt kindred to all the life around me, and to who I am at my core. I felt whole, I felt human.

In these moments of clarity out in the wilds, I knew what I needed to do. I had to find a way to live my life close to the land, which meant I needed to continue learning the traditional ways of how to live from the land. I had to find a way to keep doing these things, the things I was born to do, but I had to do it in a way that was sustainable and that would not leave me isolated and disconnected from the rest of human kind.

Portaging our hand made Birch Bark canoe in the BWCA.

I could not have come to this knowledge, and known it so profoundly had I not entered the wild places that live beyond quiet neighborhoods, crowded cities, and the reach of motorized vehicles.  I had to go out into the wilds and get my hands dirty, find and chop down a perfect tree then hew and shape it into snowshoes with ax and knife. I had to spend a week in the mountains stalking big game on foot, living by fire at night in the open air, under the stars.  I had to experience freedom and doubt for the future in Utah's canyon country.  One can reason their connection to the earth, and to the hunter with in, but to experience it themselves out in the wilds, in the landscapes of our past, is to know it unequivocally. 

Paddling in the Boundary Waters BWCA.

In the beginning of my journey to simplicity, the journey that pointed me back to the land, I abstained from many things out of a sense of righteousness, sacrificing of myself to “save the planet”.  And while I feel that I can stand morally behind my lifestyle and defend it from all angles, I no longer pursue a simple life in the wilds, and getting by with less because it makes sense in a world of ever increasing resource scarcity. I do it because it helps to make me whole. I do it because it is setting me free and allows me to be myself and to pursue my ancestral passions.  I do it because it is intellectually and physically stimulating.

It is a joy to ask my body to do what it was meant to do, to move with purpose, snowshoeing, paddling, walking, running, cutting, chopping, hauling, carving, tracking, and stalking my way into a healthier more fulfilling way of life.  It is a joy to test my wits, scientific reasoning, and powers of imagination to understand the wild animals and fish that are my food.  Nature… wilderness is, and will always be, our greatest scientific laboratory. Nothing gives me as much pleasure as going out into the untrammeled natural world where wild life abounds as I try to read the landscape, the weather, and the clues animals give me to put together the mystery of where, why, and how the animals live their lives.  Putting all the pieces of the puzzle together so that I can successfully and consistently put food on the table requires me to study nature and  continuously form and test hypothesis about how the world works, how an animal, fish, or plant lives, how it reacts and is adapted to it's environment and where and how I can catch it when it is necessary and appropriate to do so.  There are few things outside of procreating that are as primal and interesting as this cat and mouse game that a hunter must partake in, and like procreating none of us would be hear today if our ancestors had not gotten really good at it, so it is no surprise that a passion for it was lying dormant with in me.

I am also living this way because to live any other way no longer appeals to me.  To not live in the woods surrounded by wild country, to not make most of what I need with my own two hands, and to not live directly from wild lands for a good portion of my sustenance would be a great wound to my spirit.  I must have access to the land where I can hunt, fish, gather, and create a life from natural landscapes... it's in my Blood.

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Whitefish and Cisco Netting in the Fall.