If you’ve ever strayed down a forest service road and watched your cell phone slowly die, the feeling of being cut off can be a little unnerving. But for some, this disconnection is a purposeful, serene way of life.
Maddie and Adrian
As Maddie Fache and Adrian Marcoux journeyed up the dusty Ring Creek Forest Service Road, house hunting, they had no idea what challenges lay ahead.
Five years ago, Marcoux’s work as a bike photographer brought them to Squamish from Golden and though they both loved camping, neither had lived off-grid before.
“I grew up at my parents’ cabin and just obsessed about being outside,” says Fache. “We started finding properties that were further and further away… saw they were off-grid and asked ourselves, what does that mean?”
It wasn’t long before they found their cabin in the woods, though back then it was just a rudimentary vacation cabin with few amenities. Everything was a learning curve, she says. “We didn’t know what a turbine was, what a battery bank was, how an alternator worked, what a battery inverter did. So that summer we just put our heads down and picked projects that we could accomplish.”
The first involved dragging 500 metres of water line up the mountain to secure water-assisted power for the property. “That’s a relationship ender right there!” she laughs, adding she soon become a very familiar face in the plumbing department of a hardware store.
The next project was water, which would freeze every winter. When it did, they’d have to meet up after work to shower at Brennan Park, then haul water up from town for cooking and washing dishes. “We used to get Brennan Park gift certificates from my parents for Christmas,” she says, adding they now have a water holding tank. “It never freezes and is constantly full... It’s probably been the best purchase ever.”
Even mastering the woodstove, their only source of heat, was a lesson in itself. “How much wood, what type of wood, when to start gathering wood, splitting wood… now, we’re just like hoarders. If we see a tree down and it’s fir, then you go for it… because in the wintertime it’s constant. And if you run out, it hurts the ego a bit to call and get a load of wood dropped off.”
The depth of learning has been greater than she ever imagined, says Fache, but the accomplishment has been so rewarding. “It’s a source of pride, for sure,” she says. What was once a rustic vacation cabin in the forest is now a cosy, year-round home with all the comforts you would expect. “It doesn’t feel so off-grid anymore… it just feels like a home now – a home in the woods and not something that requires a lot of constant maintenance.”
Visiting the grocery store or friends may take a little more planning, but Fache prefers their current lifestyle to city living. “If I moved I don’t think I could live in the city again. I think I’d have to look for another property like this. I couldn’t do it. It works and it’s awesome and as much as you want to curse it some days, it’s just the best thing ever. It’s just quiet, and calm and soothing.”
Susanne and Nick
Somewhere off the Squamish River Forest Service Road is a plot of land with a hand-built, 20-foot diameter wood-frame yurt that Susanne Glick, her partner Nick Hamilton and their three-year-old son Charlie call home. Along with resident goats, sheep, chickens, ducks, rabbits, pigs, bees, cats and dogs. There are also several elk (who rather like sitting in the farm’s plot of rye), two grizzlies, four black bears, a small wolf pack and the occasional cougar.
“Mornings start quite early,” explains Glick, who spends four days a week on the farm, splitting the remaining three between teaching at the Waldorf School in North Vancouver, visiting her daughter in Washington, and selling home-spun fibre crafts at Bellingham farmers’ market.
Hamilton remains on the property full-time.
“We have our first breakfast around 8 a.m.,” says Glick, “then I go out and do all the chores with the animals. I start with the pigs… then I let the chickens out, and go around clockwise the whole way. Then I go over to the rabbits and by the time I get back to the sheep it’s time to collect the eggs. Then I go upstairs, wash them, package them and then it’s time for second breakfast, which is at 11 a.m.”
Afternoon activities tend to be dictated by the weather and available light, for there’s no power at the homestead. However, there’s no shortage of things to do on their slow farm including general maintenance, tending the vegetables, fibre arts, planning seed schedules, walking the dogs and working on the interior of the barn. “It’s a nice rhythm,” she says. “It’s a farm life.”
Of the 140 acres, 2.25 are in cultivation and must be worked full-time – without using any machinery or automated equipment – in order to feed their family, and provide for 18 community supported agriculture boxes for other area residents.
Last year 30 per cent of their food came from the farm, a figure she hopes to increase. Cutting back on what they consume has been essential, she says.
“I don’t think you can ever be completely self-sufficient…. but building a community around a project like this – that’s the key.” To make this work they’re joined regularly by volunteers, friends and relatives who bring their own skills.
It’s a great lifestyle but there are compromises, such as hot water, explains Glick. “It’s a good way to live. I’m having fun. I still get my little hot bath – in a bucket. A tiny bucket. Just one kettle of hot water. I don’t mind.” So when the woodstove is on, she explains, so is the pot. “You wash your dishes when it’s hot, which is about lunch time. So it is all in the rhythm. It’s quite interesting how little you need.
“Now that I don’t have hot water, I measure it carefully.”
Other challenges include predators attacking livestock and the years when it snows so much the family skis in several kilometres just to get to the farm. “And last year, the bear came and sat right in the middle of my corn, then I had no corn… so we have to get the harvest in before the wildlife gets it.”
Escaping the rent trap has been a relief, says Glick, whose father’s side of the family is Amish.
And for those wanting to do the same, she says, allow yourself time to learn from your experience.
“If you do it slowly you get to revisit things that are and are not working, and then you don’t really have the losses of poor investment decisions.”
Glick’s future is on the farm and she plans to slowly phase out the number of days she’s away, as well as open up an on-site, home school enterprise.
