17 Years Living Off-Grid on a Self-Built Island Homestead - Built with Salvaged Materials

[Music] i just got tired of the city got tired of where mankind's going and always had the idea i could do it better and somebody once said well if you could do it better why don't you try and so i came out here and ever since it just felt like it was right so i've been here for about 17 years now i'm in widgeon slew off the pit river it's a beautiful magical place and there's many threats from poachers to local governments to poisons and pollutions and i've been here trying to save it for i said 17 years welcome to my island i'm shadow and this is nowhere island it's been built from mostly discarded objects stuff that was thrown away floating away and i just salvaged them and built a little island out of them gave them a second chance so there's lots of old logs that even the loggers won't take old barrels they float along the river everywhere and they can melt multiple usages because two of them is 900 pounds flotation the main house has 80 barrels on it so that there's like over 32 000 pounds and as you see the barrels can be your gardens uh most of it was done in stuff like a find uh there's always a little bit of cost here and there every few months i get a couple dollars from recycling people come out here on the rivers they usually throw their cans and balls overboard i usually end up salvaging all that up when i'm cleaning up and when i go to town i'll end up getting some nails or fasteners other people that i know also drop off materials when they have excess amount at their job sites boards and nails screws and whatnot i try to live without money as much as possible it's kind of a raw mentality as far as i'm concerned it's good for some people it's not good for me electricity is all off grid i used to have wind generators what happens is out here you get gusts of wind and it starts to rattle it to a point where i'll break your your blade i made a few and i had them sticking into my roof a few times the best thing is i have here is solar panels and i rewired them so even at low light conditions like this they're juiced there's no problems and every structure you see here is all off grid all on their own so there's no cables or wires going from each piece there's no problems if anything ever broke apart nothing goes overboard that hasn't been either cleaned first through natural filtrations or that's natural or ready to go back in at first i had to use everything by hand because i didn't want to use any power gasoline or anything so mostly hand tools hand saws hand drills takes a lot of time but the end results after you all your hard work and all your labor it looks something like this so this is the kitchen area but i'm more into a shop so we'll go into my little shop over here this would do a lot of maintenance a lot of fixing and a lot of the rebuilding of things not only for the island but also bird boxes back condos and things for the outside of the bush in the areas i have my firewood stored everywhere just because you need to be warm better have it than not need it they need it and not have it so this is a pantry and it's kind of load on food right now which is good but not much of a cook so it just sits around but i'm ready for winter this toilet here is composting it turns your waste into usable soils and then you can remove this and put into composting so now there's no waste going into the waters so this is the library and this is the bio lab this is where i do a lot of the research of what's going on in the environment that i'm in and this is how i know what kind of poisons are toxifying our species we need to not only know but now it's time to find out how we can go the other way in reverse course and correct the problems so this is the arts and crafts area which sometimes in the wintertime you get kind of bored so you do a lot of drawing different kinds of arts and paints and keep busy this is my office i do lots of wildlife research in here now when you're out in the wintertime like i'm saying one of the other things you deal for being stir crazy in the winter is movies so as you can see i got a pretty good selection and this here is the room that i like most of all this room this is where i do my shaving work my energy for healing and protecting the area like doing card readings it's one of the things that i enjoy but also is helpful [Music] so one of the things that i do here to manage my own waste is when you get stuff you always have packaging so once you separate all your cardboard you separate all your plastics and all your tins your glass pretty soon all you have left now is just your composting so anything that's food related goes to composting and now you really have nothing left to go into the garbage it's all recyclable all returnable so inside this composting shed there's two piles and one's for more of the waste that's more recent and one that's been broken down already for about eight months and then as time goes that will get shifted and the piles will shift again and then you can put into medium for your other gardens and what not you need so on the other side is composting containers but in the middle is for where i do a shower stall and i take the shower bag from the sun and i put that into there and there's your hot water so this is another float here that's all designed for gardens outdoor lots of your fruit and vegetables you need for the year and same thing with this one here for your lounging around which are more gardens and herbs and spices this is for your natural filtration as well as for chickens this natural filtration is done with layers so you can use different kinds of husk materials that cancel your gray water so when you've done your dishes or done you brush your teeth you pour it onto here and then when it goes back into the ecosystem it doesn't wreck your ecosystem that you're in some of these layers are coconuts husks and some of them are corn tusks and there's a few other layers depending where you are you can always find this information on your internet nowadays of what would be good mediums to use so these are the chickens here my five new babies they are not really quite ready for producing eggs yet they're still getting used to their area environment we also have swallows that migrate here you get the mud swallows and the barn swallows some of them like to have the boxes you see up here inside and then you have other ones that don't like the boxes they rather make their own nests as you can see underneath the awnings and as you can see up here there's a back condo so i got my new bat house ready for my nice beautiful creatures that come around here at night time and eat up all your mosquitoes now this one here this is a new boat and i'm going to turn it into gardens so you do everything from your seeding all the way through to your to coming down and harvest including drying hopefully and it's under construction now but it's project i'll be working on probably throughout the winter and as you can see there's always more gardens you need more food supplies and in here you got a lot of climbing raspberries uh you got potatoes and you got strawberries and lots of kale [Music] the food supply is now about maybe 30 of my what i need that's why the idea for the boat to grow more for winter stock right now we've got lots of oregano oregano is great for you for medicinal purposes and i have three different varieties here and also lots of other different kinds of spices another one i grow lots of is lettuces and kale different types of spinaches because it's good to eat your greens every day and another big important when you're on the water is you have to have vitamin c so for mine i have grapes blueberries strawberries fig and eggs every day from the chickens i'm a pack rat by nature so i always store more than i'm going to eat drinking water is still an issue i'm still haven't built any type of filtration systems yet i have a few ideas just haven't got around to getting any material that i need to build with so right now i go up to a natural spring up in the mountain it takes me about a half hour 40 minutes to get my water and sometimes i go to the neighbor's house and he lets me tap into his which comes from the natural spring so i don't have to hike up so far get the same water you cannot drink the water right from here because you have beavers you have deers and other animals freaking the area in the water and that can cause bacterias and viruses getting around if you go to land is pretty hard main modes of transportation is i have a small little skiff i'm paddling around getting wood and if i'm going a little bit longer distance either for wildlife checking out or just taking around the sleep for garbage and whatnot or even just to go to town i bring my kayak and you just take a bicycle and usually it's about a half hour to a road and then from there you have about an hour and a half to town after that then you do your town and then all the way back again so you're looking a full day just to leave usually when i go to towns for supplies supplies only i have a good dear friend of mine i see quite often i usually once a week i see her and other than that i have local friends that come up on the waters once in a while and hang out for a little bit give me some companionship as it were and hang out and have some laughs and then they leave again other than that no i'm more of a loner type of spirit i like to be with nature more than humans half the time i guess it's one of my faults but same time one of my strengths [Music] there is always challenges with every adventure and most of them revolve around make sure you have enough firewood and keep them warm in the wintertime on these waters you find lots of pieces of wood and material that no longer is going to take it's not worth anything it's just navigational hazards so i pull the bits and pieces up and i chop them down to one footers and i use those and then winter time you're by the wood burning heat good btus you always have to check out your lines and make sure they're okay because you do have lots of storms to creep up out of nowhere and next you know you break your lines so you always got to make sure you do a line check i have four anchors down two of them are wrapped around and tied off to the pilings which is maritime law now you're able to be safe and set in this area and other times you have to worry about your own mental mind stir crazy is always something that people go through cabin fever so you learn how to watch movies and read books play music just to make you feel different for those moments so one of the beautiful things that i love here is the train coolness of the area but it's also good for all the different species that migrate here that live here that just stop in just to mate or to feed or just a pit stop along the way to their journey for migrations there is many many different varieties of species from birds to mammals insects this is countless [Music] well usual routine for me is i wake up in the morning about 5 30 usually i run around first thing check out the slough and i run around my docks make sure i can hear anything for poachers and then you have your chores your daily chores you have to do every day then you get in the kayak and gopher rips around pulling out garbage out of these ecosystems and there's always down boats that need to be helped and sometimes animals you'll find them and hear them and you need to go save them a guardian to protect this area environment somebody has to do something and i'm not complicit if i see something wrong i have to step in and do something the biggest threat i see the area is a government that's no longer in touch with our home and native lands now our local government is turning around and using roundup for the last about seven years now and as most of you know is quite toxic now they claim it to be a park now it's not a park never has been and it shouldn't be this should be preserved we need to be smart and selective of what areas we can go to and what areas we should just leave alone the local government has been trying to get rid of me for years if this area was protected properly and we didn't have these obstructions that are happening constantly then i would not be needed here no more nature would not need me and i can move on to another place to protect that place but as long as this place needs me this is going to be my post where i'm going to protect [Music] subscribe to exploring alternatives and check out our playlist for more stories like this you can also follow shadow on his youtube channel and on instagram thanks for watching

Channel: Exploring Alternatives

Views: 3,203,225

Rating: 4.9312186 out of 5

Keywords: float, home, floating, house, homestead, self, sufficient, house boat, boat, island, homesteading, off grid, off the grid, Canada, Exploring, Alternatives, reclaimed, recycled, building, materials, green, eco, sustainable, DIY, water, fresh, food, growing, unique, dwelling, wood, stove, solar, access, remote, wilderness, garden, barrel, waste, garbage, greywater, Shadow, BC, guardian, preserve, park, living, lifestyle, without, money, no money, budget, kayak, chickens, eggs, power, compost, anchor, lines, built, build, path, off, beaten, greenhouse

Id: JM7Vsm4Gm54

Length: 13min 1sec (781 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 17 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Balderdash79]

I like it.