Off The Grid Living | Les Stroud | Bushcraft | Survival | Feature Documentary | Survivorman

thoreau said that if an emergency struck a man should be able to leave his home with nothing more than the clothing on his back and feel like he'd left nothing behind of self-sufficiency that's almost impossible to attain in modern society do you know there's a dream that still prevails now the strong as it did in 1842 when thoreau wrote walden it's that of a return to the wild to the simple life we spent the last 20 years traveling the wilderness and practicing survival but sue and i knew there was only one way to get the life that we love we call it wood smoke living the plan was to find some wild property buy it and take the leap of faith of living the bush life a life free of hydro bills and high heating costs immersed with nature get close to town this is not the story of hippie communal back to the landers this is the story of what it takes to live with alternative power sources now to live with nature in this modern age this is to be our permanent walden a life lived off the grid cities are poised on the verge of the next big disaster the next blackout are freeze up your water your electricity your heat even the way you walk your dog everything is controlled by someone else in a lifespan the average house spends 250 000 on energy alone and that's likely to double in the next 20 years saving resources and reducing greenhouse gases has yet to go mainstream but saving money sure is so is going green a win-win situation can we save the planet while saving money can we take back control of our destinies and live a self-sufficient lifestyle closer to nature with our own power grid what do we have to give up what do we have to sacrifice to live in a more natural state ten years earlier our start as a couple wasn't your average one sue and i spent the first year of our marriage living in the remote wilderness as if it were 500 years ago no metal no matches no plastic just a young couple passionate about all things wild and natural and this is about as off the grid as you could ever hope to be the best part of the expedition was being out there it was the adventure and the excitement of just being there it's where for me it's where i wanted to be would you do it again in a second in a second i'd do it again that year in the wilderness changed our lives forever but now we've made a new decision to get back to nature during a family sea kayaking trip on the west coast of canada we talked about what we should do how we should live we knew that the only way to go after what you want in life is to jump in head first and what we want is sustainable living control of our own power and water fresh air a fresh start but is it possible our passion is for wilderness adventure but we're as addicted to modern living as anyone else logan's a typical boy with a love for tv and sports the change will likely be the roughest on him at nine years of age he doesn't want to see his world turned upside down [Applause] raelyn is the academic type with a passion for dance she seems to be able to recognize the advantages of our proposed move as for me my career is in music and film two worlds far from anything natural our current home is the same as anyone's surrounded by drywall and carpeting and wired into all the appliances and modern day conveniences you can think of it's how i grew up it's how sue grew up and it's all our kids know hardwired into society's electrical grid so where can you go beyond the subdivisions beyond the highways beyond the constant din of progress and into the new progress past the electrical power lines and off the grid [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] industry analysts expect soaring hydro rates over the next few months as people get it's not just because we're paying more attention there really are a lot of problems out there power outages water problems pollution rising gas prices there is some progress spearheaded by those who can afford it or in some cases by governments themselves but while the night sky is destroyed by the bright flashing airplane lights of these massive wind generators we're looking for the way to do this of our own accord within a budget we can manage within a lifestyle we're used to and before the next big disaster hits [Music] finding our own version of walden's pond is the ideal but it's quite a challenge it's not that easy we took endless long drives out to the country just to be disappointed time after time by misleading real estate information but you got to keep digging nobody's saying the ideal life comes easy it may take compromise but that one place somewhere that speaks to us has to be out there it helps a lot that we don't need to look for electricity or municipal water supply we were even willing to sacrifice all year road access and it did take compromise but eventually we found what we were looking for a place to make our stand this property is 150 acres surrounded by thousands of acres of the last remaining remote wilderness in the area they're disappearing fast the great find the hidden property to make the great escape on it's going to take thinking and working like a pioneer to make this happen but we're not pioneers these are a couple of run-down farm buildings from the 1930s one of the reasons this property had a low price we chose to renovate the old horse carriage house that would give us a place to live but it'll have to be gutted and have its skeleton rebuilt from the inside out so well the first i mean right away i mean even you and the kids can get going on ripping this stuff out right so we rip all this stuff out we get down to this yeah you're into a ceiling about this low that's okay well you know what if we put a big window in here but it doesn't have to be perfect we're not looking for that smooth smooth floor this has got so much character okay all right well let's get busy the first step into self-sufficient off-the-grid natural living is exciting but daunting as well truthfully we have no idea if we can pull this off we have to clear and renovate and get in before the snow comes in early december it's now october 1st barely two months until snow and the apprehension in our kids is becoming evident i don't want to move away from this place because before i'd be able to just walk down the driveway and there would be a friend there and at the property i can't [Music] expecting your kids to buy into this alternative lifestyle is possibly the biggest challenge of all so sue is bringing raelyn and logan into the process itself as much as possible the hope is that they'll feel an ownership to it at some point maybe even feel proud of what they're doing in the search for sustainable living the research required can be overwhelming i spent a couple of days at the fall cottage life show to see what was possible in solar and wind power it was a dizzying display of all that is available but the experts were on hand and there to walk me through the maze of new and old concepts and living simply but also in comfort i wondered if the kids could get their heads around these concepts i think that it'll be cool because we are on solar show unless something is wrong with our solo if everybody else is has no hydro we will and everybody will want to come over because we have hydro there was an additional reason why we got such a good price on this land now the guy who had this property before us he'd leased it out to a couple of guys he was hoping that they would basically improve the land improve the buildings that kind of thing instead what they did they opened up a pot plantation this whole area here is covered with burlap bags basically the remnants of a marijuana grow up in fact there's three other spots on the property that were cleared and they had greenhouses built for growing pot they basically had a whole pumping system to suck all the water from this pond up onto the marijuana plants heck there's even some fertilizer bags still left behind and there's one big body size plastic bag sunk in the middle of this pond and that's really creeping me out because sooner or later i got to dredge it up in the old days a barn b meant having a lot of friends and family to pitch in and that's still what it's all about demolition is always the fun part nothing to think about grab a crowbar a whipper snipper throw on some old clothes and dig in [Music] at one time this whole area had barely a tree on it cleared by hand by the original pioneers there were barns for horses pigs and goats but that was the 1930s and since then it's been nothing but a run-down hunt camp used by local teenagers as a place to escape to and party the buildings themselves seem to have more mouse droppings dead flies and dead ladybugs than it did insulation those masks aren't on us out of paranoia there's some real nasty bacteria in this mess there are diseases and mouse droppings that can chill look at them all of the buildings sit right on top of bedrock so amazingly they retain their structural integrity even if they look like they might fall down at the slightest push great ideals living off the grid getting back to nature living self-sufficiently but without a fat bank account is it really possible although beautiful how safe is this ideal of remote living that's what we were about to find out [Music] well some friends in particular you know question the whole thing the fact that we're off a plowed road in the winter time some people question that aspect of it alone as is is that even sane and others you know i have said things like well you're gonna you're gonna have a phone aren't you because i i wouldn't want to be out there without a telephone and it's like well no we're you know a couple kilometers away from hydro and telephone poles so you know no we don't have a phone and you know we've got our our cell phone as safety and use like any other person would have a phone ours just happens to be a cell phone spot then the old horse carriage barn is only 20 by 20 inside dimensions we have to figure in a family of four but still for less than half the price of a bungalow with a postage stamp lot in the suburbs we have 150 acres of the canadian wilderness now we have to find a way to make it work would be good over there at some point but it just means he can work with it i need cupboards on this wall we still haven't answered how the heck we're going to wash short of a bucket bath right now and i'd like to use that that tree that came down on the road no i have an idea that's a good idea okay you take a slab on the top but then your counter is under here does that make sense yeah why are you laughing and right here gives us a good daylight area for don't forget i'm homeschooling the kids i have to have daylight i'll strip these you agree with me me oh yeah yeah there's no drywall is going to make its way onto this property so well dan knows what we're talking about anyway so that's good glad somebody does this is probably not the most environmentally friendly way to get rid of hornets the fact is i've got to move that log and i've got to move it today and there there is a good sized yellowjacket nest in there oh i don't like yellowjackets a grouping of huge rotting logs were right in the middle of our work area small hornets called yellowjackets have made their nests somewhere in the middle of the log and a few of us have already been stung sue watches the nest while i try to cut the tree into small chunks for removal a yellowjacket sting is like someone hammering a finishing nail into your skin and unlike bees they can sting repeatedly gotten through two cuts here now and no hornets coming out yet so so right now if you look they're actually attacking the little camera that i've got set up in front of the log log home building is an ideal sue and i are partial to so my plan is to learn the craft to begin building on our property to increase our living space i've headed off to the canadian shield log home school where i can work on an actual cabin to get my training [Music] the reason that happens is because you keep alternating as you go up so here you put a butt on this wall and you put the butt here the tip down there and then you put the butt down there and the tip here so you have to alternate all the way up the building to get your building to come up level just because the butts are nuts yeah they're big big butts building with log is a beautiful throwback to the days of pioneering learning a process like this seems to be what a more natural lifestyle is all about but i'm beginning to think that i've taken on too much much harder than it looks the high tech side of living off the grid is the most intimidating peter terrell heads up the millennium institution an organization dedicated to the advancement of sustainable living his version of self-sufficiency can border on the extreme though he makes no apologies about retrofitting his composting toilet to be a five-gallon bucket that gets hauled out to the compost pile when full six months of a toilet it's all those microbes he swears it's the ultimate in properly disposing of human waste so anyone with room for a small garden has room to do this absolutely you know now we do you know we are fully aware that we we use hauling your own bucket of excrement out to a you know plastic barrel out of the back there i mean that's not for everybody i get what peter's saying but we have no interest in bucketing our own waste even the pioneers didn't do that two-story farmhouse is about a 22 foot by 22 foot two floors and i've got three buildings to worry about toilets in any issues if i'm using a rain harvesting system i mean if is gravity feed gravity fine it should easily provide enough pressure to feed this toilet that's not going to be no kidding okay yep that's not going to be an issue at all i mean in terms of a grand overall vision for you know improving overall quality of living on earth in environment environmental quality this is a system that can be used literally by every single person on the planet [Music] we brought the experts out to our property the challenge now is to try and find as much sun and wind exposure as possible the more sun available the more the panels will charge the batteries the same goes for the wind generator the more wind the more electricity available to us 60 60 degrees donna's working on the layout for the floor plan here peter and donna take this kind of life very seriously as a bioengineer it's almost a religion for peter and most of their energies are put into helping to create a sustainable future for everyone for me i mean yeah i could come in here and probably make a football field and have all the sun we want but i don't i'd rather see us work with the landscape just running out and buying solar panels is not the answer finding an alternative energy provider that also does installation is the key to success so you're trying to do this in a sustainable manner and keep respect for all kinds of things you want power you want trees we want it all so we have to make push and pull sacrifices in many ways and and i think the whole concept of living off grid is not to produce more energy than a nuclear plant but to produce sustainable energy for future generations we've got some really great open sections here we're pretty much going to catch it from sun up to sun down often we have another factor in here that really has nothing to do with many things like nature in that but we also have economics is it what's it is it cost effective to put a wind generator in okay often we go with a smaller scale wind generator because they don't necessarily need the big wins to have their payback and again the number one rule is it's cheaper to conserve than produce living simply is probably the answer to the future yeah couldn't agree more water we've spent a lot of time on the shores of beautiful rivers but our property is dry so we have three choices drill dig or harvest the rain i'm used to not being able to drink from the tap though because i mean we either have a drug in the fridge or water bottles and that'll be the same fresh water is a very limited resource on this earth if we have water falling from the sky let's take advantage of it i've brought in sean cleary to set up my rain harvesting system there's no shortage of controversy on just about all aspects of living off the grid sean travels to many third world countries setting up rain harvesting systems for entire communities but there are those who feel that the possibility of ingesting pathogens found in the water mostly from sources like bird droppings make it not worth the effort so sean is showing me a five-point filtration system to alleviate my fears the first thing we're going to have is a sediment filter being this far out in the country we want to make sure we have an ample supply of fresh water so we'll try to dig a well but water from the sky can add to our supply and it seems like a great option to include in the self-sufficient lifestyle [Music] just how we're going to maintain a supply of rain water once the frigid temperatures of a northern winter hit is a dilemma we have yet to figure out one answer may simply be to dig our own well we're far from farm runoff out here and have no interest in chlorinated fluoride filled city water even if we could get it to help find our water we've brought in a well-witcher right here dowsing is an ancient art there are rock paintings of the practice 8 000 years old folks who can dowse are also called soothsayers seekers mystics mediums shamans even witch doctors first start to feel it it's starting to pull me already right there see a rock in there this is local bill brush he can tell not only where the water is but how deep and how good the flow now you see the pressure on my hands again i see the white in my knuckles you can't describe it like it'll pull the hydrate off my hands oh you can see my hands there yeah like see the hands and the white and everything now do you know why does anybody know why why this is happening uh i don't know they're like a magnetism there's no magnetic fields because of course some people got it some don't very well bill can witch with copper wires or even the classic forked stick and i couldn't let him go without finding out if i had the power oh yeah oh yeah good just keep going and keep going most scientists watching this are thinking what a crackpot but honestly there was no mistaking the pull i felt on the branch this is not ouija board trickery the magnetic pull to where the water lies is real it's not pulling right straight down for you but no but do you feel that pull on your hands though oh guaranteed yeah like i didn't make it move that way no it's myself that's awesome because we've got three spots now all of them strong 19 feet 13 feet and 21 feet yeah with the depths you gave me and i mean it looks like the 13-foot one i mean yeah like that's where i would dig first i really appreciate that really really the weather is closing in on us and our time is running out it seems daily there are setbacks [Music] cut it out of the way no just leave it here yeah [Music] you see the family affair even when you gotta pull trees out of the way [Music] a hundred years ago this very same land was worked by hand it would have been back breaking exhausting work carrying and moving every stone and tree with sheer muscle it was bare hands touching and working the earth perhaps it's not as romantic as working the land with horses but the beauty of living out here hasn't changed even if the methods have we're up against the impending onslaught of winter so fortunately hobby farm equipment like this multimate will help to speed up the process of our off-the-grid lifestyle we had been originally planning to take all of our trees right from the property but i've still got a career to attend to and time is not on our side newly cut trees need a year or two to properly dry we're bringing in a load from the local mill for future building the new off the grid technology makes this kind of living much more accessible but it does seem like there's a beautiful simplicity that's lost today once you've got it where you want it to be still spending a day working on your own portable sawmill is a lot like playing [Music] that's just beautiful [Music] this is all becoming overwhelming solar power composting toilets rain harvesting log building clearing the land sue and i can rationalize it all but we were beginning to worry about the kids so we searched for ways to keep them involved i think that being at the property is fun because i'd like to have some more animals that we look after like raccoons or rabbits or animals like that maybe their mothers were shot or run over and they're at the sanctuary can you do that in the subdivision no no there's not enough room not enough place for them to be living in the country means being closer to nature and that means being closer to wildlife in their natural habitat the aspen valley wildlife sanctuary needs a location to release 30 raccoons orphaned that spring by cottagers shooting the mothers or the mothers getting run over by cars they're somewhat tame now but they'll be completely wild in a matter of weeks as they become sexually mature for us it's a way to keep the kids involved and excited about the don't move it punch this little raccoon yes heavy hand yeah open the door daddy there you go over here it's easy this is this is raccoon heaven i mean look at it they're great as a filmmaker and musician my career has been interrupted by this move i'm in the middle of recording a new cd and the only answer i could think of was to bring my work home i've brought the musicians out to the property for a recording session of course only one actually camped on the land with us the rest ran back to the hotel at night but this was the only way while attempting a move like this i could keep my career moving whether you like it or not you never fully escape the bills of society money has to be made whether you're self-sufficient or not this must be the first recording session in history interrupted by an affectionate raccoon caught on the drummer's phone cam is the ensuing mayhem call this one closed captioning the solar power is a long way from being installed yet so powering this recording session was the greatest challenge generator usage is not where we're heading with this new lifestyle but it'll get us by for the session it's a verse but it's a half verse [Music] [Music] this is like the whole paint thing what was once a cute and cuddly little animal stayed up all night keeping us awake trying to eat guitar cables and bite into anything he could think of so now while i was just getting some firewood a piece of wood actually fell on him scared him up a tree and now he's stuck up there serves him [Music] right now this is what we were afraid of usually television shows are shot in the summer and then shown in the winter but this is a documentary of real life real life is when it snows before you're ready for [Music] it the pieces of the off-the-grid puzzle are falling into place as the diverse plastic cisterns arrive for rain harvesting but our time is running out quickly the deep freeze of winter is just around the corner i'm plagued by worries that we're just not going to be ready before winter our life out here is still only part time and i feel like i'm letting sue and the kids down this lifestyle always has you wondering if you've bitten off more than you can chew meanwhile inside the old barn our builder is busy creating a new skeleton it felt like in the beginning a lot of arrangements were being made things were moving and because of the kids and obligations to them dance swimming lessons homeschooling that i was really removed the whole world can't stop while we do this i mean life has to go on so i can't couldn't be in two places at once so i did feel very removed from it but gradually i'm feeling more and more involved not as much as i'd like to be though you know it's all so rustic and romantic to think about coming and living sort of back to the landish and having your family really involved the truth is the building and the organizing of this is still pretty much left up to me and i still got to make a living which means editing songwriting recording and all the rest of it and still try to get out here and make this all happen starting to feel like a home it is it looks like and it's i mean it's warm just the fact that it's warm inside makes a big difference when you come well yeah those guys are working in t-shirts now yeah and you can't have a warm place to go into i'm hoping that that's going to make a difference for the kids when they see that they get in and it's warm they were upstairs for quite a while just we've just got to make it feel like home for them to take away their fears oh that's a big part [Music] this little spot right here is exactly where bill brush the well-wisher said there should be water the early pioneers would have done this by hand but i've got my multimate backhoe to make short work of digging for water we have to hold off on the rain harvesting system for now simply due to budget so it's time to test the claims of well dowsing now we've got problems winter gave us that little early warning spell there while i was digging my well hit bedrock at four feet same thing with the other sights we wished bedrock four feet if i have to bring in a well driller that's at a cost of 9 000 bucks i was hoping for a warming spell well we got it all right 24 hours of solid rain i know you're supposed to build in the summer but when you're making a move this big you gotta take life as it comes at you and this is how life is coming at us in november rain snow more rain and more snow and getting in and out of our remote property is beginning to be quite a challenge as our dirt road starts to fill with water giving us a hint of problems that lie ahead our fears begin to mount as winter in the north starts to show itself have sue and i taken on too much our time is split between two very different worlds right now and the kids can feel our stress so i asked logan if he would rather live in the city well well a big city is too big and crowded it's all stinky in the big city so many noises in the big city in an effort to be out here as much as possible we're setting up our winter canvas wall tent it's a snug and warm refuge while we impatiently wait on the finishing of the building winter hasn't hit us hard yet one day we're under a blanket of snow and the next we're in a mud bog our dreams of living here full time all winter seem to be fading fast [Music] the kids are nervous about staying in the wall tent it's a lot different than having four strong walls around you and i think that that is sort of making them a little bit nervous but like any time you go camping you get more and more used to a situation more and more used to being out there as you spend more time and i think a few nights out there and they wouldn't even have qualms about it at all i don't like it you don't like well staying in the wall tent it's cold i don't have my own bed creepy i don't know a bear could come and walk right in the room and that would be scary for me early winter continues to swing between wet and white closing in the old farm cabin's roof will bring us one step closer to spending winter in something more than a canvas wall tent inside our pioneer style home begins to take shape [Music] this is an acid free finally most of the solar power gear has arrived and so peter and his partner steve get busy figuring out how to wire this place we just plug that in your generator and charge the batteries up as well at the same time back up before we leave this is the next stage to becoming totally solar powered working on a bank of live batteries is better left to the experts i probably got batteries for it though did you aside from the battery banks and the inverter panel wiring the house itself has only one small difference to any other house peter is suggesting a separate line a dc line meant to take power directly from the bank of batteries without passing through the inverter and that saves us energy a light here okay and i guess the fridge is propane so we don't have to worry about that that's right and the same thing for for the stove and you're gonna have ac lights as well okay you got both the smoke detector goes right here you'll have a light switch right here we got a plug right there we're still unable to live out here full time which continues to frustrate us and while we are here we're stuck to using flashlights and candles that might seem romantic but leaves me impatient for a full off-the-grid lifestyle one with warmth and electricity one that makes the kids feel protected and not like they have to suffer through much we hope off-the-grid living will prove to be far more convenient and far less about sacrifice than people think this property with its old buildings and barns continues to reveal links to the past their visit to i'll see if the raccoons are home for the past two months my family and i have been trying to accomplish the universal dream simplify life get back to nature and live more self-sufficiently but it hasn't been without its frustrations it's nearly christmas we're still not able to live in the 100 year old farmhouse we're trying to reclaim there's more living off the grid than meets the eye we constantly feel like we're six weeks behind in everything the temperatures now are just barely high enough to allow us to insulate the cabin and right off i'm hit with a problem yeah i've been scrambling i've been going through garbage bins trying to get cardboard to get out due to a small miscommunication i had lined the walls with plastic ready for the hot sprayed polyurethane foam but it won't stick to plastic the guys had taken the chance on the long drive out on an unplowed road only to find i wasn't properly prepared i'm not sure let's try and we can try that muzzle for something over here yeah i see what i can get some cardboard in here real quick fortunately with a little luck they had just enough cardboard to do the job claiming to be one of the best for the environment this polyurethane foam sprays on hot and is hard enough to stand on in 10 seconds when it comes to insulating such a non-standard odd-shaped old building the foam makes it easy once hardened it's kind of like living inside a big styrofoam cooler cool in the summer and warm in the winter i was beginning to wonder if our environmentally conscious lifestyle meant anything at all to the kids i hear about it with friends like i lost my power today and whole huntsville's out of power and i hear it on the radio and i hear you guys and i think that we're lucky when we don't lose our power and i feel bad for the people who did because they have to eat cold meals and stuff like that and it's always nice to have a warm breakfast or a warm dinner this year's winter seems to be playing games between being cold and warm heavy snow followed by a melt off life in a wall tent and a camper is not what we were looking for but our little 20 by 20 cabin in the woods isn't going to be enough either there's not much chance of me having a log building even started in the near future in this life based on less consumption and simplicity we're going to need more and we both know it there's certainly a lot of interest in what we're doing you know a lot of people may not feel that they would want to go that far but there's a lot of interest and as you show them by what we're doing and talk to them about how we're setting things up with power and phone and comfort comfortable outhouses or comfortable cabins and things like that i think i think a lot of the hesitation wears off and although they may not personally be prepared to go that way i think that they see that you could do that and it not be a huge change or a huge inconvenience i guess is more what it is and certainly not uncomfortable if you have no desire a midwinter search on the internet led us to matt cummins a builder who specializes in wilderness homes this could be the answer to our space problems we need another cabin and we need it quick and then in here we've got obviously seven feet i think we go with it that's good that's perfect perfect when matt cummins said he could deliver a cabin anywhere he wasn't kidding that's their specialty it's minus 25 degrees celsius early february and late last night i got a call from matt the tractor-trailer carrying our wilderness home to be just had a head-on collision in a violent snowstorm and was in the ditch somewhere in northern ontario somehow he arranged for a flatbed tractor-trailer to get to the scene of the accident where thankfully no one was hurt and through the middle of the night they transferred the load and brought it to us by mid-morning our property is just a few miles from the closest plowed roadway getting all these supplies in isn't going to be easy [Music] now down down i was starting to wonder if this cabin was cursed as if we know this has been through hell and back this load last take a look at your door our road is no more than a packed snowmobile trail slip off to the side even a bit and you're in three feet of vehicle eating snow you know so far in spite of an overly warm winter our little country road has been treating us well we're able to go through this section with the trucks going up on top of the hard packed snow but in behind us here it's a different [Music] story it may look fun when the snowmobiles go across this but our trucks with our building supplies are getting stuck oh here comes some more jake come here okay where was i well part of the beauty of this property is that we're so far off the beaten path even the plows don't come by but what that means is my truck's getting stuck in this section with all their building supplies slowing down our progress a great deal nearly all of the trucks mine and five others went off the road and into the deep snow-filled ditch [Music] with all this trouble trying to get all the materials in on a snow packed road we had to come up with another solution that's all i've got i'm sorry i can drive in more if you want this can be a dangerous way to get in a load on a windy winter day every load is heavy to capacity and with nearly 12 loads to do one wrong maneuver by the pilot and a lot more than a pile of lumber could be lost pilots have on occasion caught loads on electric lines and trees or been thrown off by gusty winds to their own peril but these guys know what they're doing well after rescuing that pickup truck off of our road we find that uh pilot had left a big load of our lumber back at the airport leaving an unattended load of lumber on a remote northern road it's like just putting down a big bag of money and saying come and take me so i gotta rush back and see if there's anything left our lives so far have been split in two there are constant delays to making the move full time brought on by my career demands and the bizarre winter weather the stress is affecting us all going back and forth from the house to the property and sort of changing plans and just that uncertainty is frustrating if it was possible to just make that move at this moment i think that would be a really great idea just get there as always the best way to battle impatience is keeping the kids involved even in the building process now you can give me an axe in the wilderness and i can build you a paradise but throw in a ruler and a level and i haven't a clue just the same it takes getting involved in crafting your own home to really feel like you're living the life although these cabins are do it yourself i decided to hire matt and his team to do the main building work the issue is going to be can we get this in before the winter locks us out the weather didn't stop us from getting this far but truthfully we haven't really been hit with anything too hard as nails are driven and walls raised the reports are for the first really nasty winter storm to hit within hours you didn't want to lose [Music] bummer [Music] matt's particular philosophy of a remote build goes way beyond simply supplying the material and doing the construction when you go through this much of a challenge it's good to have a contractor who takes the job personally [Applause] all right rock and roll the next morning the work continues under blue skies we're in palace the threat of a winter storm is on the radio everyone is trying so hard to close the cabin into the weather but it's a losing battle ah that was my fingers you guys crushed we're up against it the weather once again is beating us at this ideal of living within nature the crew has to quit leaving the cabin half finished and unusable for the rest of the winter well finally finally winter hits hey right at the wrong time matt and the boys were working real hard to try and get this cabin finished and then last night we got dumped on with about a foot of snow matt's truck is stuck in the ditch somewhere between here and the plow section i have no idea if i'm going to get my truck out of here at all and we are socked in right now that's life in the bush we're faced with half-finished cabins winter storms and career responsibilities but that's not enough to deter us from making the most of what winter in the wilderness has to offer this is where we as a family really pull together the snow is a natural playground inside the old cabin the foam insulation has transformed our modest home into a cozy winter retreat as the snow blows hard outside homeschooling is one obvious divergence from most other families lifestyles that helps us to make a life and wilderness possible there's no school schedule to hold us back from adventuring getting out to hockey or dance classes simply means strapping on the skis or snowshoes i love the idea of being able to take power from the sun and not be destroying any rivers or forests or anything like that i mean that's that's amazing but also and a big part of that is being there for being in the wilderness and getting away from the uh i don't know the easy life just getting getting back to being closer to nature and spending more time outdoors and i'm looking forward to skiing in and out the road if we can't get in with the trucks like i love that idea it's it's exercise it's fresh air it's just just a step back it's a different life and i really like that you know living off the grid is not as mysterious as it seems at first takes the same elements as it does to live on the grid water power and heat for water our cisterns are going to have to remain frozen until the spring thaw then we'll set up the rain harvesting system for power well our batteries are going to have to wait for the wind generator to get hooked up and the solar panels to be brought in and for heat good old-fashioned wood the physicality of living in nature can be tough but always invigorating it keeps things real this is chapter one jack and annie walk past the frog creek woods on their way the work crews are long gone for now and so we're trying to settle in and spend as much time out here as possible our toughest challenge this winter is to maintain a sense of normality for the kids it's one thing to be building your own home it's quite another to sacrifice the benefits of civilization electricity and running water for starters as parents we have to create as much comfort as possible if the kids are ever going to buy into this spot jake's black hat and paint cow pony after the drive she and jake must talk this out she wanted a friend not a watchdog slocum had dropped back too by candlelight and lantern the wooden insides of the old cabin are at least becoming an inviting scene well sheltered from the deep cold outside [Music] i can't escape the fact that my own career work must go on so out here i need to blend wilderness living with high tech by doing my film editing on my laptop technology is making this kind of lifestyle more possible than ever before people laughed when i insulated the outhouse and decided to install a wood stove but i had my kids in mind the technological challenges of living off the grid don't compare with the matter of your family's happiness and comfort i see us with a our skis on and pulling a sled and it sounds like a big deal but in the end i think it won't be you just adjust your lifestyle maybe you're not coming in with two weeks worth of groceries at once you know you're coming in with you know less items you just make that adjustment and then and you just go even after the full-time jump to life out here is made we're still a few miles from the nearest plowed section of road this will continue to be our daily method for getting to the car [Music] as winter turns to spring we're frustrated at not having yet made a complete jump to living off the grid at finding out just how long such a life change can take [Music] early in the spring just before the bugs hit hard matt at the gang came in for what we hope is the last time to finish off the new cabin what will eventually be our home schooling and recreational cabin since rather than one big place we have kind of built ourselves a compound of buildings to live out of and perhaps this will prove to save even more power when it comes to heating and electricity [Music] it takes the finishing of the new cabin to give us the boost we need to hopefully make the jump to this life in nature and this time i've been able to swing enough time off just a few days to help matt finish our cabin in the woods in the jungle in the jungle yeah it's freaking freaked you because you didn't know what was there that's freaky sounds in the jungle now you don't have to hold the jig [Music] 29 and 11 16. [Music] [Music] the building inspector fortunately for me he was a good friend even in remote locations you're still subject to building codes and like an immigration officer a building inspector wields a lot of power they can make you tear it down if it's not done right this is the final go-ahead this is the make it or break it inspection no it's you know well i'm gonna lie i'm sure you'll probably have guests what do you think do i pass i think you pass thanks have a good drive out we're still faced with the problem of maintaining a reliable water supply so far we've been bringing in barrels and we can't keep doing that without adequate water we're really doing nothing more than camping nearly all of our surface area is beautiful canadian shield bedrock and frankly we can't afford the ten thousand dollars it would take to drill through this stuff so we figured digging a simple surface well and combining with rain harvesting provide all the water we need not having washing facilities for clothing is one thing but having to carry in your water all the time right now it comes in the back of the truck it's not terribly inconvenient but come november december when the snow starts to come and then we're hauling it in on sleds then that's a big there's a big difference there and not having a shower that obviously when you're trying to go to activities with children or trying to get to work or do things socially and not having a shower that's a bit more of an ordeal [Music] dowsing our property for where the water might be did work but the first two attempts at digging resulted in hitting bedrock before we hit the water finally we found water at only 10 feet down and had a well dug access to fresh clean readily available water has become our biggest hold back to living here more than just part time [Music] well i can't say we're not disappointed at our progress but few things worth having come easy the winter weather the mosquitoes and the black flies of the spring even the demands of my career have all conspired to slow us down but we're holding to our resolve and as of today life lived in our version of walden's pond just got a whole lot easier the final trip in by peter terrell and his crew and the true meaning of living off the grid begins to become evident [Music] hey buddy how are you doing good how's it look pretty good i'm gonna go on the vehicle this tracker stand will enable us to swivel the solar panels to follow the sun for now we have only three collector panels but peter suggests that we eventually add another three to give us enough power for all the usual comforts oh that that's something i think a lot of people can relate to is not having a hydro bill to pay and i think that they like the idea of solar but i think that's you know hydro is set up already in 99 of the homes in canada so the change would be hard to make but certainly the idea of not having a hydro bill i think everybody likes that we have 123 bulls which is excellent and again that's all just from our little batteries [Music] [Music] [Music] perfect [Music] black [Music] [Music] we've got three 175 watt panels up here producing 24 bolts each one and we're feeding back over here and this is the first step in getting off the biggest drug addiction in north america which is electricity okay so we got these wired on a manual track stand and it's been designed to expand in the future it'll take and double what it's got it turns to follow the sun and pitches with the sun we just pull these bolts out and just we can pivot it for the seasons come winter time we'll drop it steeper as the sun drops lower so we pivot this way yep and uh we can turn left to right to follow the sun if we happen to be around and want to gain maximum power yeah and uh most times you won't need to but if you find yourself running low for whatever reason yeah get every ounce you can our next power source is going to be our uh our wind turbine now is this is this normal for for a house to have both solar and wind generation or is this kind of they tend to be symbiotic you know as the sun goes down the wind comes up summer times are sunnier winter times are windier okay and so they they work in balance with each other and what's this what's this particular wind generator giving me what we've got up here this is a sprite and it's a maximum 450 watts at 24 volts we have a generator and it'll click in here and we have a generator setting on there which can also charge the batteries or run the loads in the house right off of this we have solar power coming in here okay and wind power coming in here okay okay wind goes to this control box which turns around changes it from three phase power into 24 volt dc and puts it into the battery bank okay the solar goes up to this charge controller with this flashing light yep and it's telling us right now that it's charging away okay and it then takes that charge and puts it into there if the batteries are full both these things stop the charging okay they don't let it overcharge the batteries you are now off grid we're now we're not happening wow that's very cool thank you gentlemen [Music] this is a very big moment after nearly a year of anticipation we'll switch on the lights for the very first time making use of our self-generated free power let's check it out hey look at that this is awesome you guys is that cool this is in your room buddy check out the dc there you go that's great so you've got two lights now that's just too cool this place this place is now completely transformed at night we're gonna be outside we're gonna be looking at the cabin and it's gonna be all the glow solar power you don't need to become an electrical engineer to live with solar power any more than you do to stay on the electrical grid of society every year more and more electricians are learning how to install solar and wind generated power it's becoming demystified [Music] so everybody keeps asking me exactly how much power is it that we've got well to be honest i really don't know i can tell you that it's going to take probably a year of monitoring to see how much power we have and if we've got enough of a supply if we don't we simply add more solar panels but i can tell you what my consultant peter tarella told me we've got three 175 watt panels at 24 volts delivering power and our wind generator is a maximum output of 450 watts now counting on just the sun during the summer and figuring out we've got four and a half peak sun hours per day that's basically 175 times three equals 525 watts times four and a half sun hours equals 2362.5 watts per day of course then you have to allow for any equipment conversion losses which generally vary from three to thirteen percent you following me all right now for the batteries 460 amp hour batteries at six volts each wired in series parallel giving me 1840 amps at 24 volts now you're never supposed to go past 50 percent so that means i really have 920 amps or 22 080 watts enough to power a 40 watt light bulb for 552 hours or if you take a look at our led light bulbs well one of those bulbs uses 0.32 amps at 12 volts which equals 3.84 watts you divide that into 22 080 which equals 5 750 hours if we use the led light bulbs instead of the regular 40 watt bulbs hopefully that satisfies all you technical people because i'm not really sure what i just read we started out this venture knowing that we weren't back to the landers or electrical engineers electricity and building aren't my strong points like most people i need to rely on others for help in those areas but what i do know is that i'll never have another hydro bill i won't have to deal with tainted water and when the power outages happen in the city my lights are still going to come on we've renovated the old cabin built a new one brought in solar and wind power we're getting close to the finishing touches of this life off the grid all right as raelyn starts to put her own touch of design to the room perhaps we've won her over to accepting this as a great way to live and at the same time are showing both her and logan a more environmentally responsible way to live look it any clearer i don't know we'll leave it for now we haven't quite convinced logan that this is the way to go so to get him to buy into this lifestyle it's important to take advantage of as many of the benefits to living out here as possible like building his very own bike trail you're gonna be able to ride up through here maybe okay uh hang on i'm gonna why don't we uh why don't we mark the trail then all right marking a trail is the easy part now comes the fun of clearing it the power is in the water is in it's the second summer and it's taken us a full year to get this far but the comfort level is getting higher and higher a lot of people say they wish they could live this way closer to nature more environmentally conscious self-sufficient no more hydro bills or water problems it's possible and you don't have to move to the country to do it even if nature is not your thing not having a hydro bill and helping the environment should be if we're to live in ways that are self-sustaining we can't help but live a life of conflict it's too late to go back to living in teepees or traveling by horse but it's not too late to get off the grid [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: Survivorman - Les Stroud

Views: 413,849

Rating: 4.8783269 out of 5

Keywords: Survivorman TV Series, Les Stroud, Survivorman, Survivorman Les Stroud, Survivorman TV Show, Survivorman TV, bushcraft, survival, primitive living, off the grid living, backwoods, back to the land, family, families, life in the woods, solar power, wind power

Id: hWfgxxZl5Tg

Length: 68min 30sec (4110 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 20 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/old_clappy]

Owen doesn't have the skills to live this way, only pretend. I'm pretty sure he will build a castle with grifted money and it will have all the comforts he needs. The bears will never see it, and he will keep up the pretense of living in a "barn". He does not believe things will collapse, its just a way of getting more "worthless" money.

[u/Paragon_G23]

I'll never understand why people romanticize this shit.

I love how all these people that want to live off-the-grid and yada yada yada the first thing they do when starting to plan a home is how to get electricity. They'll talk non-stop about the pioneers and explorers but lemme put in all these batteries because I'm not that dedicated to living in the 19th century.

[u/jdillenger47]

Owen would just be like where’s the store don’t we need to build a fire before dark?

[u/andkon]

Is that a child bride?

[u/Mad_Finesse]

Ever notice how living off the grid is like 10x more expensive than living a normal suburban life.