ONE YEAR ALONE in the WILDERNESS | Building an OFF GRID YURT

[Music] hey good morning it has been one year that you and I have been within the earth and doing this Canadian adventure yeah it's crazy to think just one year how many people when they first started watching us when they first heard we're gonna do this living off the grid they trolled us big time and doubted us and said we wouldn't last a week yeah a lot of people said that our Europe wasn't gonna stay standing but boom it's up you have a lot of attitude with that but a lot of support as well and a lot of people that love what we're doing in love to watch the way more than the haters yeah okay so first of all kudos to Nicole for following me on this crazy adventure this is your idea right we started making videos about our off-grid journey here living in a yurt we had eight thousand subscribers now we're approaching a quarter million yeah yeah in a year yeah I know a lot of folks are new I get the same questions over and over again like what kind of dogs are puma and patty yeah how do you guys shower how do you go to the bathroom why did you agree to say yes to live with me in a yurt and how is the process of picking out the yurt and seeing it for the first time because it's a pretty quick structure to put up and we really liked the round feature of it we wanted to live in something not too big but have it be open less resources talk about that less resources what do you mean less materials than a regular you know regular house we're gonna live in that band and we're gonna live in one of these years let's go picking the yurt was an amazing experience it was really cool because you have to go and walk in three different kinds of year except are already all decked out on the inside and yeah it was really nice working with specific yurts and picking out the yurt and designing it on their website it kind of all made it seem real so that was really nice I think we designed our own you're on the website and then we went there in person to see some other model year yeah and then they do such a really good job of wrapping it and shipping it and all that well we picked it up ourselves but it was really cool unwrapping it was like you know is like Christmas yeah and you guys will see that in the video I get a little excited what do you think about that being a full-on home they're behind us on the ground yeah you were so excited so what's the size of our urine what your are we living in you're living in a 30-foot here thirty foot diameter and then from the ground level to the dome is like 15 feet yeah so it feels like it has vaulted ceilings sure oh yeah which makes it nice for us because we have a loft so it makes the loft feel you know fairly big you say that you like the yurt because it connects you with nature how that you hear every sound you hear the rain you hear the birds when the birds come out like we it's almost spring time and so that you can kind of start to hear the birds and you don't notice it during the winter and so you're like all the birds are back and we're sitting in the yurt by the warm fire yeah I mean hear the wind you hear the rain and rocks the frogs you hear everything but the rain sometimes can be definitely where we came in very clear stuff really yelling at each other so it definitely makes me feel connected to nature and one thing that we did is we incorporated a lot of windows to our year which was nice so then we're able to look outside you know in every direction of the year which I like okay but living in the yurt wasn't our first house we decided to convert a van that we got a Mitsubishi jelly shot into a kind of a mini RV yeah so living in that van for a month or two how was that it was challenging okay come on out let's go get a mattress when we got the van it already had the back all open there was no seats nothing so that was really nice so it made it easier for us to just kind of put a little bed platform in there and then we just got a pillow top and like a memory foam pillow top and put it on there and bought a boom we got some totes to go underneath to store our food yep boom boom yeah and the most challenging part of this entire journey I think for us but especially for you is what art of it um not being close to my family and my friends I'm a huge people person I'm really close to my family starting over what exactly does that mean there's absolutely nothing on this property except for what you see trees sticks and mud and rocks and dirt and soil and all of that there's no shower there's no toilet there's no house there's nothing absolutely nothing it is raw Jake and I decided that we are going to build a yurt so yeah so here we are starting over Episode one off-grid or a living off-grid with Jake a nickel we decided to drive to komorebi in the wintertime during like a winter Blizzard yeah how was the drive up oh it was scary of course friends and family but the hardest part for you about this whole journey has been the boat access only nature of this property yes it's really stressful we brought a carport here to get ourselves out of the rain our van belongings and the yurt but they had to come by barge on the ocean so what was that like it was really stressful and it was really fascinating to see how the locals do that here but yeah I was it was different me you had to think differently as how to get things here we went from like a moving truck to the barge and then we had to unload everything on this dock and then we saw had to get everything from the dock to our property yeah at night until midnight it was yeah and then I was very actually it was scary yeah when we finally got here where were we living at that time in the van but on this old abandoned like dirt road oh yeah we're just on this road and then we had to quickly get building the basic necessities of life like compost toilets outdoor showers things like that yeah [Music] okay so first thing that we had to do when we were here was get the yurt here get the carport here get our van here that you can live in and then you get a boat so what kind of boat do we get we got this striker hunter jet 420 yeah there's a half foot it's got a 20 horsepower outboard engine on it upward motor and strikers cool because they're british columbian company so we on the way up here we that's when we picked it up and the striker is kind of like a little BMW convertible it's like fast puts you right down there with the elements oh yeah we've used it for almost everything I mean we've brought everything that we've needed with that strike four boats at this property yeah [Music] it's a super nice boat and it's been very helpful compared to those the first boat that we thought that we thought was going to work what kind of it end up working so what kind of saved our butts and it's been great so we're still in our first month we have our boat we're here at the property but the property is raw land property how many acres do we have right now we're living on four yeah we haven't even done anything with the other forty acres we haven't even done anything with like an acre there's so much very difficult to get into the properties right we're heavily forested they've been logged three times over the past 100 to 200 years and the forest because of the logging has grown back very dense like dreadlocks yeah so you and I couldn't even barely get into the property at first it's funny because we had this like whole plan mapped out of where we wanted everything to go in the year and everything and then we get here and we're like our whole plan out the door and we had to be like well we're using the logging road we didn't even know it talked about that the logging road what does that mean when loggers came in they just brought in a bunch of gravel and they decimated the forest and putting in roads that would help them get the logs out so it's just they always set up a quarry and then they use the rocks in that quarry so that these old logging roads that are six to eight feet tall yeah above the forest floor so you and I found that there was a fork in one of those old logging roads on our property we decided to clear it and make that a solid foundation for our yurt which turned out perfect turn up her face really nice we're standing on her right now but it still needed a lot of work right it still had a lot of alder a lot of salmonberry and still had to be clear which took us weeks oh yeah it was still very bushwhack he is you did the first one [Music] you're so cute [Music] we're gonna put up a sheetmetal waterproof garage carport it's 30 feet long it's gonna go all the way through about here and stop about here behind here we have our first big project I guess going on we're putting out our putting up a carport protect us from the rain we have like a window of like a whole week of no rain so we're like really trying to utilize this beautiful blue sky I mean our whole life here getting set up is about timing in stages so stage one was like cutting a path into the forest we did that well stage one was getting the stuff here we got that and waterproofed it stage two is getting a place cut in but I mean it's going to rain here and we are so lucky to only have one night of snow the rest has been sunny we've got to have rain protection and we got an easy build structure from a company called easy bode structures in Vancouver and it's a basic carport a covered sheetmetal garage you weren't convinced that the carport was necessary for this adventure but I thought we were gonna need it what do you think about the carport I think I was wrong but for sure we definitely needed it I just think at the time I really want to be your to go up first and we had to take our time yeah and put the carport up first which is kind of frustrating but in the long run obviously it really made our journey and talking experience us way better yeah [Music] carport was up we had a sanctuary from the rain and then what did we start doing we worked on your platform and then worked on my yard we finished it it's kind of dark getting a little laid out I'm so excited and I'm really excited because this means we get to start the heart [Music] look at this it's beyond to begin with you were so excited to start the yurt platform yeah but what's the job that you hated the most of everything we ever did during the year at platform and more some of the reasons why did you hate us so much just everything we had to level out the ground I've never done any construction before ever so I thought it was gonna be easy-peasy let's just put this thing up done let's start the yurt no we'd have any power so all of our tools were battery tools we had to charge up at the Sun or with anybody we could network with and we also were able to turn our car into a little bit of the charging systems yeah we are here in the Canadian wilderness and it became very challenging even to just walk around because the ground is very unstable you can't even walk around [Music] [Music] and you made a lot of progress you were working until like 8 o'clock but now at least there's enough clear where we can measure yeah [Music] [Music] hmm you got it good job number one we were battling bugs yeah the bugs were ridiculous the videos that we made could not show what kind of bugs came out first like these small black gnats yeah that would like attack our head like our hairline yeah I mean like it was just ridiculous especially for where I happen and then then came the mosquitoes and I feel like you had better because you had long hair so your hair kind of like kept them away as you're blocking bug they're coming again yeah they're coming back but then it was the mosquitoes and the mosquitoes really weren't as bad until the platform was just finishing up yeah I'm a attacked me a hardcore like I remember having so many mosquito bites whoo so bad and you'll get a good solid like week of no rain and then it started to kind of come in and then we're like Oh poop we got it like yeah so the platform took us a couple months to be honest in it and he just simply good lunch still it's a long time yeah [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] especially when they're sitting on top of the 4x4 vertical still it's great we're here trying to do work it's failing on us look it's bouncing off the beams oh and they can't even pick it up look oh my hat [Music] every time I leave I see the floss every time [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so your platform is done and I think that you cheered I think I cried [Laughter] you guys guess what yes we finished it [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] in my opinion you really enjoyed the process of putting the yurt up because it was quick and it was easy it was fun I think it took like three or four days it probably would have got done a lot faster if we had more people but you're supposed to have two five people or so for here but yeah it was it was very emotional I think the whole process and seeing it go up and finally have it be up was like oh my gosh we have a home now yeah it was very surreal every step of the way Nicole cheered she cheered the lattice wall she heard the French doors the dome [Applause] [Music] several times you sat back and went hey I'm really building this this is really amazing and we're really proud of yourself yeah I was [Music] [Applause] [Music] you like the screen now we can have the door open all the time and no bucks it's broken [Music] are you not entertained are you not to change I would not move it are you are you okay what's the problem [Music] [Music] but I was concerned with the URIs location I didn't want to have flooding be an issue flooding us out of the earth and I knew that we were going to come into an easy to live summer but once the winter hit it was gonna be very rainy here yes we get 12 to 15 feet of rain a year in his temperate British Columbia and rain forests and I knew we were gonna have to battle bugs wind and rain so this logging road became the primo location we chose to put our you're done [Music] [Music] [Music] nice jump one more flip [Music] [Music] I've really enjoyed living in the yurt because it does remind me of sacred geometry being inside of it and it also kind of it looks at one with nature you know it's got this nice looking shape [Music] trap [Music] the world of joy and some rattling [Music] all the local people that we've talked to that have homesteads properties around the area that have been here their whole lives they say how where komorebi is is kind of the bear hangout yeah yeah great and wolves and cougar yes so just from about April until about November we were seeing bears quite often and we also got to see Orca several times hunt bats and whales in the ocean which so I don't know she'll tell you but I told her in the month leading up to this adventure you know we're gonna see whales and he's still amazing you were like ah whatever I don't whales don't really do it for me but I mean you finally saw the whales on the boat your your face was yeah gasping especially the Orca yeah like it's our backyard pretty much and to see them and to see them not being a part of like a tour group or having to pay for it or hunt them down to see them organically I think just made it way better yeah way more magical you sure okay then we started to expand the deck around the yurt because the goal is to have yoga and martial arts training part of the deck to have a cooking and cob oven part of the deck and to have an intro mud room part of the deck yes so we started that and what did we do to the logs to preserve them make them less prone to rot yeah so tsuki bun them yeah so he just built a fire and then put the end part on in the fire and to char them which was quite fun and to learn about all that was was really cool yeah the first thing we did with the yurt once we had it up was we put a wood stove inside of it yeah it was I mean the wood stove that Jake found I was skeptical but I found it used so we had to get the wood stove which was almost a thousand pounds here by the barge yes so the wood stove was up on pallets we had to back the truck up to the pallets then we had to pushed the wood stove onto the truck and then we had to back the truck up the driveway that we had to clear first which took us weeks to go weeks and we were able to back the truck up right to the door of the yurt and then push it in and then it went in quite easily it was really fun putting together this stand that it's on and then lighting it for the first time was was really awesome it was like the reward you know now we had the ability to stay warm to stay dry and cook inside which allowed us to escape the mosquitoes which about that time August they became ferociously I'm I'm more nervous about mosquitoes than I am cougar or bear I'm not joking we had our friend Matt visit us to help us with some of these projects and we ended up going to adopt kittens yes so who are kittens and how did we come about them we have ginseng and reishi and we found them on Facebook someone was just giving them away so we were able to adopt them which was really cool to have some animal life in the year besides just boys just Jake and I and you said many times you know I'm not really a cat person but let me tell you in a cult as a cat person I love them they're so funny yeah they just bring a little joy to your day especially in the morning when they do their little morning snuggles yeah I really wanted to adopt dogs and so we went out to get two dogs parsley because we needed the dogs as protectors against bears we had a bear break into the yurt which we think is a baby bear while the mom stood outside and watched yeah they broke in and stole a bunch of food from our kitchen luckily didn't do too much damage but we got dogs the next week yeah so who are our dogs Puma and Kai and they are blue cattle dogs are blue healers they are amazing and I love them so much I've never I mean I grew up with dogs but I've never been close to dogs like this before I wouldn't trade them for the world they are hilarious their personality is just out of this world amazing and super polite and the best dogs ever they're so funny they're really great I never thought to adopt brothers before or like siblings and that was Jake's idea and I just thought that was a great idea well at first I was like I'm not sure about that but seeing them grow up together and interact with each other is really awesome it's been the best part yeah they have each other yeah they really are the best friends they are yeah the best of friends and then we got into mushroom season and you and I were able to pick wild berries and mushrooms galore yeah this area people know it as like the brush berry capital of the world and the mushroom cap the world we ended up locating and learning about 20 different varieties of edible mushrooms in our first year here yeah next will be even better oh so much better I can't wait two and four also for the jam I've been experimenting with dyeing with different you know plants are in the area and so we had so many blackberries and raspberries last year so many so I'm really excited to use those to also dye fabric epic fog like movie star fog especially in the boat which is really hard to navigate in yeah well you were all like this is awesome I'm like oh my gosh pay attention and he's like we need to film this and I'm like I don't know that's a good idea I had to use GPS just to navigate through the fog yeah it was crazy [Music] holy moly sure winter here is interesting because there will be storms that carry between 40 to 60 knot winds but not a lot of snow this area is a temperate rainforest but we did get hit with one week of insane snow this year that local stuff is the most know that they've ever seen yeah and it was awesome it was like a winter wonderland it was so beautiful it was really really magical [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] and the dogs loved it because it was their first time seeing snow yeah let's see what he thinks I want to ask you what's next what do we have coming up here if folks subscribe and follow our adventure what are they gonna see us doing this week next week oh you're building a log cabin a washroom and a log cabin guest cabin two structures two structures we're gonna start using some cob for building yes which if you really stick with us and we were building our permanent house which we call but that's all I'm gonna say I'm really excited about that to play around with the cob yeah looking back on all this footage honestly brought tears to my eyes and I'm just so grateful that we're able to video journal this to look back on I mean it's honestly making me emotional it just gets it just makes me more motivated and I'm just really really excited to see what the ears have for us if folks stick with us what I want to do is I want to grow a sustainable edible food forest that's able to feed Nicole and I friends family whoever comes up 100% from here on the property yes and you'll see us build that starting this year so gardening will become a crucial component of our videos and channel coming up and everything from processing dehydrating harvesting the stick together what am I gonna go thank you so much for following our adventure I'm hoping that a lot of you have always wanted to live off the grid and do some sort of wilderness adventure like what we're doing and hopefully you can get inspired to do so or at least escape through our videos and get those feels inside of you yeah a lot more high fives to come as we build an amazing garden amazing green house log cabin structure and ultimately a cob house on the other lot shed out to all you guys thanks for becoming our supporters on patreon the patrons helped to fund our journey and just interacting here on YouTube and commenting below hitting the like button watching our videos as long as you can it's really important to helping us keep going because it would be so much easier to not make these videos obviously it doubles our workload to have to video and edit all this we do ourselves and it would be so much easier to just be off the grid for real throw the cameras away and just live but we really hope that the byproduct of us videoing is that you guys get inspired and bring some happiness to your life like always don't forget to subscribe hit that Bell button so you can get notified and give us a thumbs up follow all of our social media on Instagram snapchat and our patreon you can find all that down below in the description yep okay we got to get back to work Oh [Music] high-five we finished out that aggressive bill high-five show me how you high-fiving you do not high-five that way ever high-five high-five high-five the trolls [Music] one distance I buy yeah yeah high five [Music]

Channel: Living Off Grid w/ Jake & Nicole

Views: 4,841,840

Rating: 4.7340832 out of 5

Keywords: off grid, yurt, boat, garden, gardening, off the grid, living off grid, alone, yurt life, tiny house, tiny home, off-grid, Jake and Nicole, Jake Nicole, DIY, Homestead, Homesteading, How to, Canada, British Columbia, Vancouver Island, Yurts, living off the grid, permaculture, wilderness, boat life, yurts, off grid yurt, tiny houses, log cabin

Id: 7zdZLJmcE_M

Length: 42min 8sec (2528 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 05 2020