Rob Wood has been living among the rugged landscapes of BC’s Coast Mountains on Maurelle Island, converting youthful ideals, raw land, and a passion for the outdoors into a practical off-grid homestead. Rob and his wife, Laurie also developed a small house-design practice specializing in organic and wholesome building techniques.
At Home in Nature: A Life of Unknown Mountains and Deep Wilderness (RMB | Rocky Mountain Books) is a collection of stories from Rob and Laurie’s off-grid lifestyle that share their successes, trials and errors, and passion for the wilderness.
Read an excerpt from At Home in Nature and a short Q&A with Rob below.
The short winter day is fading fast. A swirling blizzard chills our faces and buffets every step. Exhausted, we slog slowly up through steep virgin forest. Deep, heavy, fresh snow sticks and balls up the climbing skins on our skis and slows us down even more. Our goal is a tiny alpine cabin 4,000 ft. above the ocean in our local coastal mountains. With this unusually deep snowpack, the cabin could be buried. With no marked trail, it would be hard to find in broad daylight, maybe impossible in darkness and this snowstorm.
“Don’t fancy a night out without shelter in this.” The thought drives us on.
“Not everybody’s idea of a perfect birthday party.”
Just as darkness closes in, there are signs of the cabin’s position. The slope eases and the snow-loaded trees become smaller and more widely spaced. Headlamps, however, show nothing but undulating snow humps, any one of which may conceal the cabin. At first, as the six of us set to panicky searching, our probing reveals nothing.
“Must be ’round here somewhere,” I mutter in frustration.
“Remember that gnarly old yellow cedar snag that stands right in front of the cabin?” my wife, Laurie, thinks aloud.
“Right now the trees all look the same,” I grumble.
“Yeah, but the cabin tree is bigger with no foliage … like that one over there.”
In the lee of the big dead cedar snag, the wind has scooped out a depression in the surface of the snow. A few stabs at the snow face with a shovel reveal the distinctive triangular gable atop the front wall of the cabin.
“Eureka! We’ve got it!”
In pools of headlamp light, digging starts right away. Without discussion, someone clears the chimney top. Someone else chops down into the hard compacted snowpack while others shovel out the loosened snow and cut back a ramp for steps. About four feet down, the roof of the porch appears. Another eight feet down, and finally, “Bingo!” – the cabin door. The whole group and their bulky packs squeeze into the 8 × 16 ft. cabin and ceremoniously shut the door, closing out the weather and the night.
Bic lighters busily light the white gas lamp, the propane cooker and the wood stove. A big stainless steel kettle, stuffed full of snow, melts on the stove for a “brew” of tea. One end of the tiny cabin is a general work space and cooking area where each body must now slide tactfully around the others to find enough personal space to strip off wet clothing and hang it from nails in the rafters. At the other end is a sleeping loft and tucked below it a plywood table with benches on either side which will be the centre of the evening eating and lounging. Then later the table will drop down flush with the benches to form another sleeping platform. The whole arrangement is compact and functional. In next to no time it is also warm and cozy. All the wet clothes are hanging up in the rafters to dry.
Very soon the master wilderness cook, Laurie, whips up what seems to us like a gourmet meal of curried chicken, complete with stewed fruit “cobbler” for dessert.
After dinner, the conversation turns to the question, “How did this all come about?”
Laurie and I had decided to celebrate my 60th birthday by inviting a few younger outdoorsy
friends to one of our favourite places on the coast, this funky old alpine cabin that had been built many years ago by some old-timers. It is in a remote area on the mainland, at the back of a small inlet not far from our home in the Discovery Islands.
After a three-hour ride in our 33-foot catamaran, Quintano, there was normally a six-hour hike from the beach, on old logging roads, then up a rugged trail through virgin old-growth forest to alpine meadows and wonderful open skiing and hiking slopes. On this occasion, as expected, the trail was invisible, buried deep in the snowpack, so we had to feel our way up the mountain, trying to stay on the crest of a subtle ridge. Although there had been bad weather forecast, we had set out anyway because trips like this take a lot of planning, it’s hard to get everyone together at short notice and, if the opportunity is not taken, there is a danger of not being able to reschedule, or of never going at all. Also, it’s possible to have a good time even in bad weather. Besides, the forecasts are not always correct. Today had been a long, tough day typical of “bushwhacking” in the Coast Range wilderness and, as usual, remarkably rewarding, especially after finding the security of the cabin.
Most of us are stripped down to our thermal underwear, hunkered onto a spot on a bench, with a mug of hot sweet tea and a big contented smile. What relief. Sheer luxury.
“You notice we invited a few apprentices along to help carry our loads, as well as breaking trail, doing most of the digging and making the tea.”
“You must have learned a few tricks over the years, eh?”
“Well, you young guys do get a few benefits, like boat rides and being shown where the cabin is even in the dark, not to mention Laurie’s cooking.”
“We’ll buy that. After all the proof is in the pudding … and the stew.”
As we all subside into a long winter evening of relaxed and relieved euphoria, attention comes round to my birthday. After the usual congratulations, and sensing I am suitably primed for storytelling, some of the “youths” start asking questions, mainly about our alternative lifestyle….
“What made you chose to leave the mainstream and come to live on a remote island on the BC coast?” “How and when did you find a place to settle down?” “When and where did you two meet? … Was it love at first sight?” “How did you get started living on raw land?” “What’s your homestead and community like now?”
“That’s a lot of questions and a long story,” I reply.
“Let’s have it. We’ve got all night.”
“And all next day tomorrow, unless the weather improves.”
“All right, you asked for it,” I grin and settle back on the bench, back against the cabin wall.
“How about another brew to wet my whistle?”
“More cobbler, anyone?”
—Excerpt posted with permission from RMB | Rocky Mountain Books
Read Local BC: How did you get started writing?
Rob Wood: I started writing for something to do in my spare time especially in the long winter evenings. The only thing I wanted or felt comfortable writing about was our (my wife Laurie’s and my) life experience.
What was the impetus for At Home in Nature? And what made it a story you knew you needed to write?
Same as the above, plus numerous requests from family members and friends to write our stories down so their children could enjoy them firsthand.
Is there an experience, person or place has had a strong influence on your writing?
Canadian wilderness in general, BC Coast Mountain range in particular, and especially our homestead on Maurelle Island.
What’s your writing space like? What do you surround yourself with when you write?
Well lit office in the loft of our home-built home with lots of old growth timber frame and lots of glass.
What is the one book that you wish you wrote, and why?
Mountains of the Mind by Robert Macfarlane, because of the title. Mountains are a metaphor for life. They require that we be more conscious, more alive.
Where do you like to take a book and read?
In a good tent in a storm in the mountains.
What are you reading?
The Unknown Mountain by Don Munday.