Woman Living Off-Grid on a Remote Island: Two Years in a Small Cabin

I live off-grid in a cabin on an island in northern British Columbia. I am the caretaker of this property and I've been here for about two years. The isolation is something I really enjoy and I love the solitude. It's so peaceful, so calm, so quiet. I am the only person living on this island full-time. The owners are here probably, I would say, about one to two months during the summer. But in the wintertime, for months at a time, I'm the only person on this entire island. The climate is cool. Even in the summertime, it doesn't get hot. And in the wintertime, we do get snow, but we only get snow for about two weeks. But we get big storms here, mostly windstorms. Windstorms can be a bit scary. We get bears, cougars, wolves, lots of deer and humpback whales. Often you'll come out in the mornings and you'll just hear the blowing. It's just so amazing. I'd been living on my sailboat for about 10 years, but my dog was getting a bit elderly and it was time to get off the boat. So I put an ad on Facebook and a lot of different things happened and I ended up becoming the caretaker of this property. So I check the docks every day. I check the property every day. I just make sure that everything's running smoothly. In the summertime, it's really a lot more work, physical labour. All the heat comes from wood. So all the buildings have wood stoves. So part of my job is to split, haul and stack every single piece of wood that's burned on this property and mowing the lawn and taking care of the greenhouse and stuff like that. That's my big job in the summer. And that takes up a lot of time in the summer. I make sure the batteries are charged. I light the fires in the wintertime. I make sure that the power stays on in the house. You know, the freezers keep going. So just basically, I just look after everything that has to do with the property. But I also am a freelance web designer. So I have a lot of clients. Most of my clients are in the United States. So I work fully remote. So I'll spend about three hours in the mornings working on the property. And then in the afternoons, I'll hunker down in my cabin and work on any client projects that I have. I have satellite internet here and you can get somewhat of a good cell service on this dock and from the house, the big house itself. But I don't even remember last time I made a cell phone call. There are two cabins and a main house on the property. My cabin was built probably about 25 years ago. And it's nice and cozy. And it's just perfect for me. There's a nice little kitchen. There's a little area for eating. And that's basically turns into my desk when I'm working. And there are two bedrooms. Each bedroom has two twin beds in it. The cabin is 100% heated by a wood stove. Keeps it nice and toasty warm in the winter. And sometimes because of where the cabin is, it stays quite cool in there. So I often have to run the wood stove in the summertime as well. But I don't mind that. And in the summertime, one of the two cabins is an Airbnb. And that's part of my job here in the summertime. In the summertime, I do have a boat that the owners put into the water. So I use that to get to town. I will go there for doctor's appointments and for grocery runs. But if I can avoid going, I will avoid going. I'd rather not go. I'd rather just hang out here. In the wintertime, the caretakers on the property next to us, a totally different island, they have a covered boat, which is nice and warm. So in the wintertime, we'll go once a month for a supply run. We do have a greenhouse on the property. I am definitely no green thumb at all. But I've learned a lot already, which is good. The biggest challenge here is greenhouses is quite small. And anytime you plant anything outside, the deer eat it. All of the animals get to the islands via the currents. The currents around these islands are massive. They're super fast, super strong. And literally a bear just has to hop into the current and get off at the next island. So in the summertime, I definitely have to be very bear aware. I can't even tell you the number of times I've walked outside and gone around the side of my cabin and looked up and there's a bear right there. So that's a bit of a challenge. I carry bear spray with me in the summertime everywhere I go. I leave that cabin, I've got bear spray on me. In the wintertime, it's not so bad. But last winter, after a snowfall, I came out of the cabin to go turn on the generator. And when I came out, there were cougar prints on the road and it had stopped right by the door. So I think me turning on the generator scared it away. But yeah, so cougars are a big concern in the wintertime. If I get hurt or I have to go to the hospital, the first thing I would do is call my neighbours. They would pretty much drop everything and come and get me. They're those kind of people. Like I've broken a couple of toes, the wood dropping on them and the owners did, you know, have to take me to the hospital. But they were basically here the next day. Living off-grid teaches you how to be really aware of what you're consuming and how to manage that. The owners just recently added solar to the property. It's been fantastic. I believe there's about 8,000 watts of solar coming in. In the summertime, we literally don't run the generators at all. So the solar panels, they power the property for the entire summer. There are four generators on the property. The generators are used mostly in the wintertime. And if we run them for three hours, it fully charges everything on the property, all the batteries on the property. And the generators run on diesel. There's a well on the property. When the generator runs, the well fills the water tank and then the entire property is gravity-fed from that water tank. All of the water lines are buried under the ground. But still, just to be safe, if it gets below a certain temperature, we just shut the water right off. So the water jug's on my deck. That's my water, just in case the water goes off. There is a septic field on the property. All the black water goes there. This island is a protected island. You are not allowed to cut down trees. But we often have a lot of windfalls. So those trees, they'll often be cut up for firewood. But the majority, probably 90% of the wood that we use here on the property, we get it from the ocean. So when the high tides come in, they loosen up all the logs from the shorelines and then they just float by. So I'll hop in the kayak and I'll kayak out and I'll hammer a staple into the log and tie it up and I'll just kayak it back and yeah, I'll drag it up to the shoreline. I just grab a chainsaw and cut it up into pieces. And then I haul it up to the wood splitter. I split it up and then I stack it up in the woodshed. Once the wood is split and stacked, we let it sit probably for a good six, seven months before we even touch it. Yeah. Because sometimes they're so wet that when you split it, it's like water comes out of it. Because it's been a bit difficult keeping in touch with friends in Vancouver, I decided to start a YouTube channel, Amanda Off Grid, just so my friends could see what I was up to. So often in the afternoons, if I don't have any client work, I'll work on that. I love the solitude of living on the island. I don't get lonely. I don't know why I don't, but I absolutely do not get lonely. When Buttercup passed away, my dog, I was lonely because I missed her. But I lived downtown Vancouver since I was 21 years old and I think I just maybe got burnt out. Yeah. So I sold my condo and bought my boat. It's a Catalina 28. It's a 28 foot sailboat. Yeah. People thought I was crazy. They're like, you're nuts. You're going to regret it. And I never regretted it. It's the best thing I ever did. It brought me here. If I had never bought that boat, I wouldn't be here. So yeah, best thing I ever did. I lived on my sailboat in Vancouver for about eight years and I was at a marina for the wintertime. And then in the summertime, my dog Buttercup and I would sail all around BC. And then I decided I just wanted to head north. It was always my dream to live up north. And I thought, well, now's the time. So I just pulled anchor and just went north. And there were many times where I was really scared. Sometimes the wind would pick up to like 30 knots and I'd lay awake at night just saying, oh, please anchor, please hold, don't let go. But I would say 90% of the time, it's just so peaceful and just the sense of freedom and peace and calm. I loved it. I loved it so much. But I'm in my second year now on this property and my dog has passed away now, which is really sad. And so I'm kind of missing the boat, to be honest. I'm missing it a little bit. I think this summer I'm going to try and get out of my sailboat and explore this area because it's so beautiful. I'm kind of a nomad, but I'm really enjoying being here. I definitely see myself here for the next couple of years at least. I mean, if the owners decide, OK, Amanda, your time is up, I'm like, OK, I'll just hop on my sailboat and go somewhere else. Yeah. But yeah, I love it here. And yeah, the owners are great. And I could definitely see myself here for another couple of years at least. It's definitely taught me that I don't need much to be happy. Living like this is the happiest I've ever been. Subscribe to Exploring Alternatives and check out our playlists for more stories like this. You can also follow Amanda on her YouTube channel at Amanda Off Grid. Thanks for watching.