Ten years ago, at age 65, I decided to homestead once again. The advantages to the homesteading life are many. Homesteading is physically challenging, clearing a piece of land and putting up buildings is rewarding, and the privacy and independence of living remotely are invaluable.
Before my decision to retire to a remote plot of land, I’d homesteaded at various points in my life. You used to be able to build a cabin on a mining claim or trap line and live there in peace year-round. Starting in 1975, I spent some years in northern Ontario, where I had three registered trap lines. One trap line was only accessible by a 10-mile ride over a frozen river. I initially had a dog team, but the dogs became too expensive to keep all summer when they weren’t working. After I sold my dog team and bought a 1976 Yamaha snowmobile, travel was a lot quicker, and I didn’t have to feed the machine all summer.
In those days, snowmobiles weighed about 300 pounds and were around 15 horsepower – a big difference from the belching beasts of today. At that time, large prime beavers were going for $100 each, and as a basic new snowmobile was $1,000, I bought my machine with 10 beaver pelts. Today, it would take at least 10 times that amount with the relative cost of furs and snowmobiles.
In the mid-1980s, for a change of scenery, I bought an oceanfront lot on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. This lot was 10 miles by boat (no road) from the village of Tofino. Over eight years on this lot, I built an A-frame cabin and did some commercial fishing, small-scale logging, and work as a welder. That was all before the island became a high-end tourist destination and the escalating prices drove some locals away.
As the unending winter rain in the region began to worsen my arthritis, I thought it was time for the far north again, so in 1992, I moved to the Yukon. I staked a number of mining claims on Teslin Lake, a 100-mile-long body of water in the wilderness. I built a log cabin 12 miles from the nearest road. At that time, only one other person lived on that huge lake. His name was Gunter, and we had some adventures prospecting and hunting the area. But after three years, when I wasn’t allocated one of the vacant trap lines, I sold my mining claims, left the Yukon, and got a trapper-instructor job at Red Earth, a remote reserve in northern Saskatchewan. The following year, I worked as a shop instructor at Split Lake, a reserve in northern Manitoba. And for two years, I had a cabin on a remote lake near the small northern Manitoba community of Lynn Lake. Along the way, I also picked up a degree in fine art from the University of Guelph.
So, I wasn’t totally unprepared to establish a retirement homestead. But the main problem with this type of project is figuring out where to get a suitable property, and at what cost.
As my retirement idea developed, I heard about a 1-acre lot for sale not far from the town of Kirkland Lake. The small lake is about 1 mile long, with only one other lot on the lake. The drawback about the lot for sale was that it had no road access. But that lack of road access benefited me and my plans. So, after setting up a tent and spending some time there, I purchased the lot for $7,000. It’s always a good idea to spend some time on a piece of land you’re thinking of buying before you make a final decision.
So, for the past 10 years on my off-grid retirement homestead, I’ve been busy clearing the land and building a cabin and two outbuildings, one a shop and the other a storage shed. I carried all the building materials in an 18-foot canoe. People don’t generally realize that such a craft can carry 1,000 pounds of freight. That’s a fair bit of material, even with a 200-pound steersman aboard. And last fall, I built a yurt and erected a tipi, for those rare sleepover guests. I also designed and built a 26-foot steel sloop.
But it hasn’t been all work and no play. Over the past decade, I’ve created six large stainless-steel sculptures and finished a number of paintings and hand-forged knives. In addition to a small pension, I support myself through selling artwork and custom knives. To sell the sculptures, I had to move them to more visible locations by roadsides or to the town nearby. This required a bit of preparation, as they were each about 400 pounds and nearly 10 feet long. First, I lashed together two 18-foot canoes with two sheets of 3/4-inch plywood laid flat between them. Then, with promises of beer and pizza, I enticed four or five friends who live nearby to help.
While knowing which neighbors I can call on for help and where to get medical care is important, I believe my health is better than it would be if I was spending all my time in retirement relaxing. One of my knees is starting to bother me, and I have a bit of arthritis in my hands. Big deal. It’s worth the satisfaction I feel after a hard day’s work on beautiful remote land in a hand-built cabin. I’d still heartily recommend – above golf, above travel, and certainly above a retirement home – retiring on a homestead. It seems to be working out for me – so far.
Mike Camp is a wilderness artist who has lived and worked throughout Canada for over 50 years. To see more of Mike’s paintings, sculptures, and videos visit Mick Camp Designs.
