https://www.reddit.com/r/OffGrid/comments/tv45t4/im_moving_to_the_woods_near_the_arctic_circle_in/

Someone recently messaged me thinking that I probably didn't survive the adventure. I did and figured it was time for an update.

I acquired a 20 foot travel trailer and parked it as close as I could get to my property. I ferried all my belongings and vehicles to the location as planned April 30th 2022. I do a lot of planning (often too much), but totally under estimated two things: mud during breakup and mosquitoes. I can say now I hate both.

It took me a couple weeks just to get settled in. I will admit the first night I was sleeping in the trailer I did begin to question my life choices. I didn't dwell on my doubts, but I was a little unsure at that point.

I fought with mosquitoes, mud, and deep snow from the beginning. I had a bear try to break into my trailer within the first 2 weeks of being at the property. The neighbor brought me a 12 gauge until I could get to town to buy one. He seemed doubtful I could make it in the woods.

After getting settled in as best I could I spent 3 months clearing a road, finding a spot to build, and clearing a building site. The driveway was back breaking work as I had to do it all alone and by hand. I had little more than a chainsaw and a shovel. and hauled by hand the logs I wanted to keep for cabin building. I'm not very physically strong and hauling 20ft+ long wet birch logs hundreds of feet through the woods is hard work. Later I would bring in 34 truck loads of gravel that I shoveled into then out of the truck by hand. Such tasks test you both physically and mentally.

I fought with the mud for the entire month of May. I fought with the relentless mosquitoes until mid august. One area where I cleared a path I evidently exposed a patch of permafrost as the spot went from drive able to swallowing up anything that passed over it over time.

I spent the time to cut, haul, split, and stack 5 cords of wood before I even began to work on my cabin as I knew I would need firewood for the -40F temps that would soon follow. People questioned my decision to cut firewood when I had no where to live but I felt strongly that I needed to get firewood curing. My neighbor who has lived in the woods for more than a decade told me repeatedly that there was no way I would be able to build a road and a cabin before winter arrived.

The entire time I was torn between building a cabin out of the green logs I had felled vs using dimensional lumber. There were pros and cons of both and I was suffering from analysis paralysis and unable to make a decision.

The decision was eventually made for me when I was in town at Lowe's on my weekly town visit and they had 3/4" tongue and groove OSB marked down to $25 per sheet. At one point the stuff had been about $100 per sheet. I figured it was mismarked and the lady at the commercial desk agreed that it was but they were going to sell it for that price. I bought 62 sheets of it at that price and pushed me to build with dimensional lumber.

I finally started to work on the actual cabin on August 7th. From the beginning I figured I only had until approximately the end of September to get a cabin built and move in to avoid freezing to death. I only had about 7 weeks at that point to build a cabin.

I was working 6 days from the time I got up until late in the evenings. I was going to town each Friday to shop for supplies, make phone calls, pay bills, and read emails. The rest of the week I had no contact with the outside world other than the neighbor who would occasionally stop by to check on my progress.

Building the cabin was extremely hard because I had to literally do every single thing by myself. I carried every sheet of OSB at 75 pounds each. I cut every board, pounded every nail, carried each and every heavy item up multiple ladders. The roof was difficult because I built a 2 story cabin and had to watch my every step. If I fell and injured myself there was no one to help me and no way to call 911.

I managed to get the building put together well enough to move in on September 22nd. I still didn't have finished floors, or counters, or a sink, or a wood stove, but I could sleep inside. I was very happy to get out of the 20 foot travel trailer I can been living in for the past 4.5 months.

It took another month and $6,100 later to procure a wood stove. I hated spending that much money -- as the entire building up to that point hadn't even cost me $20k -- but after burning the stove for 88 days continuously on a single cord of birch I'm happy with the stove. It's extremely efficient and easily holds the inside of the cabin 110 degrees warmer than the outside.

I've had many other highlights and lowlights along the way. I've managed to get my solar setup partially working and I have starlink now so I no longer have to travel to town other than for supply runs. I'm making it about 15 days at a time between town trips, and would like to extend that out to 1 month at a time in the future.

During all this I did take about 1TB of video footage with my phone. People have suggested I put the videos on youtube. I'm a bit torn because I feel like I have lots to share but I'm a pretty private person. That and the video is mostly me pointing the camera at the trees talking about next steps while saying "so" and "umm" much of the time.

At any rate here are some random pictures from my adventures in the forest. I'm looking forward to spring so I can get working on my next batch of homestead projects!

I will say my plan to move to the woods and build a cabin garnered very little support from my friends, family, or people I met. I'm pretty sure most of them thought I could not do it. I've learned in my life to ignore people who say something can't be done.