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One thing about living off grid and off-road is the isolation factor. I never thought of this as a problem before. In fact, I considered it a benefit in our move! When we lived in town, our door was never answered if Kyle wasn’t home. Part of our moving this far was to get away from the noise and distraction of city life. It is completely different out here, though. With so little human noise, we are always glad to have guests. There are also only two reasons for people to knock on our door; either they own a cabin in the area and know (or want to know) us, or they have an emergency. In either case, I am happy to answer the door here.
It probably helps that there is no pretending you aren’t home in 300 square feet with smoke pouring out of the chimney!
I think Kyle and I are a lot more excited to see people with so much time between visits. There have been times where a month has passed without seeing anyone. I personally run more introvert than extrovert, so I definitely need space to recharge after hanging out. It also makes a difference that we live in a cabin community here. Everyone is always looking out for each other, so there is a need to know who the neighbors are. People help each other when stuck on the trail, or by dropping off groceries, or hauling loads back here. Everyone has been in a pinch a time or two, so it helps to know there are people around that can be depended upon. Helping people out is a good way to meet the neighborhood too.
Most cabin owners in this area are seasonal, so we haven’t had much company this winter. We do have a few friends we see in town, and a few others who stop by every time they are out this way. What we are really missing, though, is our families. We just recently found the show Alaska: The Last Frontier (Amazon) and are really enjoying it. They have several generations of family homesteading, and it’s obvious how much they lean on each other. They also live on the peninsula and live by the tides. It’s fun watching people so similar to us, but it does drive home how alone we are. It would be really nice to have full-time neighbors, or family or friends that lived out here.
Our closest full time neighbors are 11 miles away, off road. That makes it a little hard to run over and borrow some sugar!
The long, dark days of Alaskan winters only add to the feeling of isolation. On our shortest days, we only got 5 hours of light. This means a lot of time spent inside, which is probably why everyone is asking us if we have cabin fever. Luckily we have the internet, and winter gave us time to catch up on all our shows that we missed while working on our homestead this summer. Along with video games, we also have been doing a lot of research to prepare for summer. Especially research regarding raising pigs and dealing with bears. Hungry bears around the homestead is not something I’m excited about. We also have our daughter to hang out with. Watching her learn new things is endlessly entertaining!
Spending that much time in the dark has been quite the change for us. Not only did we have more light in Washington winters, but the summer days are so long it makes the winter seem worse. Now I understand why things like Happy Lamps (Amazon) exist. It’s also hard to make any progress on our homestead when there is so little daylight. Outdoor chores are slow to be done this time of year. Sometimes the constant darkness does wear a little, so we take “family days” as often as we need.
There was no rush once we had shelter, firewood, food and water needs met. Although sometimes it’s a chore in itself convincing Kyle he doesn’t need to push himself so hard. Come spring, there will be plenty of time for rushing around to finish projects. It feels like winter is spent waiting for spring and outdoor chores again! Indoor projects are something I want to prepare more for next winter. This year we didn’t really have time to harvest any materials for crafting over winter. We spent all our time in a mad dash to finish our home before snow fell.
The good news is the snow is melting and the birds are back and singing. Pretty soon, all our summer friends and neighbors will be back. And with the return of long days, there will be lots of homestead projects happening!
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