my family and i live a very similar life to these folks, my wife and two daughters live on 4.5 acres, in a 300 sq ft cabin that i built in rural BC. we are off grid and garden and raise or hunt or trade for most of our food. people idealize this life and it is romanticized in films and blogs like this. but the reality is or at least my reality is that with out a much larger outside economy creating the thrift clothes or scrap lumber or bee hives, and steel for the axe head and guns, and computer and solar panels and internet, socialized medicine etc etc...you are left with a very difficult life. can you actually imagine reverting to a time without the internet, (i am old enough to remember that time clearly and somewhat fondly) or the access to modern medicine. that being said i wouldnt trade mine for any other way of life. but my life as it is would not be possible without a larger outside modern economy. this idealization of the aboriginal life is lacking in the reality of what it would actually mean to live in the stone age. i dont disagree that the original peoples of the lands had great knowledge of their corner of the world but so did the european stone age peoples. there is certainly a lesson here that you can live with a lot less and that is a valuable lesson but until it is forced upon people the only people actually choosing a "harder" life will be those who dont find having less a problem, but an adventure...
Lovely piece WD. Did I ever share this? What we are doing in the Balkans: https://winteroak.org.uk/2025/01/27/about-this-life/ I can’t claim to be living the life as we live mainly in the uk and Spain but the spirit is very similar (including Thoreau!)
We were close to their model when we had a big garden and grew enough potatoes to last through winter and enough onions almost. Firewood from the forest all around.
Thx for the review, had just seen trailer and looks interesting. For some of his endeavors, Throeau had a Penobscot guide. This is typically unknown or overlooked, and that perpetuates the illusory stereotype of the rugged American individual, oblivious to whose land it actually is. By "relationships with the local Native folks", do you mean the Original Peoples aka Aborigines?
my family and i live a very similar life to these folks, my wife and two daughters live on 4.5 acres, in a 300 sq ft cabin that i built in rural BC. we are off grid and garden and raise or hunt or trade for most of our food. people idealize this life and it is romanticized in films and blogs like this. but the reality is or at least my reality is that with out a much larger outside economy creating the thrift clothes or scrap lumber or bee hives, and steel for the axe head and guns, and computer and solar panels and internet, socialized medicine etc etc...you are left with a very difficult life. can you actually imagine reverting to a time without the internet, (i am old enough to remember that time clearly and somewhat fondly) or the access to modern medicine. that being said i wouldnt trade mine for any other way of life. but my life as it is would not be possible without a larger outside modern economy. this idealization of the aboriginal life is lacking in the reality of what it would actually mean to live in the stone age. i dont disagree that the original peoples of the lands had great knowledge of their corner of the world but so did the european stone age peoples. there is certainly a lesson here that you can live with a lot less and that is a valuable lesson but until it is forced upon people the only people actually choosing a "harder" life will be those who dont find having less a problem, but an adventure...
Lovely piece WD. Did I ever share this? What we are doing in the Balkans: https://winteroak.org.uk/2025/01/27/about-this-life/ I can’t claim to be living the life as we live mainly in the uk and Spain but the spirit is very similar (including Thoreau!)
Thank you Michael
We were close to their model when we had a big garden and grew enough potatoes to last through winter and enough onions almost. Firewood from the forest all around.
Thanks for your usual very thoughtful and thought provoking commentary!
I LOVE this!~ In my mind, it's the only means to realize and sustain the ideals of the "Commonist" society that we spoke of in an earlier discussion.
I'll be watching the film...and subscribing to their substack... You Betcha! ;)
Thx for the review, had just seen trailer and looks interesting. For some of his endeavors, Throeau had a Penobscot guide. This is typically unknown or overlooked, and that perpetuates the illusory stereotype of the rugged American individual, oblivious to whose land it actually is. By "relationships with the local Native folks", do you mean the Original Peoples aka Aborigines?
At the very bottom where it says ‘here’ takes you to the film company site to rent it.
Have you got a link to the film?