Build a Permanent Adirondack Shelter in 2 Days

Description

Visit the new My Self Reliance property with Shawn and Joe Robinet as we build the first permanent super shelter to house guests and students.

http://myselfreliance.com/benefits-owning-land-unorganized-township-ontario/

Purchase land just about anywhere in Southern and Central Ontario, or anywhere else in Canada or the United States, for the purpose of sustainable, off-grid living, and you will soon find out there are rules and regulations in place to stop you from doing what YOU want to do. It sounds hard to believe, but just because you own your own land does not mean you have the right to do whatever you wish on it, even if it has no impact on your neighbors or the environment.

In our hunt for suitable land to create a power-free, off-grid recreation lifestyle, my wife and I were shocked to discover that not only could we not build a tiny home to occupy, nor a temporary Bunkie prior to building a permanent residence, we were not even permitted to camp on OUR land for any length of time. What?!

It’s true. We could spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on a piece of vacant land in Ontario and we could not occupy that land, even temporarily, without a permit in place to build a permanent home. And, not just any home, but a house with a minimum area of 1,000 square feet – not exactly a “tiny” home. With a permit in place, it’s legal to place a trailer on the property for up to three years (only in some municipalities mind you), but at the end of that period, the trailer must be removed from the property if you have not built a house.

Also shockingly, in many jurisdictions, it’s actually illegal to NOT be connected to the local utility grid. So, relying on renewable energy (or even a generator) without tying into the territorial electricity grid is strictly forbidden.

What we wanted

Freedom from government oversight at a local level.

Freedom to build an off-grid homestead

Freedom to camp or otherwise occupy our property in a shelter that we deem appropriate for our current use.

Freedom from high development fees and annual property taxes.

What to do?

One possible solution, although not necessarily a 100% legal one, is to own and occupy land in an unorganized township. In Ontario, Canada, unorganized territories are found only above Muskoka in the center of the province, from Parry Sound District north. In these Districts, there are areas with no county or regional levels of government and therefore no local oversight.

Tags: Cabin,log cabin,off-grid,self-reliance,self reliance,tiny home,small home,shelter,bushcraft,survival,living off the land,homestead,woodcraft,woodworking,gransfors bruk,axe,pathfinder school,dick proenneke,cabin living,alone in the wilderness,joe Robinet

Video Transcription

hey everybody sean james here again I'm up here with Jill Robinette in north-central Ontario

just west of Algonquin Park told you I had some announcements about my property while we're up here today trying to I sure in spring and say goodbye to winter but up here there's still lots of snow in the Boise so we're actually snowshoeing in got a beautiful spot here beaver pond behind me and a creek running through and this time we're up here building a shelter sort of an oak post Adirondack shelter on the back corner of the property so looking forward to it we have a perfect spot here nice flowing water you can hear behind me a little rapid or waterfall beneath the a Beaver Dam so a beautiful spot lots of building materials so we're going to get going supposed to clear up be sunny and well above freezing so it's going to be a great great three or four days so so thanks for tuning in again and and I look forward to seeing the next video

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with between 10,000 and 15,000 trees on the property I wasn't worried about taking out a few balsam fir to make this better on that shelter in a clump of 2 to 5 trees we would cut down one or two trees leaving the other ones to grow healthier and stronger yeah [Music]

sometimes a rock is a better digging tool than a snowshoe or a piece of wood especially when the grounds frozen the rock has that wet weight that mass behind it and the rigidity the hardness to kind of speak your weight element I'm trying to get this level across the back here putting it on rock is going to stop those back corners from from a sagging Qi tune of course from rotting [Music]

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pretty good tight fit so what I'm doing here is a notching this log so it's actually going to sit in here nice and tight but it's also going to stop these bottom logs from moving back and forth because they're not fastening them in this log camp move that way going to do the same at this end I'll notch that and I'll put a slight notch in this bottom log I don't want to deep they don't want a week to fit in deeper than that [Music]

it would only be a good idea to do the same to the back we did the front just going to stack a couple rocks on the side because it's lower easier to do that

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let's drive our nice hardwood on their maple quid

it's time for dinner finally we're pretty hard today believe it or not this is going to be a long-term camp so I'm glad we spent the time to find the perfect location and get some logs cut in the beginning of a shelter made here can really feel the lumps from the fire to just slowly more perfect yeah I thought it's really nice it's really kicking the heat back to it it's not gonna be too cool tonight but so even if it was I think this would be a pretty good job of keeping this room that then there is his West so if it was cold and there's a wind coming in it would have blocked that side off instead of this stuff so I'm really really hungry though didn't drink enough got some water on the goal here and I'm going to fire up some I think I'll be some venison Ric Bennett's and ribs tonight right so for dinner tonight I had a little bit of a mishap in the bag so I'm going to cook everything and I'll just reheat it tomorrow night but some venison venison stir-fry sand basically some venison steak that I cut up nice and fine yeah that's good from a deer I shot last fall my bow a little bit more a little bit more of the scene and I've got these big ribs so I'm going to have their ribs tonight and the and the venison the stir-fried tomorrow but since it's all kind of leaking and alter your thought today because it got up to like 5 degrees above zero I'll get these a big big ribs on here as well so I'm going to flavor those in their stew and then I'll barbecue there and grill them up at the end so in the bag run off and bring vegetables obviously I wouldn't take this on a canoe trip but this time of year when when I don't mind carrying some gear we're not going that far we'll base camp in this case it's got some heavier food so it's filled up that earth sack with just two days to two or three days worth of food so in this bag I've got beets celery potatoes carrots sweet potato I think onions and leek and put a little bit of barbecue sauce in there as well so that's going to form sort of a gravy feel like a stew that I can kind of put everything in and say pastor for tomorrow all right well it wouldn't be a winter camping trip I didn't have meat on a stick so here we go this is actually tomorrow night's dinner anyway so I'm just going to slow roasted lighting be on there all night you'll see shouldn't get too many critters here maybe a wolf pack but they're not going to come and bother that's too close we're still residual light yes definitely too high in one spot when we roll it might might been thin layer about at all no definitely beads isn't lying I roll and drop in two feet down together I've got this bit of boughs here to protect me from not only the branches with the SAP coming up from these boards there have to be something without the future but it's pretty cozy I think they'll be formed this fire is really kicking the heat out that's it we're going to turn into a ten o'clock so we'll see you bright and early in the morning sunrise over here I'll show you that hopefully it's going to be a beautiful sunrise in the works oh good nice see them [Applause]

the temporary setup we had last night with the tarp worked out really well for us but we're ready to continue on with the shelter and make it more permanent so the tarps down trim these logs up puts a sloped roof on there and then we'll put sidewalls on it as well make it comfortable shave these down get them nice and flat and comfortable and secure in place and then we're good to go this will be a long-lasting shelter for many years I'm sure to get you as well it's the way yes yeah that we don't have to use that skinny part too much either no okay

that's great enough right yeah all right do you make chili yeah okay so one two three four adult commitment apply cookie they're barely okay on this side the four and a half to five we need one more yep we hungry you know that was another 50 pebble Campina get the perfect side make this light a lot of times actually turn all the meat off the ribs going to put it into the ground but it still tedious doing that stopped last year shot two deer last fall and I kept all the ribs like this I'm perfect for bringing it on trips like this now don't care about getting messy and get right into and get all the meat off of that good morning I don't bring a watch on my trip so I still what time I was and I cannot believe I slept in till 71 now it's still some good coals in the fire from the trim last night it was nice hot fire with that a maple and birch but we're going to skip breakfast to stock up and go beautiful morning by the looks of it Suns coming up and a little bit of cloud cover but temperatures not bad at all spring I think is finally here this is probably the only place in Ontario that hit the less snow and clay wood bit of ash yeah quite a bit of it still need snowshoes on the way up I think that's awesome as far as putting on workshops or or winter camping it the seasons good right till the end and then spring comes and it's a whole different ballgame so I'm glad this is a high snow area so we're going to pack up thanks you guys for watching exciting stuff coming up don't forget to keep tuning in going to be jumping back and forth between the other cabin build and and finishing this shelter off like I said this is a shelter that's actually going to be used as a kind of a temporary camp where we're building other stuff on on the rest of the property so we're going to make this more comfortable and it'll stay here and people can come up and stay in this shelter and help make improvements to it make this more of a campsite maybe a little table between the trees or something and and trail down to the water and stuff so it's going to be a great spot Oh all year long like this is March but it's going to be a beautiful campsite at any time so stay tuned I think the next video is probably going to be the cabin back at the friend's place to make some progress on that and then we'll be back up here and do some other stuff so thanks again for watching we'll see you next video

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