Living with a Blackbear at the Cabin in the Forest and Installing Windows

Description

What happens when a black bear moves onto the property and refuses to leave? In this video, I confront the blackbear while building the cabin, installing the rest of the roof boards, reinforcing the long wall and installing the windows.

I talk about growing up with with parents who introduced me to the outdoors, and why this cabin the forest is necessary for my happiness.

With me at the cabin is my shotgun and traditional longbow with arrows, and I'm tempted to put them to use to acquire meals and defend myself while working on the log cabin.

The off grid, tiny house is getting closer to completion, ready to move in. If I'm going to have a liveable homestead before winter, I have a lot of work to do and I'm confident that it will be done - winter is coming.

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Website: http://myselfreliance.com/

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My Self reliance, shawn james, winter camping, Bushcraft, Woodcraft, Survival, Primitive skills, Nature, EDC, Preparedness, Homesteading, Homestead, Camping, Fire, Self Reliance, Self Sufficiency, Living Off The Land, Off The Grid,

Tags: bushcraft,camping,self-reliance,survival,log,cabin,blackbear,bear,log cabin,cottage,ontario,canada,woodworking,off grid,homestead,tiny home,tiny house,winter is coming

Video Transcription

[Music]

hi everybody welcome back to the cabin had a nice surprise when I walked down the trail and went to the back of the cab and looked down on the valley seems spot that I saw that bear before actually just lying down there and picking away at something so I got the camera one of them I think I got a little bit of video but I also had a trail camera set up down there so got some pretty good images of them actually so in this episode what I want to do is get into this joint here in the wall I've had a lot of questions about it and a lot of concerns and rightfully so so let's jump right into it I hadn't even 100% decide if I was gonna trim these logins some people commented they kind of like the look of it kind of staggered in and out and I just gives it a more rustic look and I didn't really disagree but I think it would just bother me if I don't trim them all nice and flush with each other and plumb so I'm gonna do that right now and I didn't want to do it now I'm concentrating on getting roof done but problem is I won't really a saw in there very well so I have to trim this off now so I'm going to do that quickly and then I'll get back on the roof [Music]

[Applause]

yeah so these windows that love having a frugal wife who can find good deals on things seem pretty good quality they came out of somebody's home that was being renovated and of course they're still perfectly fine perfect for this cabin so I've got a bunch of these things that we got for free so this is that big operating window I said we're going I want on the west side so we can look out at the nice scenery out here but also to get that cross breeze coming in through and clear and smoking and warm air out of the cabin so what I need to do is frame that in and also create some support rate up to that higher beam so let's see what I can do here go sixty four and a half full of an inch is settling on the top maybe a little sixty five and I can have a full inch and a half for that upper log to start settling down on it sixty five I'm gonna come up from here so it's that high off the ground it's not buried in snow basically gonna frame the window in because I need a guide any way to keep my saw thing but using a handsaw it's time-consuming so it's easy to that's your song so you can easily get off off the plumb line especially kind of left and right so I might frame it on the inside as well so you want to have this frame as a solid guy [Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Music]

I'm just like the wildlife know that it's a day after Thanksgiving and I'm still full first that bear this morning and the grouse lands here while I'm having butter tarts for lunch yeah my ball is literally like right beside me I've had this for a long time too over 20 years what is it 60 52 pounds of 28 inches I draw up maybe 28 and a half blue flu arrows with these big oversize feathers so it slows the arrow down in the air

and actually shoot at birds or squirrels or something up in a tree when I was in the arrow so if I was gonna shoot that Grosso I would use that arrow it's like whoever I made for back then to says on the back of it when a leaf falls in the forest the Eagle sees it the deer here is that and the bear smells it this testament to the senses strong sense of ethics animals having to bear in particular with his nose say they can smell things like seven miles away

[Music]

actually better baby shakes than in the shoes I'm looking for shoes for the window I need a pretty good taper on them so I can slide them in so I do need some your Gouda bushcraft don't talk about stuff like that very often I guess I should when you're carving something with a knife always better to try to get the knife stationary against I saw it surface like this case and resting against my knees my arms hurting it hurts to get that angle just brace it there and pull the stalk towards me that knife can't go into my leg because it's not going anywhere it's stationary I'm gonna be careful when I do this that I don't make this too tight as that window will open that window good it might not open first of all but even when it opens might not close properly again if these are too tight the only way I guess fine now that was if I remove those briefs so you notice that it the the roof the overhang I knew that was gonna happen and it's kind of a function of the overhang that I wanted on an angle otherwise if I had use a truss system would have had I would have had a stringer come out and then the roof starts from there up so whatever the top of the wall is becomes the bottom of your overhang like a typical home and you see that soffit flat that's the bottom of the truss so in this case I knew this overhang was gonna impede this window I don't care about it too much I think that's open enough if we find that it's not opening enough because we want more airflow and I'll cut out the section of the roof I'll raise it up and that sort of a feature sort of like a dormer over the window but I don't think I'll end up doing that but anyway it's an option it's pretty easy to do out for the flat side so I'll leave it like this for now

so my intent with this is that these two two-by-sixes in here are nailed into the ends of these logs here and then this is nailed to those upright two by sixes but not to that top one up there so what that does is allows that to settle to come down and transfer the weight down to here without without affecting that window at all so like I said before I think that'll work and I'll just have to monitor over the years to see as the cabin settling make sure it doesn't come too close to that window if it does we'd pretty easy just to take a notch out of that top log that runs 12 feet across here and spans past the window with no joint so I'm pretty happy with that very solid this whole wall is really solid now so yeah I'm happy with it Wow now we've got that one window in a little bit of the roof and started laying it with the second window for the other side of the cabin so it's a day after Canadian Thanksgiving so I'm sure you can guess what I'm having for dinner you know it's been how long it's been what 17 years 16 17 years since I've had a property a property of my own been doing mostly backcountry trips so a lot of my gear is more geared towards those kind of trips so hunting trips and canoe trips and fishing trips that aren't at a base camp so now that I have a base camp again starting outfit myself for that a Cabela's moved into the nearest town to where I live so of course that's dangerous when you're in outdoorsmen I no longer have to look through the catalogue and then order something wise when I can go pick it up in half an hour so picked up a new grill this week for the fire so I'm gonna set this up and then I'm going to just heat up my leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner and that's going to be my dinner for tonight of course

somebody made the point last week and of course the write about the smoke although you can't really do much if the winds blowing right towards you but if I create a chimney on that side of a higher rocks even if I get it about that high and then lower in the front what happens is that that creates a chimney effect so the rocks heat up and the Windex and the smoke actually will travel up that and then get up above me at least even if it's blowing that way so I should start working on that next week and then that rocks on this side would be lower and then I can move the bench back here and work from this side one thing you have to be careful this time of year starts from your fire usually your Falls are pretty damp but we've had a bit of a dry spell lately so the leaves are pretty dry they're just gonna move them back from the player we've got a water jug here to handy piece I need those plants all right so making dinner and the Bears back I wasn't sure what to do about the bear but it's not showing any fear looks to me like it's either a young male maybe three years old not that young or dry-cell a dry female that could be a little bit older it's not huge it's under 200 pounds I would say he's got a nice thick coat and it's healthy that's fine

I like having bears around but but I was standing there at the end of the cabin looking down to that valley filming a segment and I look over and there's the bear watching me the fact that he didn't want to leave is a little bit concerning mashed potatoes sweet potatoes beets there might be turn up in there and turkey and stuffing happy with this girl so far because this is going to be permanent this firepit hear it but it's not my main cooking fire pit I want to build a full kitchen over here out of rock and how bit elevated so it can stand at it like a barbecue but I probably quite often will cook on here so this tripod will I'll put it to use and then this it's convenient because I don't have to set rocks you know you know when you try to put rocks on the edge of the fire and then balance your grill on it or for balance it on logs that are actually burning it's a bit of a pain as shifts and you can't really get it big enough flame in there and it's hard to get enough coals right directly under it so this thing just swings in and out so I'll keep it out here I think keep using it if you've ever spent time in the woods at this time of year when the leaves are down and it's really dry hasn't rained in a few days everything sounds like a bear or big moose or something walking through the boys so all these squirrels and chipmunks are running around getting ready for the winter so they're extremely active and they're really finding a lot around the cabin for some reason he's still down there I'm not sure if it'll come up around the camp's I haven't seen any tracks the cabin itself so I'm not all that worried about him coming up here and doing any damage it seems to be contented with whatever he's got down there so anyway let me know if he comes sneaking out behind me that might just think as a squirrel or chipmunk and I'm gonna eat out of the pan again because part of what attracted that bear probably the first time down to that spot is that's where I clean my dishes and get my drinking water so I won't be going down there and cleaning dishes tonight likely but while I'm sitting here I just wanted to mention a couple of viewers keep mentioning how how grateful I am for all the comments that I've been getting and I'm truly am overwhelmed by the number in the and how respectful and complimentary have been but some of the ones that really stand out of course all the personal stories I'm like I just can't say enough about about but the stories you've been sharing about your own personal lives but one thing that also has been very touching is the number of kids that are either commenting themselves or I'm hearing from their parents that they're watching my videos and that they really appreciate them and they're inspired by them I think that's awesome I mean if I could have one wish for my channel if it inspired some younger people to get outdoors more and and got them off the video games and got them interested in doing this kind of thing that would be reward enough for me ironically my own kids have started watching some of the videos lately which I really didn't expect they're used to hearing me talk about self-reliance and outdoors probably just driven them crazy with it over the years in fact there at that stage that they've got a lot else a lot of other things going on their lives so they don't get it very often outside but because the channel has been growing and and videos will be getting a lot of views it's kind of piqued the interest of both my daughters and they're checking it out and in fact my older daughters been watching with her boyfriend as you'll recall one of the videos a few weeks ago that a recorder talked about a boo boyfriend so not sure if we watched that one or not I just wanted to give a particular shadow to Matthew Harris and his kids Sawyer who's six year old son and Riley third his thirteen year old daughter they've been watching the videos and apparently they've been glued to them in fact the six-year-old boy was full of energy and has a real passion for learning and the outdoors has been watching the videos and sitting right through them so Sawyer thank you for that I'm glad you're enjoying them and I hope you liked this episode and the episodes from this time up at the cabin with the bear I think you probably find that pretty exciting so Riley and Sawyer thanks for watching and and Matt of course thank you for showing the videos to them and sitting down with them I think that's a great thing to do with a family and and I'm glad too to be providing content that's family friendly so wait a bit of moose calling in the background there it is the rut right now kind of nearing the end of the rut up here and their cows that haven't been bred to be calling all night turn to attract a bull the Bulls would be putting a lot of miles on traveling around looking for those cows often if I was to call at night they'd call right now the cow call then and you can tune into this video here if you want to see how that's done how I do that there's a something breaking branches I don't know if it's the bear coming up behind me she's gonna come he should come now how long pretty hungry I don't think he had advised him to fight me for this trying to just finish this up quickly and I'll see you up in the cabin Oh mosquitoes it's only going down to like five degrees Celsius tonight and like I said this is rated to minus 25 degrees Celsius so it's gonna be super warm so I'll probably open it up and vent it just kind of put it on and off depending on what I need but with that bear hanging around I'm gonna be listening half the night anyway I don't think I'll get a great sleep if I hear her and I'll probably go down and spook them away fright here I'm getting into the dishes at the fire for example which is why I leave them there often I'll leave the dishes at the fire and I'll leave them and I'll put them together so that they make noise if something gets into them usually it's a raccoon and I've only ever had one bear come into camp yeah and that was with my wife last year I'm Philip Edward Island which is also kind of a pretty cool video we saw four bears at that weekend including one that swam out to the island that we were camped on and of course my wife's not the most comfortable with bears so she wasn't too thrilled about that but I thought it was cool and I did oh so I did a video on the earth sack because that was the night that the bear actually went to the tree that had the earth sack tied to and tried to rip it off and really you know spent some time on it by the looks of it and didn't do any damage so it's a good video on her Saks website and also on and also on my website and of course YouTube so I'll put a link up to the video up here or I'll put it in the description in below anyway here I am super cozy night looking forward to getting some rest it was a pretty tiring day which like every day working on the cabin it seems to be and I'm getting a little bit more frantic to get things water tighten weather tight before winter sets and I can't believe there's still mosquitos in here anyway I'm rambling like I tend to say in every video so I am going to maybe do some reading and then turn it lights out early and get some sleep and get up early and deal with that bear I guess

good morning well I guess I survived the night had a few streaks of water before bed and throughout the night so I had to get up a couple of times go outside and I didn't see any sign of the bear and I didn't hear it walking around out there throughout the night but we did have some wind come off and still windy actually so kind of muffled some of the sounds but I did hear raccoons they were coming right up around the cabin and they were fighting so the fact that they were up here and I heard them but I didn't hear the bear makes you think the bear didn't come around so well the bear is still there but I think I figured out what it's doing that's a lot of food in that one about my typical breakfast up here but why waste leftovers so here I am with a dilemma I want to keep that bear around here I'd like having bears and I like having wildlife here at the property but if it's not going to show fear then it's likely to become a nuisance and maybe a danger to somebody else he's not used to interacting with them as much as I am or with pets so if it continues to act like this I'm going to have to I think I'm going to wrap this particular video up right here thanks again for watching take care and I'll see you again next week such a beautiful day today Sun is just starting ahead for the horizon here it's getting closer to dinnertime it's the day after Canadian Thanksgiving and for me this is the absolute probably the absolute best week of the entire year it's just beautiful out here leaves are dropping animals are moving around it's just spectacular for me getting out nature is probably the most important thing I can do with my life as much as families top priority and health is top priority to me I can't be a good person I can't be a happy person if I'm not out here enjoying this and for obvious reasons this is obviously where we belong

unfortunately as humanity becomes more and more urbanized people are getting outside far less than they used to and I'm a firm believer that that's causing issues with their society it's causing issues with our happiness unfortunately there are a lot of kids that never get the opportunity to get outside these don't have parents that made it a priority and therefore they don't get out and that's a real shame so my family was not overly outdoorsy my parents did take us camping my grandparents had a trailer up it on George and bass he would go visit them up there for kids of course money was tight so my dad was a construction worker he was also a sheetmetal worker and he would periodically get laid off and times are financially tough so we didn't have a lot of court and then there was added stress of that but the other thing is that father was an alcoholic so even though we did some family things together he and I didn't really spend much time together alone which I don't regret I don't hold to have any grudges or anything he stopped drinking 25 years ago and he's a great guy so I'm not complaining about him at all it's just the way it is he he liked to hang out at the Legion with the guys and that's what he would do after work most most days ago and drink and play cards and didn't really spend much time with me so like I said I know I don't hold any grudge I have a very good relationship with my father love him to death and he did introduce me to hunting we hunted a couple times when I was younger took me to a deer camp near here actually just north of here once when I was 15 first government when I first got my license and went duck-hunting a couple of times but yeah like I said he just didn't have the inclination to go and spend a lot of time in the outdoors with me so that's why a lot of what I do is self directed I had that passion I do I thank the my parents of course for introducing me to nature and was able to get out there and and gain that love of it to begin with and then like I said I was self-directed I just quote and do these things on my own or find the like-minded friends from school or from the neighborhood that would join me but they quickly lost interest so did build some shelters some cool shelters with these guys with a couple friends Jeff still still friends with them today don't seem as much as I'd like to but we used to go out and hang out in the forest and shoot bows and and build these shelters that we'd sleep in and even the middle of winter so yeah it was pretty cool place to grow up me being right on the edge of town so we had the benefits of living by a school or we'd go play hockey and and go tobogganing down the hill and and skating on the river and the pond back behind the house so that was great but that forest so I mean that was my passion so I'd get out there as much as I could and then in my early teens they start clearing that land and started building a subdivision in there so that was heartbreaking for me but in kind of a iOpener to how the world really works at you know think first of all things change and and you really need to remember that there's is a lost time for everything and if you live your life and I know I've lived learn to live my life that if I assume that whatever I'm doing at that time is a lot maybe the last time I'm ever gonna do that then it makes me focus on that thing that I'm doing and and and really absorb and appreciate the experiencing time I went to my daughter's soccer games and it's something I really loved doing was going to their soccer games but you know it's just suddenly one year my older daughter decided not to play that year and and that was it so to hold onto those memories of watching her play was pretty special and because I do feel this way I do that and I did appreciate that and I and I knew it was a co-ed it was going to end at some point my younger daughters at that stage now - she still plays but she got injured the beginning of this season and as much as I love watching her play didn't get to do that this year and I thought man I did I really appreciate and make sure I paid attention every game last year I know it's a small thing and seems foolish but it's one of the things that I really appreciate and then those little things like watching my daughters play soccer and you know I appreciate - each and every time so if it's the last time then I've got those memories to hold on to so if you don't have a family member who's willing and able to get you outdoors and then find someone else I mean uncles aunts friends and relatives you know there's groups there's online groups there's all kinds of places that you can meet with like-minded people and try to get together and even if you live in a small town or a city a local park usually is you know got what wildlife and maybe it's just squirrels and pigeons but just to see how they interact with each other there's not much different difference between them on this bear down here that you'll see a lot of common characteristics and common behavior from one animal to the next so what you learn about a squirrel as you watch him going about his day collecting food and fighting for territory and all that the same thing happens with this bear down here so that's so that's what I did when I was didn't know that small town wasn't vast for us and it wasn't the Canadian Shield like up here it says endless forest and it's just spectacular scenery now of course it was developed and mostly farmland down there but I still appreciated it and still got to learn about nature and learn about cycles of learn about the seasonal cycle and the weather patterns and learn to read weather learn to read animals learn to canoe and and how to navigate on a river so dozen you don't need to have Canadian vast wilderness to know a lot of you guys watching this art from here and you don't have access to this much wilderness but cool go and find a smaller piece and try to appreciate that and and make the most of that and then maybe one day you can get it and see a place like this so that's it I think the main takeaway for me this week was about you know getting outside and about the next generation and and inspiring others and is inspiring the younger generation to get outside maybe get off the electronics and and see what it's like see what real minecraft is like see what real forest is like and by the comments that I'm hearing a lot of parents are sharing my videos with their kids and that's fantastic I'm hoping that's either their first introduction or that's an introduction or a furthering of what they're learning from you guys taken them out on your own I'm assuming that's the case if you're watching this channel I'm sure your route towards you to begin with you're already taking your kids out so really happy to hear that well but maybe there's kids in your lives that that you know of that that don't have that role model don't have that person taking them out we should reach out to those people and offer to take them out and and introduce them as who knows you can turn that person on to a life of happiness of my opinion to become nature oriented I think it's automatically going to add more happiness to their lives so thanks again for watching everybody it really appreciate it if you get a chance get out there enjoy this beautiful fall weather hopefully I'll see you out here someday

take care