Man Builds off Grid Cabin Alone in the Forest with Hand Tools.

Description

I visit my buddy Shawn James https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIMXKin1fXXCeq2UJePJEog

He is building a tiny home on his off grid property in the forest, alone, with no power tools.

I interview Shawn about why and how he is building his log cabin.

To see the whole build process, and to learn a lot more, check out shawn's channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIMXKin1fXXCeq2UJePJEog

Instagram https://instagram.com/joerobinetbushcraft/

Twitter https://twitter.com/Robinet_Joe

Tags: Bushcraft,Survival,Backpacking,Canoe,Dog Training,Axe,Ontario,Canada,Bowdrill,HD,Nikon,Gopro,logcabin,tinyhome,offgrid,familyfriendly,minecraft,camping,outdoors,alone,solo

Video Transcription

hey guys thanks for tuning in me and Doug you're here up at Shawn's place Doug's doing some crazy dances behind the camera but we're gonna keep that out of the video I wanted this video to be an interview with Shawn about why oh my goodness but why he's doing this cabin about how he's doing this cabin and what are his future plans kind of thing so without further ado this is Shawn James he runs a channel called my self-reliance it's oh my so show him what we turn it over to you why are you building his cabin in the first place well 26 years ago now when I was 21 first of all I at that age it really just didn't want to start a typical job I was just very restless and I wanted to kind of live off-grid I guess is the word they we use now but hidden back then back then I just said not really interested in the traditional job I don't really want to just go to a nine-to-five and go home and you know hope to buy a house and get a mortgage and all that one day so instead I took the money that I made in construction working in the summers and and bought a five and a half acres up in central Ontario how old are you 21 I was 17 when I bought my first property actually sold that one and I got this slightly bigger property when I was 19 but when I was 21 I said I don't want to work anymore I want to go and live in the wilderness we got some clown action beyond the skiing seems to be sorry folks anyways yes yeah so 21 I just said that that's it I'm quitting my job and actually I had applied for college that year and I didn't get the funding that I needed to go so thought back-up plan I'm going to the woods I'm gonna move into the woods and build myself a cabin so I had this five and a half acres mortgage on it was like a hundred and fifty bucks a month so something I could almost do anything just scrolling the money up to pay for that but I had no money for building materials so I just cut a bunch of trees down on the I built a cabin right so it's eight by twelve had a wood stove in it a couple of bunks and had everything I thought I needed to live there so I thought that wasn't awesome at the time I did that but then I realized I actually had to get a job even at 150 bucks how long do you stay there for three months I ended up living in it for three months went and hunted my food and and stockpiled stuff before it went like oatmeal and tuna and just anything that to get my calories got a bought a little uh seven month-old golden retriever and he joined me so it's just the two of us out there for three months so I built that and and lived in it and ended up keeping that for ten years after I went back to her so I just it was a great period of my life and I guess this is the recreational right so you've got a Golden Retriever puppy now again yeah doing it all again completely coincidental I didn't even think of it till after the fact but yeah so how are you building this uh from my understanding you're doing this no power tools yeah it's pretty crazy now in this day and age you know what part of it was you know the dream of living off career to do something simply or on a very very low budget to me doesn't include you know things like fossil fuels that you continually have to buy it offer your equipment hmm so I thought if I get a bunch of hand tools and quality hand tools and something I can keep forever I could build the cabin I can build a home because our home such as the cabin so place you can live and and they could you know take a take shotgun and pretty well almost live off the land so even though financially I don't need to do that I want to do that right it's a sense of like self-sufficiency total total total self-reliance like if everything hit the fan I could literally just move here and live in this cabin I'm not putting anything in here I don't want power lots of suggestions about putting renewable energy a solar system or something but I don't even feel like that's appropriate I just want to make some candles I kind of like the place that way and the building it with hand tools just seeing the right thing to do in that case if I build this thing by hand what else can I do you know if it breaks down for example you can repair it ya know every single little right I know every log intimately I've handled every one several times I've cut every little notch and to thing I couldn't I'm not very mechanically inclined because I'm not that interest in fixing a chainsaw for example so do I want something that can break down or I just want an axe that I can sharpen or saw right it makes a lot of sense how long have you been working on this for yeah too long no idea it was gonna take me as long as it did I wanted to build it smaller originally and a lot lower well half the size yeah half the size half the height look when you think I had nine feet you get enough room to put a steep roof on to have room to sleep on the second floor that edits probably double the time well how how tall is it it's nine feet to the bottom of the second floor bottom floor up so nine feet Beasley that the talk one yeah right yeah so sorry you're gonna then it's five-minute feet in there the peak so there's a second floor up in there right we can sleep three or four people up there no problem that's what we're gonna do tonight yeah camping out here yeah and then on the main floor and I have a stove wood stove going in a couple of chairs of another single bed that's a bench or and a table full kitchen you know we're used to cooking on a fires everything there's pretty awesome I'll probably put some kind of sink in so I can wash stuff in there but a nice box and the built into the floor insulated wood sawdust that's really cool yeah

and that's that's what we did in the past we now we think we can't do that kind of stuff but why not right so I excited to get that part done and then move into it outside love this fire pit but I'm gonna build a full kitchen here as well so I have a bread oven and grill and all that kind of stuff so I can cook inside as much as possible so I've seen we've had some animal visitors some company through your videos yeah part of why we've chose this property up in Central Tarawa near Algonquin Park and very close

awesome wildlife up here so I've had moves walk within 20 feet of the cabin here but just recently you've had a bear start hanging out with me so just down behind the cabin I'm literally up on the roof work and I look down there's a bear staring at me he's a decent size isn't he oh yeah I thought that was interesting to see it once but it's been here I don't know maybe six seven days I've seen it at a time and he just sits there literally watching me I've got film of I'm just sitting there looking at me as a work and doesn't care that I'm here that's pretty cool no you're not you're not worried or you know what if you look at my logo my self-reliance there's a bear in it there's a reason for it I've always felt an affinity with with bears I spent a lot of time with them and it's just an animal that I just feel a kinship with so you know I am a hunter and I do harvest animals and I actually don't have anything against harvesting a bear to put in the in the ice box and eat that but you know having a bear to hang out with me while I'm working here alone all the time I think it's pretty cool I think that's not the worst thing I've heard of pre-shave and yeah from the stories you've told me in the past on our previous camping trips and stuff you do have a lot of experience hunting bear yeah that's pretty cool man I wouldn't mind seeing on my well we're here you and I've been up here in the past too and and there's a wolf pack that hangs oh we have a Adirondack shelter we built nearby and I think the wolf pack and the bear kind of hang out very cool yes very cool yeah this place is really nice man we just mixed the peak colors the peak leaves and everything but if you guys check out Shaun's channel my self-reliance he's got drone footage he's got all through like what late summer night middle summer basically well basically I cleared the

land behind here in like March April so I've been here for her ona spring yeah we were here in the winter who we were trekking across the ice yeah so we saw the snow and the ice and now basically all season yeah so he's been here putting lots of work into this cabin like I was gonna say if you had there's no leaves on the trees now but if you want to see some awesome fall colors some drone footage some really cool stuff check out Sean's channel my self-reliance he's got this whole like cabin built from them basically from the beginning all on up and do you plan on putting out more videos on it you plan on putting like a full completed video on it you know what it's the YouTube community is so fun to deal with comments that I'm getting on the videos and the the inspiration and the feedback I want to keep doing this and keep sharing the story and you know I plan on finishing the cabin of course and it's gonna be cool it's got some really neat techniques like this roof is really really unique good already cool yeah I've never seen anything like that and it's just fun it's like creating with this thing so I see it going on forever I see me spending a lot of time up here I'd love to just move into the cabin and show cabin life so alright more homestead II just like everyday day-to-day yeah yeah foraging right you've been living off the land and just yeah building some other things that are supplementary or complementary to the main building so yeah I think it's gonna be a lot of fun that's very cool when I got when Doug and I got here we're like man like you've been putting some work in like this is really really close it's a frickin cabin hand tools no power tools by one guy that's pretty pretty awesome so yeah we're gonna come back here lots of times we're gonna have lots more footage from here Doug get away from my camera I implore you go check out Shaun's channel my self-reliance you can see lots of really cool stuff lots of cool stuff to come up I'm we're gonna do some more stuff together in the future so yeah yeah I want to thank Shaun for letting me interview I'm here about his cabin which is really really cool we're gonna sleep on the loft tonight up up there and yeah just kind of hang out cook some good food and stuff so stay tuned lots of cool stuff

and yeah thank you thank you thanks for coming up we haven't got to spend all that much time to go this year after we link here it was just nice to see you again well you know you're gonna do some stuff you just committed to the cabin yeah I've been calling you let's call these trips but no no got no time for all Joe alright guys thanks for watching Thanks