Back to the Land

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In the early 70's I spent a year living up in Humboldt County, California. The area had been heavily logged and then left behind once it was relieved of it's most valuable lumber. Most of the people who had lived there for a long time were in the logging industry, then the hippies came. They had a dream to go back to the land. Most of them didn't know much about living in the country, all they knew was that they wanted to get out of the city. Land could be bought pretty cheaply up there. Talk about going off-grid, a lot of it was too far out of town to run electric wires to, and solar panels were not really an option at that time. People built their own houses however they could, and used candles and kerosene lanterns for light at night. I rented an old cabin for $20 a month. It was built of redwood, it had a frame of 2x4s, about 4 feet between studs, planks were nailed on the outside and it had redwood shakes for the roof. There were no interior wall board or insulation. It was really built as a temporary shelter for the loggers passing through. There was water piped in from a spring about a half-mile away, but those of us using it had to maintain the spring and the pipeline. There was an outhouse, and water for bathing was heated on the wood stove. There was no such thing as a cell phone back then, if I wanted to make a phone call I had to go four miles to the little town of Whitethorn.