Written by Masa Takei | 11 November 2011

Someone had asked what I’m reading and listening to up here. For me that was part of the ‘cabin in the woods’ fantasy, to finally read all those books that I’d never ‘had time’ to get to. I’d pictured myself spending long hours at a table (that I’d made myself, naturally), reading by lantern light, so gripped by the words that I’d let my pipe go out. And to some extent this has happened (minus the handmade table, lantern and pipe). But it still takes conscious effort to avoid the allure of the flickering screen. Full seasons of HBO shows (The Wire for the third time perhaps?) and Internet ‘research’ (‘Would a .243 be the best caliber for a second hunting rifle?’) can vapourize valuable reading time with a simple pull of the gennie cord.

Analyzing the reading that I have managed, I can see that it falls into three camps. The first is comprised of the heavyweights of literature that had sat on my shelf back in the city. I’ve worked through a few modern-day classics, Pulitzer Prize winners: Richard Ford’s Independence Day, Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and I’m still working my way through Don Delillo’s Underworld. I’ve been chipping away at this 800-page tome by making it the only one that I bring with me to the outhouse (apologies, I may be over-sharing here). But there is a point, I think that it’s analogous to Rich’s advice that a cabin can be built by just working on it ‘a little bit every day.’ He claims that before you know it, the thing is built and you hardly feel like you’ve worked at all. Delillo is far from work to read, indeed there’s something amazing happening in every paragraph, but with other distractions it would be easy to get knocked off-course on such a long book.

There are authors that I brought who are compulsively readable, who keep me up reading by headlamp, and these have included Elmore Leonard and Stephen Elliott.

The second group of reading is the books that others have sent or lent me. Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running and Michael Pollan’s A Place of My Own are a couple that have come my way since coming here. The latter, is The Omnivore’s Dilemna author’s first book, about building his writing cabin.

The third set of books is purely informational. Things that I’m reading to get hard facts, usually to solve a current problem. I’d referred to a couple of the pole-construction building books that I’d bought when we were sorting through some structural issues but I’ve found that for the most part I barely cracked any of the reference books on plants, mushrooms, sea life etc. that I’d lugged up with me. I find that I learn best from other people rather than books. Although, right now I’m reading Blacktail Trophy Tactics II by Boyd Iverson and feel like I’m gaining insight into the habits of this specific species of deer that no locals have explained to me. Even though he’s a pleasure to read, I’ve been high-grading the book to get just the information that I need (i.e. I skipped the first 74 pages that deal mostly with details relevant to trophy hunting vs. meat hunting).

Then of course there are the books that I want to pickup, even bypassing the stack of books that I’ve already got on deck to read next. These include Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall’s book about a year spent in Toronto’s tent city (Down to This: Squalor and Splendour in a Big-City Shantytown), Charlotte Gill’s book about the treeplanter tribe (Eating Dirt), and David Adams Richard’s book about hunting (Facing the Hunter).

There’s a long winter ahead so I may still get in all the reading that I want. Besides a couple totes full of books, someone gave me a Kindle as a gift before coming up so I will never want for material to read.

As for what I’m listening to. At my age, music-wise, I tend to hit what I know (Morphine, Pixies, Pogues) although the odd new music creeps in (I’m curious to hear more Beirut and to check out the Beasties’ new album). Sometimes you just need something with a good rhythm for hammering to. But otherwise, CBC gets heavy play everywhere here. You can be listening to a program in the cabin, step out into your car and continue listening, and almost be guaranteed that when you open the door at your destination that you won’t miss anything as the radio there will almost certainly be tuned to the CBC. The broadcaster is a national treasure (happy 75th birthday, CBC). And on the iPod: NPR’s This American Life, The Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith, and a Librivox recording of Thoreau’s Walden Pond.

If anyone has any recommendations for homesteader reading/listening, I’m all eyes/ears.

Written by Masa Takei | 08 November 2011

Masa succumbs to easy, quick urban menu - eating out of a tomato sauce jar and cold pasta. Not even heating it up. Is his mother’s worst nightmare slowly coming to fruition?

Masa adventures into the pontoons and on his return finishes work at Toby’s house and devises a mental plan of action for winterizing his cabin.

Keep coming back for updates as Masa documents his epic adventures for radX.ca. His new video diaries will be published every Tuesday, along with a weekly written blog.

Written by Masa Takei | 04 November 2011

Before I became too busy biting heads, staggering along in a single-minded pursuit of brains, I did, as Zombie David Suzuki, give a stray thought to the environment and my current lifestyle’s impact on it.

The thought actually had been initiated by a friend who lives in town and his observations about how living ‘the simple life’ out at Tow Hill is not necessarily the greener life. Not unless you’re ready to let go of all mod cons like having a car/truck or electricity.

I drive far more here than I ever did back in the city. A trip into town for anything is 40 minutes of driving and although I could cycle if I had a couple of hours to spare, I’m usually carrying something, like building supplies, groceries, water jugs, gas canisters. That’s not to say that it can’t be done.

There are people here who don’t have a car and either hitch, bike or walk everywhere. It’s a little tougher proposition where I am, off the paved road but it can be done. I’ve heard that Chris the Walker who’s building his place mostly with hand tools, also carries his materials out to his building site by bike, one board at a time. Of course, he’s on a more extended building schedule than most.

Any time that I visit anyone, besides Meredith, I get into a car. Same when I go seeking firewood or go hunting. In theory I could walk out my door and do either but it’s too easy to grab the keys and vastly increase my range and load.

Gasoline is my lifeblood out here. It supplies me with my electricity as well, since I run a small generator to power my large array of electronics. I’m not so sure that solar or wind are necessarily any better from a material lifecycle perspective, since they use large banks of batteries that last up to five years before they go to the landfill.

Even in town, the electricity comes from a large diesel generator (there’s no hydro hookup with the mainland). And pretty much any outing is still made by motorized vehicle. Without getting into the minutia of carbon accounting, I suspect that there are efficiencies and economies of scale to be had in living on-the-grid, in dense urban centers with good public transit.

But there have also been strong environmental benefits through living this kind of life, most of which have been attitudinal. It may seem too lackluster a positive, in one of the rainiest places in North America, but I’ve greatly increased my water conservation.

I use less water for drinking, cooking and washing in a day than most people do just flushing their toilet a couple of times. Instead of taking up to three showers a day, I average about one a week, greatly supplemented with dunks in the ocean. But like many around here, I now have a different standard of ‘cleanliness,’ not so much that it’s lower, but I now think that what we have in the west is artificially inflated and that maybe, just maybe, those dirty Euros have it right.

As an aside, the other day, I heard an interview on the CBC with Katherine Ashenburg, the author of “The Dirt on Clean.” Through her research, she came across such royal bathing habits as one queen who boasted that she bathed every month, whether she needed it or not. There was a king who had only two baths in his lifetime. I will concede that there is such thing as too little bathing.

Ashenburg also mentioned a pejorative German expression, ‘warmduscher,’ literally someone who takes warm showers, meaning someone who is a wimp. I contend that the hot shower is one of humankind’s finest innovations and something that runs neck and neck with sex and wool socks (together or separately) for reasons to be alive.

I also buy less ‘stuff,’ not only because of limited space, and the added cost and decreased availability of goods on the island but perhaps because I’m less bombarded by marketing messages and impulse purchase opportunities every day. I buy really only what I strictly need and reduce by that microcosmic amount the material resources and energy that I take responsibility for by buying crap.

But really, for me it isn’t about such accounting as whether my locally-sourced cedar poles and freecycled windows offset all the synthetic building materials that had to be shipped or flown in from off-island, as to whether living this life is ‘in the green’ from an environmental perspective. To me it’s more significant that I now care more deeply about the environment and this attitude influences all my actions. Living in the city it becomes very easy to think of ‘the environment’ as an abstract concept, something that’s universally good in the motherhood and maple syrup sense (there’s my Can-con).

Rather, here, I eat what comes out of the ocean in front of me, paddle in its waters. I see the effects of clearcut logging as I hunt among the ruined landscape but also buy the lumber to build my shelter and burn driftwood for warmth. (It was a major revelation to me that most driftwood is a byproduct of logging operations). In short, I see a direct one-to-one relationship with what the environment provides me, including the downright spiritual enrichment that I get from natural settings.

That’s not to say that you need to live rurally to get that sort of deep attachment, just that it’s almost guaranteed when you are aware of and rely on environmental health on a daily basis. And this gives me added incentive to speak up to counter developments that will have an undeniably huge impact on the local environment. When I say local environment, it’s really an unnecessary distinction since the environmental health of the world is all interconnected.

The clear and present danger that I’m thinking of is the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline project and the associated tankers – over 200 a year, three football fields in length – which would be carrying crude oil through some of the roughest waters on the planet off the coast of British Columbia. Think Exxon Valdez adjusted for inflation. (Check out Raincoast Conservation Foundation at www.raincoast.org or www.notankers.ca if you’d like to learn more.)

It makes me want to channel the undead David Suzuki and bite the heads of those who are pushing for such a shortsighted plan. I’ve been told that, post-Halloween, this is not a reasonable course of action (just as well, I have it on good authority that greedy brains taste bad). Instead, I’ll speak up and take action where I can. I implore you to do so as well, or face the horror of ecosystems that have little hope of rising back from the dead in any of our lifetimes.

Written by Masa Takei | 01 November 2011

Masa’s choice of costume reflects where he is at these days – both physically and mentally. Really reflecting on everyday choices that most people may not think twice about.

Masa also stepped up his game on preparing for the winter months and asked for help to chop down some trees for firewood.

Keep coming back for updates as Masa documents his epic adventures for radX.ca. His new video diaries will be published every Tuesday, along with a weekly written blog.