At Home in Nature: A Life of Unknown Mountains and Deep Wilderness

by Rob Wood

The compelling story of one family’s life among the rugged landscapes of the Coast Mountains, converting youthful ideals, raw land and a passion for the outdoors into a practical off-grid homestead. Rob Wood grew up in a village on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors, where he eventually developed an obsessive preoccupation with rock climbing. After studying architecture for five years at the Architectural Association School in London, England, and becoming an architect, he made his way to Montreal, then to Winnipeg and ended up in Calgary. During his time in Canada, Rob became a pioneer of ice climbing and posted numerous first ascents in the Rockies. Eventually, life in corporate Alberta proved unfulfilling and Rob realized that he needed to find a place where he could reconnect with nature, which brought him to the remote reaches of Canada’s West Coast. Settling on Maurelle Island, he and his wife built an off-the-grid homestead and focused on alternative communities and developing a small house-design practice specializing in organic and wholesome building techniques. At Home in Nature is a gentle and philosophical memoir that focuses on living a life deeply rooted in the natural world, where citizens are connected to the planet and individuals work together to help, enhance and make the world a better – and sustainable – place.

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature, Biography Memoir

304 pages, Paperback

Published November 10, 2017

Reviews

[Ian Beardsell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice, easy read about a Brit who becomes enchanted with the Canadian West Coast wilderness.

As a teenager, Rob Wood became interested in rock and mountain climbing in Yorkshire until one day a friend suggested they go to Canada for Expo '67 and check out the climbing scene in North America. He never looked back. After bumming around all the climbing hot spots--Yosemite, the US Rockies, the Canadian Rockies--he realized that being in nature was literally how he wanted to spend his life.

Wood makes his memoir into a kind of question and answer session that kicks off on a remote mountain retreat with his wife and some younger friends. He relates how they came to the BC Coast and the subsequent tales of wilderness advocacy and life on a small, self-sufficient parcel of land on a partially logged island close to Quadra.

I enjoyed reading about many of the familiar places just up the coast from my home in Vancouver, so perhaps I am biased on the subject matter.

If you are interested in wilderness adventure, small community living, the Pacific Northwest, the philosophy of living a balanced life with nature-- or all or any of the above, then this book will be of interest.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

I bought this book on 18th Sept 2017 on BC ferry Queen of Oak Bay. I was on holiday visiting my brother and family. I can't remember where we were going maybe Bowen, Pender or Tofino. I was drawn to the idea of reading about living in nature BC style. I also wanted to read more about self build.

I enjoyed this glimpse into Rob' s life. Like him I was born in Yorkshire. I don't pine to climb mountains or go on the epic wilderness retreats he thrives on. I enjoyed a glimpse of 60 & 70s Vancouver, the idea of a land coop and setting up a new community - he doesn't give us a lot on insight into that and Aim guessing it didn't go that well...... I struggled with the kitten and piglet killing in ch7.

I'm interested in buildings and would have liked more on that side of things. I certainly didn't fully grasp the last chapter - but agree with the gist of it that we need a closer relationship with each other and with nature.

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Addicted to full on experiences of wildness and nature, of connecting with others and with a power larger than themselves. Being in the vastness of nature gave an insight that they weren't the centre of existence. Enjoyment from the energy of 'pristine wilderness', the 'magic of the landscape', ' the undiluted energy and pristine beauty inspired deep feelings of allegiance and love. Sometimes we became so engaged with the wild mountain environment that it seemed we had become part of it' pg 40.

Pg72 'dwellings made from local materials that blend into their surroundings with elegant simplicity invariably possess a timeless quality that expresses unique, personal joy and pride in the instinctive process of human nest building'.

Pg 78 'The relatively low cost of living was considerably augmented by voluntarily reduced material standards, particularly of housing and domestic services'- homebuilt shacks, no electricity, little plumbing, no cars, no insurance. Took years to get the soil good enough for decent crops.

Pg 79 - 'Just like mountaineering, surviving without getting hurt required a high degree of self- reliance and full responsibility and accountability for the consequences of one's own actions'.

Pg 84 - mysterious hidden connectivity - closest to it in nature

Pg 85 - taking psychotropic mushrooms and feeling no separation of internal and external just aware of pulsating flow of energy and being part of it and everything harmoniously pulsating. 'In this way the initial fear was gradually replaced by an enticing and euphoric feeling of being part of the interflow of energy linking all things, including me, in a single continuous process'.

Pg 87 sensation of oneness

Pg 88 T S Eliot 'between the idea and the reality......falls the shadow'.

Chapter 7 - not sure how killing kittens sits with the hippy ideal of the 'harmonious whole'....nor stressing a piglet out so much it dies......

Chapter 10 - pretty sure Don and Phyllis Lundy weren't the first people to 'discover' Mount Waddington in the mid 1920s....... just as Columbus didn't 'discover' America

I love to have his wife's side of the story when he and his mate left her in an ice cave climbing the mountain. She thought they were going to retrieve ropes but instead they decided to push for the summit. She must have thought they'd been killed.....

Ch 11 Pg161 - being at one with themselves and their environment things went well and synchronicities occurred. When not paying complete attention things went badly - 'Deep wilderness experience taught us that our well-being, safety and ability to survive depended on conscious awareness of our internal and external environs.'

Pg168 First Nation elder ' If we destroy our environment, we destroy ourselves'.

Pg193 decision after serious illness to 'strengthen all the various relationships that made up our field of care, our love'

Last chapter - seeing individual lives like whirlpools in a river. The importance of understanding ourselves to be part of a far greater entity than ourselves and how this would help get rid of the harm of consumerism, nationalism, tribalism. We are nature - we are not separate or superior.

[Gina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rob Wood knew what he needed, to live with nature and he did this early in his life. Reading stories like this make me wish I had discovered this passion much earlier in life but I'm glad to be finding it now. I enjoyed how Rob Wood told his story, recounting how he answered some younger nature lovers questions who had hiked in the winter with Rob and his wife to an isolated cabin buried in snow. As they sat in the cabin enjoying good food and camaraderie Rob shared the story of how he got to where here is now.

[Richard Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

A remarkable account of a amazing life that Rob Wood - along with his wife Laurie - has led. They live on one of British Columbia's wildest off shore islands, well off the grid in every sense of the expression - building their own house, generating their own power, growing their own food. The stories are entertaining, scary, very readable.
There are page turner stories too of extreme adventure on the sea and in the wild mountains of the BC Coast Range.
And it all began so gently, in Rob's North Yorkshire homeland, with his training as an architect in London, ratcheting up the risks on Rocky Mountain ice climbs, completing the rebellion from all things conventional by joining a hippy cooperative well up channel from the bright lights of Vancouver.
The book makes clear that none of this is dare devilry for its own sake. Rob is "at home in Nature" because he has an unshakable conviction that this is where the real meaning of existence lies.

[Deirdre · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't usually read memoirs, but this one was about living in the bush, soooo I gave it a try. It is a story of the really committed back-to-the-land hippie movement, and I enjoyed the ride.

The writing itself is sort of mid - some of it would go over better as an out-loud story, I think - but the story is pretty intriguing, as is Wood's spirituality. This man took some big risks in his life, and I am impressed. Nowadays we don't talk about 'vibrations' anymore, buttt we do now talk about the interconnectedness of all life, mycelium, mind before matter (actually, that's Owen Barfield, sounding pretty far out himself for an English philosophy professor and Inkling), so I'll cut him some slack.

Anyway, the book filled me with restless discontent with my own urban existence and dependence on 'the system,' so I suppose it did what it was supposed to do. ;)

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always like a good local read! This particular book has placed a few more points of interest on my Vancouver Island and Coastal Mountain bucket list. I also looked up various destinations and people as I was reading, so I learned a lot as I read! I would have enjoyed more particulars about the day to day and less about the philosophy behind his decisions/ actions, but all in all it was a good read and rob wood seems like a very lovely soul!

[Nathaniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very easy to read book, but it holds a lot. I really enjoyed the way it felt like sitting through a long conversation. It's structured as the author answering questions from a group of friends. We get to go through his life and learn about why he did things the way he did. There's a lot of resilience and intelligence in this book.

[Emily Potts · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m a total sucker for books written about my backyard. I love the wild nature of the west coast and I feel so lucky to have grown up in it. This book was a beautiful escape into the world that shaped me, and felt like a story told around a campfire on a cool night.

[Val · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nice and charming beginning. Closer to the middle the book transformed itself into lecturing and moral elitism full of questionable ideas which I didn't really enjoy reading.
However, the author seems like an amazing person living a full and vivid life.

[Carrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully written

[Al · Rating 5 out of 5]

A highly recommended read in this increasingly turbulent world.