Eustace Conway

Originally published December 13, 2002 in response to a question about living off the land. Other posters had suggested reading Eustace Conway's book and using it as a guide. The book describes living in the wilderness for quite some time with minimal outside support.

The Editor is amazed and not entirely pleased to note that this web page has become one of the top Eustace Conway hits on several major search engines. Since the page isn't really about Eustace Conway, some of the background information has been removed to avoid misleading the casual reader.

[...] The trouble with this sort of reference is that it confuses
three things that are fundamentally very different, despite
overlapping somewhat:

1. Projecting power into the wilderness
2. Maintaining historically important skills, tools, and ways
3. Practical living on the land in a modern world

The way we see it here at the Fookaiser School of Self-
Reliant Living, any able-bodied 24 year old with a handful
of easily taught skills can live comfortably in the wilderness
for a few months during the summer without outside support
of any kind. It just isn't that hard, and like a family camping
expedition, it's a form of living in the wilderness by projecting
power obtained elsewhere.

But young men don't stay that way for long, and it is
quite another matter for a 40 year old man and wife
to support themselves and look after their children and
aged parents during a tough winter and still be happy
enough with their lot in life not to go back to the city and
work as real estate agents.

You can't support a family weaving oak baskets and
making covered bridges with only an axe, an adze, and
a draft horse.

Now mind you, all these things are well and fine as far
as they go, and I wish Mr. Conway every success in his
genuine and heartfelt effort to teach about wilderness and
the old ways of doing things to city people who have no
idea about them. Such educational endeavours are fine
in their context. I don't agree with his politics but that's
beside the point, the wilderness skills will remain in his
pupil's heads long after they have grown up enough to
repudiate his liberalism.

The point, which I'm finally going to get to after blustering
for eight paragraphs, is that *none* of this has *anything*
to do with practical, *mentally and financially sustainable*
self-reliant living in 21st century America. Unless, of course,
you want to run a theme park or tourist-oriented farm.

No matter how cheap you can live, you still have got to
get a few thousand bucks a year for health care and real
estate taxes and the most basic things. And if you're going
to have a car or truck, then that's another few thousand a
year. And more for clothes and school and enrichment
opprotunities if you have kids. So, even if you're enough
of a pauper to get by on your own for $10,000 a year,
where are you going to get it? That's a hell of a lot of
handwoven baskets, gourmet beets, comb honey, and
handmade soap.

This is why regular outside income is so important. It
gives people the space to experiment and enjoy
themselves and find the things that they like to do. Here
at the Fookaiser School, we teach that you have to choose
areas of self-reliance and accept that there will always
be some interdependence involved in order to properly
further the interests of self and family.

The dream is there and people our there are living it.
Some have spent a lifetime on the land, and by and
large they do so by producing, in quantity, commodity
items, like cotton and corn and hogs and cattle.

Others have found some special niche, and scaling
it up to a largish but still cottage scale. So they sell
a semi full of cheese or maple syrup or gourmet
mushrooms a couple times a year.

Others still have a job in town and are trying to
get their costs down and their profits up to the point
where they can spend their days on the land they love.
Similarly, some work at portable jobs that, though they
have nothing to do with the land, can still be conducted
in remote locations.

Some have a little money coming in, maybe a stipend
for their service in 'Nam, or some disability from
an old construction accident, or royalties from a
decade as a union musician with a few lucky hits,
or social security, or a pension from twenty years
as a naval officer.

And some squeak by, a little here, a little there, and
somehow make ends meet. There's more of this
than meets the eye. People who plow some snow,
work as fishing guides during May and June, take
a job at the factory for a couple months, collect
pine boughs for their cousin who trucks them to a
place in the city, collect a little unemployment, work
some construction, etc.

And so on.

Whatever path you choose, plan your finances
carefully as they are the key to freedom.

Best regards

Louis

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