How to Live Underground
An excerpt from the Cabin Porn Book, Volume 1
“Known as the Oregon Alps, the snow-peaked Wallowas stretch roughly 40 miles across a region with dozens of alpine lakes, glacial valleys, and assorted wildlife, including black bears, bald eagles, and bighorn sheep. When thirty-three-year-old Dan moved to Joseph in 1990, he was burned out on working and seeking a quiet place to write and draw. Inspired, in part, by Harlan Hubbard’s book Payne Hollow, about living a simpler life in a hand-built home, he believed that stripping away modern comforts and living more simply in nature would lead to a more spiritually and creatively fulfilling life. He’d originally wanted to find and fix up an old cabin in the woods. Instead, he stumbled on an empty horse pasture near town and convinced the owners to let him rent their two acres for $100 a year; in exchange, he’d repair their fence, fell trees, and maintain the property. “
“Situated 100 feet below a dead-end road, nestled along the tree-lined Wallowa River, the land was a blank canvas. Dan didn’t want to construct anything permanent. “You really gotta spend time somewhere before you start throwing down concrete,” he says. He was ready to experiment. Back then he was already beginning to downsize his possessions. In town, he rented a hotel room as an office, where he published a small photo magazine and stored everything work-related. In the meadow, he put up a tepee. He called it the cloth cathedral. At night, he’d look up through the opening made by the smoke flaps and watch the stars. During a couple summers, his ex-wife and two kids stayed with him and later moved to a town nearby. Eventually, he upgraded to a 16-foot teepee with a wooden floor and electricity, which allowed him finally to ditch the hotel office. In time, he built various small domed sweat lodges and a 4-by-4-foot outhouse. He dug out two small ponds for water, planted a garden, and continued beautifying the meadow.“ Continue Dan’s story and see more photos in Cabin Porn, Volume 1.
Story by @leckart. Photos by @noahkalina
All text and images are copyrighted and cannot be reproduced or distributed.
2087
origamiaround
dededos
kianamaiart
tangentwithtanner
germansingergirl
turnnoffyourmind
