Author Chris Czajkowski shares 18 years of experience living in the wilderness at special presentation
WHAT: Slideshow and book talk with writer Chris Czajkowski
WHERE: Myrtle Philip Community School
WHEN: Nov. 14, 8 p.m.
While comparisons with Henry David Thoreau and his famous book Walden; On Life in the Woods are inevitable for any author that heads into the wilderness, builds a log cabin and writes about their experiences in nature, Chris Czajkowski is careful not to give the 19 th century writer and philospher too much respect:
"…Walden was only playing at it, he was only at that Pond, Walden Pond, for a few years and then he went back to the city," said Czajkowski (pronounced Tchaikovksy). "I like his quotes very much, but I found him pretty funny because he didn’t really want to do it for his lifestyle. That’s been my lifestyle now for about 18 years, and I have no intention of changing it."
Back in 1991, Czajkowksi published a book chronicling her experiences at her first wilderness log cabin, which was located near a place called Lonesome Lake, between Williams Lake and Bella Coola. The book, Cabin at Singing River is now in its third printing, and Czajkowski is in her fourth log cabin, more than 40 kilometres from the nearest highway.
In between printings, she also published a book called Life of a Wilderness Dweller. She also has two other books pending publication.
On Nov. 14, she will share a slideshow and stories of her experiences in B.C.’s remote wilderness as a guest of the Whistler Naturalists. She is back in Whistler by popular demand after a successful slideshow and presentation more than two years ago.
Because of the re-release of Cabin at Singing River , she will be showing slides from her days at that cabin and the Lonesome Lake region, as well as from the cabin she is currently living in.
"Because it’s Whistler, I’ll also include a lot of pictures of skiing and people doing things… that’s what people there like to see," said Czajkowski, calling from a friend’s house in Prince George as she launches her book tour.
In her wilderness experience, she once spent more than seven weeks without any human contact. Now she phones to get messages once a week using a satellite phone that is only good for outgoing calls.
Her one new world luxury is a decade-old Apple computer she uses to write, which she powers with a small solar-powered system.
"If I’m not using the computer, then I have electric light. In the heart of winter, when there’s not much light, I use candles to light the keyboard," said Czajkowski.
When she is public speaking, one of the questions she is most often asked is what she eats.
"Unfortunately I’m not very self-sufficient. I live too high to grow anything and there are not many berries. I find it’s cheaper to buy beef off a rancher than shoot a moose, and everything has to get flown in," she said.
Another question is what would she do if she got hurt. She runs a small tourist operation in the summer, but guests have only sustained minor injuries. The satellite phone is there for an emergency, but Czajkowski has not been hurt or sick herself so it has never come up.
She also gets asked about the kinds of animals she encounters.
Although her primary interest in the wild is alpine botany, over the past two decades she has met bears, wolves, various species of antlered animals, goats and other animals in the woods.
Her current cabin is at more than 1,500 metres (5,000 feet), and while animals do pass through, there’s not enough food in the area for them to stay very long.
She also can’t live in the area year-round.
"In the spring and fall I can’t travel in and out because either both lakes have to be frozen or both have to be clear – in the spring and fall – so if I don’t choose to be there the whole time I come out. In the spring there are craft fairs, book tours, odd jobs painting houses," said Czajkowski.
The author has always had a solitary life, growing up in rural areas. When she came to Canada and the town of Salmon Arm, she found it too crowded for her tastes.
She built her first house at the invitation of friends who had their own homestead in the Lonesome Lake area. With their horses and their own labour, they helped Czajkowksi to clear land, and build a small cabin.
Her father was an antique furniture restorer and furniture maker.
"Everything wooden we had, he made," she said. "Mom grew everything we ate, and made all of our clothes. I grew up with the idea that if you want something, you can make it yourself, so it actually wasn’t that strange for me to build a house."
Since then, she has built two other cabins by herself. She had some help with hauling materials and building walls for her fourth cabin, but she built the roof and the interior herself.
The solitude of the Chilcotin mountains has given her time to write, to think, and to constantly challenge herself. Over the years her stories have reached a large audience, and inspired others to challenge their own frontiers.
"I strongly believe that people can do anything they want if they set their mind to it. If they think they can do something, then they’ll do it, and if they don’t think they can, then they’ll never do it.
"If someone says they want to go into the bush, I say go for it. But it’s not for everybody.
"A lot of older people write to me, because something happened – they lost a husband, the family left home – and it’s a turning point in their lives. Of course they’re not going to go out and build a log cabin, but they are trying to make big decisions, and said after reading my book it gave them the courage to make that decision.
"I thought that was just the best feeling, the best thing that’s come out of my writing."
Admission to Czajkowski’s Nov. 14 presentation is by donation.
