The childhood joy of building forts and living in the outdoors only strengthened as camping and hiking entered my life. This passion transformed further when my father shared An Island to Myself, when I was about 13 years old. That book recounts how Tom Neale, a loner from New Zealand, decided to live by himself on an island atoll in the Cook Islands for over a year. The story of his challenges and triumphs spoke to me on a deep level and I decided I wanted to do something like that one day. That book crystallized into my dream to own a cabin and live out on my own and manifested itself through years of designing floor plans and drawings of what that cabin might look like, what I might do there and where it might be located (a fundamental criteria being that I could walk out on the front porch naked and no one could see me!).
After retiring in 2012, it became time to make that happen. So, I distilled a list of “must-haves” for the land I would purchase, and after cross-referencing climate change and prepper websites, adding altitude and water considerations and finally, the practicalities of keeping in touch with people I love and being able to continue to travel, I started an online search for land in 4 states: Washington, Oregon, Wyoming and Montana. As it happened, the only realtor I exchanged information with who doggedly followed up was a woman outside of Missoula, Montana. Lisa answered questions, sent more listings, and generally provided the kind of service that allowed me to compile a list that naturally led to the next step: getting on an airplane to visit the finalists. Four properties to view, and the second visit to (the top contender from the data I’d gathered thus far) Fish Creek on the trip, I bent over, picked up some dirt and yelled to her “I want this”. And so the contract was drawn up in the airport before I took off, and a month later, 80 acres nestled amongst Lolo National Forest, Nature Conservancy and state and wildlife land legally belonged to me.
The property has two guest cabins, a main lodge with more guest beds, a 1600 square foot garden complete with bear fence, a beautiful running creek filled with trout, two natural springs, a whole lotta knapweed, bees that live there from mid-July to mid-September, and an incredibly steep hill/mountainside that someone has threatened to populate with a zip line. I know this will be an ongoing work of love, to carve out trails and explore – every time I visit I find something I hadn’t seen or noticed before – and my wish is to share all of that with the people I love most in the world.
So, welcome to suwarrow – the name of the island atoll in the Cook Islands on which Tom Neale enjoyed the challenges and rewards of life in nature, and the name of my island (fortress?) of solitude within the grandeur that is mother nature.