Escaping the city and building a home in the wilderness from the ground up is a dream for many—but too often reality sets in, and the technicalities involved relegate this desire to the realm of fantasy. A Canadian filmmaker, however, recently brought his dream to life on a remote forested clifftop on the east coast of Canada.

“Living in the city as a teenager, I always looked forward to going to my friend’s family cottage in the country,” he says. “It always felt right to be in this old, rustic home—I loved the history of the place, the charisma of the land, and the open space.”

When he decided to build his own home and set down roots after a decade spent traveling and filming documentaries, he wanted to recreate the feeling of this childhood memory by crafting a simple home from timber and other raw materials. “I would rather live in a cabin than a condo or a house that is merely a design trip,” he says. “I wanted a comfortable home that is inviting to live and function freely in.”

He sketched an initial design on the back of a pizza box, and found a site on the east coast of Canada on a clifftop overlooking a river. The former farm was tucked into a dense forest of yellow birch, oak, hemlock, and sugar maple trees. “Before I began building, I camped and spent time getting to know the space,” he says. “It’s like what the British artist Andy Goldsworthy describes as ‘shaking hands with a place.’ Just because I bought the land, doesn’t mean it belongs to me.”

“I didn’t consider what I needed to build a home...I didn’t even know how to put a nail in the wall. I just began, which gave the project momentum.” —Canadian Castaway

As he had never built a home—or anything at all—before, the design and construction process was a steep learning curve. When he first arrived on-site, he didn’t even have any tools. Luckily, he was able to employ the help of an architect neighbor to assist with the design, and friends to assist with building the foundations and framing.

“I didn’t consider what I needed to build a home, and I was a real kook in the beginning—I didn’t even know how to put a nail in the wall,” he says. “I just began, which gave the project momentum. Once we had built the shell of the home, I began to build on my own. Friends helped along the way, but I relied on my own research from talking with folks at the hardware store, YouTube, and books. Step by step, the house started to come together.”

The resulting home, which took three years to build, has a simple, open plan. The kitchen, living area, bathroom, and electrical room are on the ground floor; a film-editing studio, main water tank, and closet are on the second floor; and a loft bedroom overlooking the living space is on a small third floor.

It was important that the home reflected the owner’s sustainable ethos, and he initially planned to build entirely from recycled materials. “At the rate I was able to track down materials in between work trips, though, it would have taken me forever,” he says. “So, I began with salvaged doors and windows and worked from there.”

The home is built primarily from locally milled and dried timber—red pine on the interior and cedar on the exterior. “I chose them because they look great, they were affordable, and they felt accessible in the region,” says the owner. “If the material couldn’t be recycled, I wanted it to at least be local and reflect the context of the forest.”

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The remote location also means the cabin is completely off-grid, with solar power, a rainwater system, a composting toilet, and drinking water from a nearby spring. “The systems work so well for us that we are able to have a fridge, edit video, and water the garden,” says the owner. The most expensive part of the home was the solar power system, but this was essential to allow the home to be livable—and to power the editing studio from which the owner works.

When he first drew the plans, the owner thought the cost of the build would be around $10,000 Canadian (about $7,500 US). “That was completely foolish,” he says. “I exceeded that by eight times. I had no idea how much it cost to build something!” The cost of the basic construction ended up being around $60,000 Canadian (about $45,000 US), and as he has developed and refined various aspects of the home, the total cost is now around $85,000 Canadian (about $63,500 US).

Living in the midst of the forest has its challenges, but also many rewards. “I love how easy it is to experience the fullness of your senses up here,” says the owner, who shares his life in a remote cabin with the world through his Instagram account @canadiancastaway. “You wake up with the first light and you can smell the cedar, pine, fresh air, and forest soil. You can smell the seasons and sense them changing, and witness the timeline of migration from listening to the birds.”

“Living in this home has not only facilitated an attentiveness to what is happening around me, but also allows me to find space to feel free—free from things which brought too much unnecessary stress, and the freedom to create,” he continues. “The experience has been an adventure to say the least, and I imagine the home will never be finished. It’s continually evolving and unfolding, adapting to the seasons and my changing needs.”

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