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“She and her husband built it as a Y2K cabin,” she tells me. “Then never used it.”
“What’s a Y2K cabin?”
“They thought the world was going to end in 2000, so this cabin was their escape plan. They could live in it if the world went to hell. It’s off the grid, has its own well. You can be completely self-sufficient in here.”
She unlocks the door and stands aside, allowing me to go in first. We step into a sixteen by twenty-four room with built-in bookshelves and an old solid-wood table. Next to the kitchen entrance is a bathroom door, and next to the bathroom is an eight by ten bedroom. The ceiling over the main area is tall, and over the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom, there’s a loft, accessible by ladder. I climb up and peek at the space, six feet tall in the center and sloped on the sides. A mattress could go on the floor in the center, and the sides, three feet tall at the edges, could fit short tables or store boxes, if needed.
I climb back down the ladder, and the agent explains the details. “It was built as a survival cabin, so it’s pretty basic. There’s electricity, but it’s off the grid.” She looks at me. “That means that the electricity comes from solar panels. And they aren’t very big. So, it’s like, you can run three things at once. You want to turn a light on, you have to turn another one off. There’s a propane tank for the fridge and stove, which I insisted they get in order to rent the place out.” She laughs, remembering. “No one would rent it without a fridge and stove! But the heat’s wood.”
“A wood stove? That stove? That heats the whole cabin?” A free-standing stove sits in the corner, and we both stare at it.
“Yes.”
“Has anyone lived in here over the winter before? Do you know for sure that it’s warm in here?”
“Oh yes, nice and toasty.”
I look around the small space and try to picture us living here. We cleaned out and got rid of most of our stuff during our massive garage sale, but even what we have left is too much to fit in here. We’ll have to go through our stuff again and just pack the essentials. But I guess that’s how it should be anyway. If it’s not essential, we shouldn’t lug it around. And really, this place has everything we need. It has heat, two sleeping areas, and a kitchen with a fridge and stove. We don’t need more than the simple comforts this place offers.
“I’ll take it,” I tell her. She has me fill out a one-year lease agreement, and I write her six post-dated checks for the damage deposit, broken out into seventy-five dollars per month, which she agrees to do “in order to get a good family in here.”
On the way back down Highway 61, with Lake Superior crashing madly on the shore beside the road, I wonder if I should have waited and talked to Scott first before signing the lease. Most couples would probably be furious with each other for making a huge decision like this without consulting the other. But this is the right move, I’m sure of it. And I’m sure Scott will think so too. That’s one of the reasons we’ve stayed together all these years, I bet. It certainly wasn’t because everything has worked out for us or because we ever achieved the happiness and fulfillment we set out to achieve. No, the reason we’ve made it through together is that when it comes down to it we both know and we both trust that we’re on the same side. And sometimes, there’s nothing better than knowing that there’s someone else in the world who's there next to you.
Sure enough, Scott thinks I did the right thing. He’s happy, in fact, that we don’t have to make a special trip up to look for a place.
“Besides,” I tell him, “it’s not like there was much choice. There were only two places available. And it's really cute. You’ll love it! We just need to be careful about what we bring. There’s not much room.”
That night we make a list of everything we need to do before we leave: pack our stuff, sell our house, cancel our accounts. We share a bottle of champagne and talk about how great it'll be, working for a community service organization that’s making a difference, away from the city, and around like-minded people who are working together to create positive change. We toast to the future, and to the pursuit of our own path, following what feels right for us.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Scott excited. He's been to Grand Marais many times, and he loved it. It's perhaps the most wonderful town he’s ever been to, he tells me. I remember Salt Spring Island, and I know what he means. Grand Marais is his version of Salt Spring. It’s small, safe, close-knit, progressive, beautiful. There’s no McDonalds or a jungle of highway billboard signs because people don’t want them. People know each other and talk to each other. It will be a great place to raise Morgen.
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