Exiting Mainstream: 3 Families Living Off The Grid
Scattered throughout the U.S. is a subset of the population you’ve probably never heard of. Winding mountain passes and long stretches of unmarked dirt roads leading to not even a dot on the map. Families living a lifestyle most urbanites thought long-gone.
That’s where you’ll find the Jungwirths, the Goosmanns, and Charlie Larson. Three households living off-the-grid in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. No LinkedIn, no schmoozing, and a late night at the office looks more like sitting around a campfire with good friends. They long ago traded in their day jobs for a chance at creating their own version of success. Or, as John Jungwirth describes it, “Pure sustainable sanity.”
The Jungwirths live on 80 acres of wilderness in a self-built cabin nestled between a river and a sprawling hillside. Power to their cabin is supplied by solar panels, and a gas-powered pump supplies emergency water in case of a fire. Living an hour’s drive from the nearest town, one learns how to prepare for emergencies. For instance, John’s wife Victoria is an expert at caring for small wounds with herbal tinctures she makes from foraged plants.
Several miles away lives one of the Jungwirth’s closest neighbors, Charlie Larson. Larson has lived off-the-grid for a quarter century, raising goats, growing and grinding his own corn, and tapping trees every spring to make maple syrup. He travels to town once a week to pick up mail and visit his brother. Unlike the Jungwirths, Charlie does not have solar power or a generator on his property. So it’s by kerosene lamp that he reads and weaves small tapestries (wool spun from a neighbor’s sheep) in his one-room cabin.
“People have moved out here but want to bring too much with them. A few have come and gone in a few short years. They learned they didn’t like it–had to give up too much it seems,” says Larson. While there’s paradise to be found, there are sacrifices to be made. Winter storms make roads impassable and isolation is a factor to which Larson has grown accustomed.
Like the idea of living off-the-grid, but not that off-the-grid? Perhaps the Goosmann’s farm is more your style. Also situated on 80-acres of land–but much closer to town–Annie and Jim Goosmann operate a self-sustainable farm. Electricity is produced on the property via solar panels, wind turbine, and a gas generator.
“We used to say “off grid” but people may think that means we’re living in a dirt hovel,” Annie states. “So what I’ve come to say is “low impact & sustainable living”. Because it is important for people to understand that we’re outside of that loop of [power grid] electricity. In many ways I feel that we have a mainstream lifestyle. We have a 3-bedroom house with 2 bathrooms. It’s beautiful and comfortable.”
The Goosmann farm produces chicken meat, eggs, and produce for local restaurants and farmer’s markets. Annie spins wool from their sheep and peels bushels of garlic to sell or share with neighbors. “This way of life is very grounding,” she says. “I think because it’s so nature based. Weather and climate affect a lot of what we do. It effects everything from how much power we have to what jobs we choose to do and in what way. We work for ourselves so we love our bosses and we get to do whatever we want. To give all of that up for me now would be unimaginable. It would maybe be like going to prison, giving up that freedom and control. I have so much freedom in my life.”
The sentiment of freedom shared by John Jungwirth. “All the ‘security blankets’ that society has to offer: insurance, retirement plans, affluence, etc., buy into an idea that feels good for awhile but we often find out that they’re illusions that don’t work. It’s so much easier to lower our outcome than raise our income.”
The greater vision described by Jungwirth, and shared by many off-gridders, is that we must each take responsibility for the changes we want to see in the world. To live with a smaller footprint, create strong social connections, share with our neighbors, and shift from an over-reliance on mainstream systems.
“People will assume that we’re just survivalists,” says Goosmann. “But we’re not radical like that at all. We’re not trying to get away from society, but in terms of mainstream society there’s a disconnect. They are as unfathomable to me as I am to them. My mom and dad were both urban people and it took them a long time to realize why I’d want this. Now after 30 years they’re starting to get it.”
Indeed, it appears more and more people are starting to get it. In 2006, Home Power magazine’s publisher Richard Perez estimated that approximately 180,000 people live off-the-grid in the U.S., a number that some feel significantly underestimates the number of off-gridders. A number that, due to its very nature, is nearly impossible to estimate and most certainly growing.
An earlier version of this story was published at Psychology Today by Brad Waters.
