Off the Grid living: Vancouver Island Ski Cabin

by Solar Burrito · Published February 22, 2013 · Updated April 11, 2013

When David and Susan Scott built their first cabin after setting up their own architectural shop, they chose a place on Vancouver Island where “the mountain is a poorly guarded secret which anyone would fall in love with at first sight due to its incredible terrain and snow and the committed friendly locals that run it.” But that doesn’t mean we’re going to spill the beans. If you go all the way to this little corner of one of the coolest spots in the world, I’m sure you’ll find it — but you’ll have to do it on your own.

And maybe you’ll stumble across their 1,000-square-foot labor of love made of local, rough-hewn timber. It’s a fitting showpiece for the direction that the Scotts are taking after 12 years of working for other firms in Vancouver — light on the land, in tune with the surroundings, constructed mostly with locally sourced materials (90 percent Vancouver Island, 100 percent B.C.), and, in this case, reflective of the simple joy they feel when powder boarding.

– Adventure Journal

The cabin was pieced together with a small army of friend-volunteers and sits on a quarter-acre just a stone’s throw from a local t-bar. To keep impact low, the structure was elevated, not excavated, and it’s fully off the grid. Heat comes from a wood stove salvaged in Vancouver, and the plumbing runs into a tank that’s emptied annually. And power? There isn’t any.