Nuk Tessli: The Life of a Wilderness Dweller

by Chris Czajkowski

Over a decade ago, Chris Czajkowski walked into the wilderness, intent on carving a life and a business from the unforgiving terrain in British Columbia's Coast Mountains, twenty miles from the nearest road. Chris transports the reader into the trackless expanse that is her neighbourhood, opening a truly experiential window into the world of those who live alone, far from the concrete canyons that many of us call home. At once a riveting adventure story and a testament to one woman's resourcefulness, this is also a heartfelt elegy to the true wilderness and a cry for its preservation and sensible use.

Genres: Nonfiction

Paperback

First published May 1, 1999

About the author

Chris Czajkowski is an accomplished writer and spokesperson for wilderness living. She is the author of ten books including Cabin at Singing River (Raincoast Books), Lonesome: Memoirs of a Wilderness Dog (Heritage House Publishing), Snowshoes and Spotted Dick: Letters from a Wilderness Dweller (Harbour Publishing), A Mountain Year: Nature Diary of a Wilderness Dweller
(Harbour Publishing), and Ginty’s Ghost: A Wilderness Dweller’s Dream (Harbour Publishing). Her newest book, And the River Still Sings, is available September 2014, and answers the question "How does one go from English villager to Wilderness Dweller?"

Chris Czajkowski was born and raised at the edge of a large village in England,
until she abandoned the company of others to roam the countryside in search of the natural world. As a young adult she studied dairy farming and travelled to Uganda to teach at a farm school. Returning to England she found nothing to hold her interest, so in 1971 she hitchhiked around the world spending as little time as possible in cities.

Arriving in Canada in 1979, Chris travelled to the West Chilcotin and settled deep in the woods of British Columbia’s Coast Mountains. She called her new home Nuk Tessli and lived there for twenty-three years, turning her paradise into a thriving wilderness
resort and guiding business.

In 2012, after many happy years of living alone in the bush, Chris sold Nuk Tessli, closing a significant chapter of her life.

And the River Still Sings goes beyond the tales of wilderness living, exploring both the experiences that led Chris to a solitary lifestyle and her transition to a life closer to the grid. Her new book offers personal and honest insight into the “Wilderness Dweller.”

Reviews

[Christy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've just begun this book, but was immediately set uneasy by the didactic prologue, brimming with descriptions of "The Voice of the Moment" that functions as news, the "crowded artificial satellites" that are our cities and communities (the "other" to Czajkowski's community of one that exists 20 miles from the nearest road), and the violent, addicted modern generations who need illegal and dangerous excitement because they are overexposed and immune to technological wonders.

However. The preachy, political prologue is also full of this:
"A soft, mild, pre-dawn darkness lit dimly by the indirect phosphorescence of the surrounding blanket of snow."
And this:
"It is winter, which means the lake is frozen and I must chop ice or melt snow for water. Also I need to keep my chimney clean and my roof sound and the woodbox full."
And this:
"If I wish for company, I can don showshoes, load camping gear onto my packdogs and be at the neighbours' within two or three days."

So embedded in this lesson on short-sighted consumerist modern culture, there is the promise of a high, pioneer tale; of homesteading and living off one's wits; of pristine solitude and taking nature as your lover; of seeing the layers of modern life peeled back to expose Czajkowski's choice of a simple and rugged life.

I think I'll keep reading.

******

Finished the book today. Czajkowski is very unsentimental about being a wilderness dweller, which in most respects I'd guess is conducive to scratching out an existence by your own hands and of your own wits. However, I'm a very sentimental wilderness appreciator, and I am drawn to books about wilderness existence for the majestic, sweeping view it gives people like me, who love it via day hikes and books. This is not really that book.

It does have some nice descriptions of the area where Czajkowski lives. It appreciably catalogues the efforts one must make to live alone in a great expanse of wild, unpopulated nature. It includes inevitable brushes with death (a "must include" in wilderness stories, I believe). But she is very political in her decision to carve her existence into the side of nature, away from most of humanity, and her opinions about the abject stupidity and uselessness of cities and technologies got on my nerves after a while.

She is also somewhat emotionless about her adventures, her roamings, her hand-built life. I ejoyed the book for a peek of a life I'm fascinated by but will never lead myself, but I was never truly engaged because she kept a distance from the visceral quality that I would think living such a life would impose. I never felt sheer terror when she described her barely-won battles with the elements; nor did I feel a sense of loss when she described having to put down her old companion dog. Likewise, because of the preachy tone about dumb ole cities and city dwellers, I never connected with her arguments about over-logging and all the obvious environmental damage that occurs, despite the fact that I agree with her.

I looked forward to reading my dose of "living wild" each night, but this book does not inspire me to read any of her others. Instead, I'm exploring other authors who've written about similar experiences.

[Roslyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful writings of flora, fauna and the environment.