Wilderness Mother

by Deanna Kawatski

Raising a family in the Canadian wilderness, without electricity or running water, over 100 miles from the nearest paved road--this is a life almost unique in the 20th century. "Kawatski tells her absorbing tale in eloquent prose".--"Publishers Weekly".

Genres: Canada, Nonfiction, Nature, Memoir, Autobiography

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Deanna Barnhardt Kawatski was born in Salmon Arm, British Columbia and grew up in Kamloops, B.C.. She travelled extensively in the 1970's and spent three years living in Europe, her travels financed by intense bouts of tree planting back in B.C.. Deanna met author, George Ryga in 1974 and he beame her mentor. In 1978 she worked as a forestry lookout attendant in Northern B.C. where she met her hermit husband. For the next thirteen years she led the life of a pioneering mother in the wilderness. At the same time she wrote feature articles for magazines such as Mother Earth News, Harrowsmith, Country Journal, and Canadian Gardening. Her life has been the subject of two CBC television documentaries and two books. WILDERNESS MOTHER became a best-selling title while CLARA AND ME was a B.C. Book Prize nominee. Both memoirs were Book-of-the-Month Club selections. BIRD, BUBBLE AND STREAM, a volume of poetry was published by Fiddlehead Press and Deanna's poetry and short stories have appeared in various anthologies including IMAGINING BRITISH COLUMBIA. Deanna has served as a regional representative for the Federation of B.C. Writers and also worked as a writer-in-resident at the Ryga Centre in Summerland. For the past twenty-six years Deanna has given many readings and workshops. She is featured on the first-ever Literary Map of BC.

Reviews

[Lori Whitwam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book years ago, but it remains one of my favorites. I frequently recommend or lend it to anyone I think might be interested. This is the memoir of Deanna Kawatski. One summer while working at a fire tower in a remote area of British Columbia, she meets a man who is homesteading there. They marry, and settle on his homestead, truly living the wilderness life. They hunt, garden, preserve food, build and add on to their home, have two children (who are then home-schooled), and in general enjoy the solitude and rugged beauty of their mountain home. I LOVE the part where they snowmobile to a hot spring in the middle of winter and enjoy a luxurious soak! This memoir details the wonders and the difficulties of living a truly "wilderness" life.

[Paula Dembeck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deanna Kawatski is a Canadian writer who spent thirteen years living a pioneer life in the wilderness of northern British Columbia. Deanna was born in 1951, grew up in Kamloops and intending to be a writer planned to take a creative writing course at UBC. Instead, she took off for Europe and traveled for the next eight years. She lived in Berlin for a year working as a maid and a harpsicord builder, was employed as a nanny in London and worked in a home for emotionally disturbed children in Edinburgh. She flew back to Canada to work as one of the first female tree planters in B.C. Her career as a writer stayed on track. By the summer of 1974 she had already written her first novel in Paris, acquired George Ryga from the Penticton Summer School of Arts as a mentor and spent six weeks studying with W.O. Mitchell at his program at the Banff School of Fine Arts. In 1978 she had her first poem published in a literary magazine in London.

Deanna went to work as a lookout attendant for the B.C. Forest Service in North Western B.C where she met Jay, the local hermit, married him and went to live in the wilderness. She and Jay had two children and she continued to write, her work contributing to their meager income. Her articles on living a wilderness life appeared in journals such as Harrowsmith, Country Journal, Canadian Gardening, Outdoor Canada and Mother Earth News. She also wrote two books during that time, this one and another titled Clara and Me about her relationship with another woman living in the bush.

Kawatski’s telling of her remarkable experience living in the wild for thirteen ears, without electricity or running water, over 100 miles from the nearest paved road and cut off from most contact with the outside world, is one most of us would never have undertaken. They had to hike miles to the highway to pick up mail or their supplies and apart from that contact, they were entirely self-sufficient. She and Jay had a combined annual income of only five thousand dollars, money he received for his woodcarvings, taxidermy and making snowshoes and hers from her magazine articles.

Together they worked on their log cabin home, cleared the land, planted vegetables, made their own clothes, coped with the frequent visits of large animal such as the moose, bear and wolves and endured the smaller creatures like mice, bugs and mosquitoes. Deanne bore two children, a girl Natalia and a boy Ben five years later. She delivered her first child on the kitchen floor vowing never to repeat that horrendous experience without medical assistance, opting for a hospital delivery for the second birth. She enjoyed bringing up the children in this natural environment where they were home schooled, learned about the plants and wildlife around them and how to swim and ski. The family lived through a fire and a flood, events that would have tested anyone’s resolve. Still, they picked up the pieces and put their lives back together.

However over time, the isolation had a negative effect on the family and the marriage began a slow steady spiral downward. Jay became abusive and jealous of Deanna’s writing and demanded she stop or the marriage would end. Kawatski loved her life in the wilderness and regretfully left it behind.

This is an amazing account of that experience and the hard life she lived but loved. She includes all the details of daily life, the drudgery of doing laundry, the rows and rows of vegetables she tended, the clothes she made and remade from scraps of material and the loneliness she sometimes suffered in the absence of female company. Written in straight foreword prose, she is also brutally honest in revealing the details of her deteriorating marriage.

This is an interesting and different story about a woman who braved the elements and the dangerous wildlife and did the hard work to live a life she loved. It is one that doesn’t end happily ever after, but does share the good years in this amazing women’s life.

[Kay McCracken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deanna is a woman deeply in tune with, and in love with, Nature. When she married a bush man and raised her two children in the wilderness of northern British Columbia, she created a home in the deepest sense of the word. A beautifully written memoir that takes you into the heart of a landscape and way of life that most people will never experience.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author has wonderful way of conveying her experience so that you feel as if you were there. I felt her joy, sadness, frustration and exuberation! I have not felt this moved by a book in a very long time. I look forward to reading "Clara and Me"!

[Lola · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deanna Kawatski went to remote British Colombia to be the first female lookout attendant at the Bob Quinn fire tower. Before long, a hermit-looking guy showed up who lived there year round alone in the wilderness. They became friends & fell in love. Kawatski decides to marry Jay & live out there like a pioneer. It is enjoyable reading to see how rough life is, & how they do things, & plan ahead for survival during the freezing winter. They have two children who are true environmentalists with a great love & respect for all things natural found in their wilderness. The story does have a sad ending however.

[Christine Burmeister · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the 30th anniversary edition so perhaps that is the difference, but this, to me, was not ‘a Canadian Walden’ so much as it was the record of a woman stuck in an abusive relationship in the wilderness. If you are triggered by domestic violence, narcissistic behavior and codependent relationships, that is what you will see here.

[Werner M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A classic not to be missed. When it comes to real stories, real life, then Dena will be able to share that with the reader in a great way and easy read. Highly recommend this book.

[Natasha Donald · Rating 5 out of 5]

An equally honest and romantic memoir about the challenges and beauty that comes from living off-grid and trying to raise a family. Loved it, even the painful bits.

[Mike Wetmore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and rich with insight. Right up there with Walden.

[Clarissa Vazquez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably one of the best books I’ve ever read.

[Caitlin Hicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of a woman who fell in love with a bush man and said 'yes' to living in the wilds of north eastern British Columbia. I invited the writer to submit a chapter of one of her books for my podcast "SOME KINDA WOMAN, Stories of Us", and she sent me this book, a memoir about her life with Jay Kawatski in the Ningunsaw Valley. I was captivated by the story of the birth of her first child, unattended - except by her husband and loons echoing in the lake throughout the night -- two days before the summer solstice night. I read / voiced that chapter and we produced her story for the podcast. After that, the book accompanied me everywhere as I leisurely followed the backbreaking work she and her husband had to do every day just to survive. Deanna really captures her love of nature, the animals who were simply a part of their lives. You might think of the word 'sacrifice' when you think of living off the land like this, but the word that comes to my mind is 'adventure' . . hard work, and a deep respect for life. I loved this book!

[Panda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing stories of a mother's life in isolated Notherness BC. Inspiring and beautifully written.

[Sonja · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did enjoy this book, having lived in Alaska for 35+ years (even though this book took place it Canada, it was close enough). The author was certainly brave to live that life style, especially with raising two children out in the wild. I never could have done that. Remembering the mosquitoes in AK, this kind of living would have driven me nuts. It was more or less nothing but very hard work. I admired the fact that she and her family took delight in the small things and appreciated the beauty that was all around them. It probably was a great experience for them all except for the fact that they were alone so much of the time. The only thing I didn't like about the book was the that it jumped all over the place, time-wise. Other than that, I found it fascinating. One of the interesting things was her telling about the construction of the Cassiar Highway during the latter part of the 1980s. My daughter and I drove the Cassiar in the fall of 1989 from the US to our home in Fairbanks AK. We had a lot of interesting experiences on that trip, including driving on stretches of muddy, sometimes oiled, dirt roads that we were afraid of getting stuck in, being that we were out in the middle of nowhere. However, except for the oil, the car came through A-OK, as we did not even have a flat tire the whole distance. I'm sure her children remember their time "in the woods" with much fondness. I hope Deanna has had a good life since leaving the spot she called "home."
PS I just went online and looked up the author. She has done well and gone back to her old home for a "look-see." It seems all is well.

[Dyann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very good book. It's a true story that takes place in British Columbia Canada which is one of the reasons I like it. I like the style of writing, it's very simple and easy flowing. The story and the characters are well written in great detail which keeps you wanting to know what happens next. The author goes the extra mile in describing scenes and even the littlest things which I thought was very useful in imagining this in your own mind and feeling like you were actually there. The challenges and hard work that these characters go through because of the love of the wilderness is staggering and awesome. A woman working in a fire tower that falls for a man who is homesteading in the area, end up having kids, building a larger home, facing fires, government challenges of trying to evict them, keeping a marriage together when life as good as it is, is also very difficult and trying. It truly describes just how good a life they had even though it was hard work. A lot of difficult situations that they go through and become stronger because of it. It also describes how the impact of this way of life finally takes its toll on them and you end up feeling sorry for this woman at the end. At least I did. All that hard work and to have it end the way it did was to me very sad but it is a true story so it is what it is. It describes how a lot of women go through difficult challenges whether they're in the wilderness or in the suburbs. Worth the read even though there were sections that I thought dragged on a bit too much, it's still a very good book.

[Sandyl · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have ever day dreamed about living off the grid, this is it. Great story of a woman and her children and living alone in the wilds of British Colombia peninsula. You will have peaceful dreams after dreading this and then you wake up and realize your hands are pretty dang soft and you have to check your face book!

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book back in 194 when it first came out and I wanted something 'familiar' to read now. It is not disappointing. However, she bathes only once a week which is something I can't get over.

[Cls · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Wilderness Mother” brings the Northern experience right into one's heart. I enjoyed it, felt for the forest being lost to “progress”, and for the family lost to change. An excellent read.

[Terri Finnie]

A good story. Not the most well written book I've ever read, but I enjoyed it anyway.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

liked this book.

[Cecile · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly Recommend. Great read and definitely a keeper.

[Betty · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is as though you are out in the garden with her, working along side and listening to her story.