At Home in the Woods: Living the Life of Thoreau Today

By Vena Angier, Bradford Angier, Vena & Bradford Angier, et al.

Book Overview

One hundred years ago, Henry Thoreau wrote of the charms and joys of simple living in the woods, away from the hectic nuisances of our city civilization. His philosophy has become part of our American heritage, as sound today as the day he first set it down. But his advice on the simple life has seemed too rugged for later generations, brought up in cities, pampered with conveniences and scared of nature.
Vena and Brad Angier were fed up with their city bound existence and longtime readers and admirers of Thoreau, they set out to see if his discoveries were valid today.
This is the account of two wilderness-loving tenderfeet, who headed for the tall timber on the banks of the Peace River, British Columbia. There near the trading post of Hudson Hope they found their Walden.
How they made themselves 'At Home in the Woods, ' stocked their cabin, met their interesting wilderness neighbors who helped them get settled and who saw them through their first winter makes honest and exciting reading. The city-bred Angiers found out that Thoreau was right when he wrote: "What people say you can not do, you try and find you can."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 160893442X
• ISBN13: 9781608934423
• Release Date: May 2015
• Publisher: Down East Books
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.81 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

This book changed my life.

This book is a true story. Not "based on a true story", but a real, live, no frills true story. If the title "True Grit" wasn't already taken for a cheesy western, I'd grab it for this book. It is about a couple in their 30's, living in Boston, romanticizing Thoreau and "Walden". One day, the husband says, "Let's do it. Let's find a location that will be condusive to living off the land, and go there."And so they do. Duffels full of axes, woolens, lanterns, and a few how-to books, they take a train to British Columbia, find an abandonded prospector's cabin, get it water-tight, and live there. Their nearest neighbor lives a half mile away, they're basically sqatting on this land, winter's coming, and they've got to live on oats and berries, and whatever Joe Boston (Bradford Angier) can kill out in the immense forest which serves as their backyard. It's wonderful. Very (to use that popular wine judger's phrase) approachable. Read: easy to read. You don't have to know anything about nothing to enjoy this book. Also, Bradford Angier (although this book is written by him and his wife, Vera)becomes sort of a back woods guru and writes some outdoor manuals on wild edibles and how to build your own moss-chinked cabin on someone else's land. Check it out.

Great book for the mountain man or couple at heart!

I just finished this book tonight and must say that I loved every page of it. It was the first book of the Angier's that I have read, and I can tell you it won't be the last. The way both Brad and Vera describe in flowing detail and friendly, backwoods banter, how their first few years were like living in the mountains and off the land, will spark a fire in anyone who longs for such adventure. Read it. It is a wonderful story.