11
Living off the land at 'Fort Awesome'
To view this content, Javascript must be enabled and Adobe Flash Player must be installed.
Gene's friend Matt "Chopper" Gibeault moved to the land with him, along with their buddy Mariah Sharpe and Gene's girlfriend Haley Filamond.
Haley found a primitive tool in the desert and used it to chop potatoes. Their goal was to live off the land as much as possible.
TEXT OF STORY
TESS VIGELAND: Money changes everything. For better, or for worse, having it or lacking it affects every aspect of your daily life. This week we begin a series produced in conjunction with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It's called "Money Changes Everything."
Gene Atwood starts us off. He's a university research assistant in Boston who told his story to Sean Cole.
SEAN COLE: Hello sir!
GENE ATWOOD: Mr. Cole!
Sean: How are you?
Gene: I'm good.
Sean: Very good to meet you.
This past winter, I was asking around for people whose plans had changed, for better or worse, because of the recession. And I got a note from a guy named Gene Atwood in Boston that said this: "In defiance of the pressure I am constantly under to keep my job (as it would be foolish to do otherwise in this economy), I'm moving to a piece of land I bought when I was 19 for $550 eBay to finally start Fort Awesome."
Gene: Actually looking at the records, I was 21 and I'm 28 now. I had an emergency credit card from my parents. And I had just gotten over a two-year relationship. And I was pretty depressed, and I was living in my parents' basement and I wasn't in the best possible way that one could be.
Before he knew it, he had a deed to a five empty acres of the Chihuahuan Desert in far west Texas near the Mexican border. Gene was working at the time and he eventually paid his parents back but still...
Gene: They got mad. They took the credit card away for sure. That was a breach of trust. I'm not describing a responsible purchase here. I'm describing an extremely irresponsible purchase that has turned out to be the best purchase I think I've ever made.
And possibly the realization of a dream he'd had since he was 12 or 13.
Gene: I had this fantasy for Fort Awesome, which would just be exactly how it sounds. Fort Awesome. It would just be a fort. It would be awesome. In a lot of ways, that's still exactly what we're doing, except a little more clear-headed now.
TEXARRAKIS VIDEO: Good evening Internet. The date is Friday, March 5 and this is Texarrakis.com. There are approximately 23 days left until launch. That's right...
Atwood's new plan had an awesomer name than Fort Awesome: Texarrakis. Arrakis being the desert planet in the book Dune. He wasn't just going to move to the land. He was going to escape the trappings of modern civilization as much as possible. Paradoxically, he would also document this escape on his website, Texarrakis.com..
His friend Matt Gibeault, aka Chopper, was going with him.
CHOPPER ON VIDEO: Beginning on day one, launch day, you can expect to find a new Texarrakis video. Here. About every other day or so.
Along with two others: Their buddy Mariah Sharpe, who's a guy, and Gene's girlfriend Haley Filamond.
HALEY FILAMOND: Do you wanna bust out that hummus and stuff?
I spent a lot of time with them in the two months before they left. I went to one of their strategy meetings...
HALEY: My plan is to have my last day at work be about two weeks before we leave.
Haley worked at a coffee shop. Chopper was at a liquor store. Mariah did construction. And I know this is going to sound cheesy, but they reminded me of me when I was in my 20s in Boston, working a meaningless job just so I could stay nourished enough to make it to work the next day. They felt like gerbils. Or robots. Or robot gerbils. They set a goal of saving $8,000 between them. Figuring they'd need at least that much to start out. They'd move to the land for a year. Possibly forever.
HALEY: General concerns?
Gene: Land surveyor still hasn't gotten back to me.
HALEY: Oh, that's a whole different category.
Gene: Well, that's still a general concern.
Gene, Chopper and Mariah had visited the land before, two summers ago. It was hard to believe anyone owned it. It just blended into one big vast desert valley surrounded by mountains.
Gene: There's wind. There's constant wind. Sometimes, these huge gusts.
One of which was caught on tape, a dust devil.
Sound of people shouting and cursing on tape
It blew their tarp away. There are also scorpions in the desert. And rattlesnakes. And some type of vicious ant.
Gene: This could be the worst idea I've ever had. It could be. I don't know. I'm going to find out. That's my plan.
More specifically, the plan was to buy a bunch of dry and canned food to begin with. Grow what few crops you can grow in the desert, including spices, which they'd then sell on the website -- along with other Texarrakis paraphernalia -- to sustain themselves. For power, they bought a small windmill. Assembly required.
Gene: Oh check these out. The blades.
HALEY: I think this is one of those things for me that like, "Well, we better pull it off now, because we got a windmill and what else are we gonna do with it?"
Gene: I don't know I need to figure out what I'm actually capable of instead of just doing what I need to do to pay for rent, and coffee and sandwiches. I wanna do something really fun.
Sean: You were about to say something awesome.
Gene: I... yeah, I was. But I feel like I've said "awesome" too many times.
Sean: You can say "awesome."
Gene: OK. Yeah, I wanna do something really awesome.
SOUND OF LOADING TRUCK
CHOPPER: Whiskey in the jaaaaar. Yuaaaaow! All right.
By March 29, their last night in Boston, they had all quit their jobs and amassed more than $10,000. They stayed up until about three in the morning, stuffing Gene's giant pick-up truck and Haley's little SUV with clothes, power tools, a collapsible gazebo...
Gene: Whoa!
SOUND OF GAZEBO CRASHING
Gene: It's fine.
And then the next morning, they were ready to go.
Sean: Good luck you guys.
Gene: Thanks.
CHOPPER: Onward!
Sound of phone ringing
Gene: Sean!
Sean: Gene!
Four months later, I got a hold of Atwood in his new home: Chicago, Illinois.
Gene: Basically, we just did not monitor our finances well enough at all. And our financial point wasn't that we couldn't continue to exist there. But it was at a point where we wouldn't be able to leave.
A bunch of things happened. They spent a lot of money on the way down there and hadn't set up the web-store yet. Nor had they set up web access on the land, so Gene wasn't checking his bank account that much. They were living cheaply but not earning anything meant only lasting so long. And they one day they had a kind of "oh crap" conversation.
Gene: It was at the hottest part of the day when we were all kind of sitting together and I'm pretty sure I blurted out like "I don't have much money." And then, we all confessed to not having much money and it was sort of like awkward. Like none of us wanted to even admit it to ourselves, so we just sort of lived in a pretend world where money would always be there, if that makes any sense?
Sean: It does. I think a lot of people live in that pretend world, whether they're moving to an empty parcel of land in the Texas desert or not.
Gene: Yeah. We thought we were better than that, but old habits don't die quick, I guess.
But Atwood likes to think of the last few months as just a trial run. And he's determined to try again. Hopefully in a year or two. Meantime, a friend of Gene and Haley's in Chicago offered them cheap rent. Chopper and Mariah are back in Massachusetts. I really wanted them to succeed. I'd like to believe that you can live the way you want to live, even if you don't have an endless supply of money. But even if that isn't possible, it's good know it's at least attemptable.
I'm Sean Cole for Marketplace Money.
Pages
The "race card" aside I think it is an intreasting point. Seeing that they abandoned the endover so quickly I have my doubts that money was the real reason and yes it was easy for them to quit and go home.
Why did they not try to find work out there? Are there ranches in those parts and if so why not ranch hand instead of heading to Chicago and New England.
Also not to impressed that after less than a month in the desert they moved back to a city. Why not move to a farm or something to gain pracital knowledge of working the land for there eventual return...I also think they will never go back down there as well.
This whole project was simply a cascading error phonomon where one mistake led to another and another.
I hate to wave the Race Flag, but this does sound like the kind of thing that uppercrust, spoiled white kids do for a lark, knowing that they can return home at any time to a life of comfort and privilege. Tell this pack of would-be Paris Hiltons and Nicole Ritchies that "The Simple Life" has already been done, and they were at least funny. This bunch was just sad.
OMG! don't these kids know that "Huck Finn" is a work of fiction??? was this a stunt for some reality TV Show????
in the early 1800's, when the "great migration" to the American West began - the settlers had (1) a plan and (2) a list of supplies needed for the trip of their choice (Mormon Trail, Oregon Trail or California Trail)**. This information is available for FREE (so why reinvent the wheel?) The US Defense Dept also publishes 'Survival guides' for most environments - check it out.
2nd - their are any number of historical references to HOMESTEADING (requirements, options, how to, etc.)
3rd - didn't it occur to anyone that this land was cheap and unused for a reason? 1st you need WATER, then SHELTER, then FOOD. Otherwise: it's just dirt.
I guess its a good thing that they went to Texas, and not the Moon - else they'd be dead by now.
** remember the Donner Party of 1846
Lots of people come out here to live an off-the-grid dream, and many crash and burn. We, however, have not because, whereas we live in an isolated place, we don't live in isolation. The community here helps us survive and be happy. For insights into local success stories, I encourage you to visit my blog at http://wandervogeldiary.wordpress.com/
Oh I figured out a few months ago what this wedge thing is all over Gene's facebook site it. He and his FB friends take over facebook group pages that don't set an admin. The first one I saw was a fan site for I think some Mid-Western Town. They took it over and write Wedge everywhere, all the fans looked like the sweetest people, Gene & his friends are permantly childish. Foolish children, grow up.
I stand by my comment that they make a mockery of anyone who has lived off the land. They go through all this hype, all this build up just to get down there. I knew they were doomed when on the videos they posted they acted shocked that they had to drive through a snowstorm in April. Yea it’s Pennsylvania some of it’s roads are at elevation it snows up there and anyways who cares about a little snow your going to the wilderness. They apparently bring a poor dog into this fiasco, I hear she is a Husky although she looks like some kinda Husky mix from their videos and pictures…regardless why??? There is a reason why some of the Coyotes down there are hairless. But I digress, there are a lot of people doing stuff like this these days. Maybe some of them will try to raise money to do it although I can’t imagine anyone with real know-how will go that low without providing some sort of service or product. Anyways these bunch of lazy’s have just made what a lot of people are doing a laughing stock. I imagine by their pale & pasty look ( I feel this in an acceptable observation in judging them) that they have never done anything remotely outdoorsy. So they are from New England, why not go someplace like say Vermont or Western Massachusetts? No all they wanted and all they could handle was an extended camping trip. I am not even going to try to imagine just how they blew through $10,000 and again bringing a Husky or Husky mix to the desert this exemplifies just how much they could not handle this and never will be able to handle it.
On a personal note I am someone who is outdoorsy, they offended me time after time after time with this whole project. Just bad taste. Market Place, you got tricked by a charismatic individual about covering an alternative way of living in the recession. Why not spend your journalistic time covering many of the alternative economies all around us, see Collectives or time trades, good luck.
I just gotta say, props to these folks for going for it! Hey, they crashed and burned. At least they went for the gusto.
Also, I bought some land out there myself in the Lobo area and it is breathtakingly beautiful. The Chihuahan desert is so flipping awesome. The mountains, the sky, the creosote and mesquite, it is just a powerful, powerful place.
I am not convinced that they were serious about living in such primiive conditions. In spite of the supplies they purchssed, includng the windmill, I don't get the impression that they learned anything nor that appreciated how others did at one time live without modern day amenties. Maybe they did mean well, but they come accross as immature and possibly not really ready to have taken on the challenge. maybe some other time.
Well, Lazy, your comment is brief if not civil. I think it's a very interesting story and I hope they do try again. It's worth it for people to continue to question what they truly need and how they can live outside of the strictures of suburbia. Very few people really know how to "live off the land" and fewer are willing to make the trade-offs of modern conveniences necessary to do so.
Pages
