Winter has taken over the island, and living off-grid out here is no joke. With no roads, no power, and the North Atlantic cutting us off from the mainland, every day is a new challenge.
In this video, we take you deep into remote winter living here in outport Newfoundland. Showing the challenges of staying warm, hauling water, and keeping boats from freezing in subzero temperatures. We rely on an old stone well for drinking water, cut firewood to heat the abandoned house, and battle ice, wind, and isolation just to get through the season.
Winter on an off-grid island means nothing comes easy—everything freezes, things break, and survival is a daily grind. Later in the video, we finally get off the island and head to the mainland for a much-needed break, snowmobiling through Newfoundland’s backcountry with friends.
This is what off-grid island living looks like in winter—cold, unpredictable, but one heck of an adventure.
In this video, we take you deep into remote winter living here in outport Newfoundland. Showing the challenges of staying warm, hauling water, and keeping boats from freezing in subzero temperatures. We rely on an old stone well for drinking water, cut firewood to heat the abandoned house, and battle ice, wind, and isolation just to get through the season.
Winter on an off-grid island means nothing comes easy—everything freezes, things break, and survival is a daily grind. Later in the video, we finally get off the island and head to the mainland for a much-needed break, snowmobiling through Newfoundland’s backcountry with friends.
This is what off-grid island living looks like in winter—cold, unpredictable, but one heck of an adventure.
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FunTranscript
00:00Yeah, I tell you boys, I finally got it figured out.
00:05I got myself a live-in labor.
00:08Lucky for us, we didn't have a digger on well when we came here.
00:11There's already one here.
00:12And it's not as any well.
00:14This thing has been here for generations.
00:17The old timers talked to this well how good it is.
00:20Crystal clean, baby.
00:21We can bottle this stuff up and start sending it to Toronto right now.
00:29I'm going to sign the rock.
00:30The lucky rock.
00:31Well, look at that, proper stone well from back in the day.
00:43That's legit.
00:45Privileged to drink that water down there, sir.
00:47Even comes with a built-in bucket.
00:49Kind of turned into a bit of a thing between us, how many buckets per minute you got in
01:10you.
01:11Well, let's count her off, see how many bucket per minute she got, and go.
01:17I can already tell that she's not holding up to par.
01:24Look at her, look.
01:25She don't mind.
01:26She don't waste any energy on headlights.
01:27I don't know if you can see it, but I'm going to go ahead and turn the water on, and I'm
01:28going to turn it off.
01:29I'm going to turn it off.
01:30I'm going to turn it off.
01:31I'm going to turn it off.
01:32I'm going to turn it off.
01:33I'm going to turn it off.
01:34I'm going to turn it off.
01:35I'm going to turn it off.
01:36I'm going to turn it off.
01:37I'm going to turn it off.
01:38I'm going to turn it off.
01:39I'm going to turn it off.
01:40I'm going to turn it off.
01:41I'm going to turn it off.
01:42I'm going to turn it off.
01:43I'm going to turn it off.
01:44I'm going to turn it off.
01:45I'm going to turn it off.
01:46I'm going to turn it off.
01:48I'm going to turn it off.
02:15I'm going to turn it off.
02:23I'm going to turn it off.
02:34I'm going to turn it off.
02:44All right, let's see how much horsepower you've got in you, girl.
02:54Let me take one out for you, just because I'm a gentleman.
02:59Oh, what a kind lad.
03:14Next one!
03:26Ain't no shame here, sir, watching an old lady carry my water buckets.
03:30No shame here, sir.
03:32Come on, girl, get up there.
03:36I'll take the slide.
03:43You gotta make her work up an appetite, see ya, boy.
03:50Whew!
03:51There we go.
03:52Oh, that's great.
03:56Oh, man, now I need a glass of that good water.
03:59Yes.
04:00That's what I'm thinking.
04:08Oh.
04:09Oh.
04:10Oh, so good.
04:12Oh, yes.
04:32Yeah, I don't think you do realize how tough it is
04:35or how much work it is when you are hauling it yourself.
04:39You realize how much you use really quickly
04:41and you realize how much work it is to get more.
04:44So, yeah, you're definitely more conscious of it.
05:10Yes.
05:38It's mid-February now, 2025, and we're still here, hanging in.
05:42Full-on winter.
05:44It's starting to become a bit of a struggle now.
05:46Boats are freezing up all the time.
05:49Ran out of firewood.
05:51Hopefully the worst of winter is over, but who the *** knows.
05:57Daily toil out here is firewood and water.
06:00You always need firewood, you always need water.
06:03And you're out here nickel and diamond like this,
06:05you don't have a supply of either.
06:08Every day at best, every two-day event.
06:14Let's go.
06:22Now we need wood that we can burn right now.
06:25We need dry wood.
06:34We'll try up here.
06:35I know up here there's lots of little tiny, tiny things that are dry.
06:39They don't burn very long, but they're warm, so whatever.
07:06There we go.
07:34There we go.
08:03There we go.
08:33Weather's definitely not getting any nicer.
08:47Well now that I've got two loads of that small stuff,
08:50I want to go in here and try and get some bigger stuff.
09:18Listen to that.
09:21What a beautiful, beautiful spot to cut some firewood.
09:25Around here it's mostly hard to find a decent piece of spruce,
09:31but a lot of these right here just along the water's edge are in really rough shape,
09:36so it's easier to find you a dry stick.
09:40That looks pretty dry.
09:59This is south-facing right here, so we want to cut these down
10:02when all that sun comes in.
10:05Right here, baby.
10:36There we go.
11:04You happy there?
11:05Hey.
11:15I don't have a sensible splitting block here anywhere.
11:23Shameful as that is, that's my splitting block.
11:51I'm going to make some splits for tomorrow.
12:21Right behind you.
12:50There we go.
13:19I'm putting these splits in the oven
13:33because it's a great way to use your heat when you have it
13:36and a good way to dry up these splits in order for them to light easy in the morning.
13:41Old baman trick.
13:43That's where we're drying the wood.
13:45This spot over here is for a wood stove.
13:47This is where you burn the wood.
13:53This is Kelly's first winter living off-grid in the bush.
13:57I mean, this is Kelly's first time living off-grid, period, right?
14:00Yeah.
14:01I'll tell you one thing about having a woman in the house,
14:03you go through a hell of a lot more water, showers or not.
14:05I don't know where they put it,
14:06but by God they get rid of the water quick around here.
14:09If you watched the first video,
14:10you remember how shagged up this kitchen ceiling was.
14:13All these beams are rotten, especially this one,
14:18which we milled ourselves with our chainsaw mill.
14:25See more about that later.
14:27We replaced that front wall, insulated that front wall.
14:31We milled some boards and put it up.
14:41Pretty much the same, it's really cleaned up.
14:43There is a bathroom in here.
14:44It didn't show in the first video.
14:46I just didn't film it very well, so I didn't use it.
14:49This is it.
14:51There's nothing fancy.
14:52There's no running water in here.
14:54Summertime it could work,
14:56because you could do gravity feed water from up the hill in a well.
15:00But it works.
15:01If you bring in buckets of water, pour them down the toilet, it works fine.
15:04The tub works fine, the drain.
15:06You just got to bucket all your own water in.
15:08Other than that, it's a fine working bathroom.
15:10Got a little automatic solar light back there, as you see.
15:13The only one in the house is the light right there in the shower.
15:16So the bones of this house are damn near 100 years old.
15:20This bathroom isn't.
15:21This is more modern.
15:22This was a addition done in the past 25, 30 years.
15:25Upstairs, there's been some pretty big changes.
15:28Since Kelly moved in, she really gussied up the second story a bit,
15:33made it a bit more homely and tidy.
15:38Our new bedroom is a small room now, actually.
15:41You'd never believe it when we first moved in.
15:43This was the bedroom with the smashed out window and the crazy clown.
15:47Now look at it.
15:49This small bedroom here in the back turned out to be the best option in the end,
15:52because it's on the back of the house.
15:54It's away from all the weather.
15:55All the wood, the walls, everything is just in better shape in here.
15:59And there's less wind coming in through the walls,
16:02because the front of the house, when the wind blows, you can feel it inside.
16:06So this room is able to stay just a little bit warmer,
16:09because we're both in there, and we drop our fancy door here,
16:13which is this blanket.
16:15Over here is Kelly's little setup, her workstation.
16:18She's a real crafter and artisan.
16:20She makes jewelry and sews and all sorts of fun stuff,
16:24and this is where she does that.
16:26She's got a beautiful view out this window here.
16:28That used to be grown in at one point.
16:30We built this little desk,
16:33and she spent a lot of days during the winter up here working away.
16:41Now in here in this bedroom, the old horror movie set,
16:44this has been fully converted.
16:46This is now a workshop.
16:48Ended up working out really well in here.
16:50It's right above the kitchen.
16:52This is the chimney that's going through the house,
16:54so this radiates warm heat right into the room here.
16:57Over there, that's where the other bedroom was, remember?
17:00That was the original place where I set up the $200 Walmart bed.
17:04Tore all that off too,
17:06and this is all going to be workshop.
17:09If you watched that first video about this house,
17:12you've pretty much seen 90% of what's happened here since spring,
17:15all the renovations, demolition.
17:17There is bits you missed.
17:19There was days where it was too busy, things were just going wrong,
17:22and I couldn't film it all, as simple as that.
17:24You guys are pretty much up to date now with what's been done.
17:30The other daily chore that a real time suck during the winter is the boats.
17:48Out here, running a boat on the ocean all winter,
17:51and they're always in the water, constant maintenance.
17:54Always got to be checking them, bailing them out,
17:58Running the engines, keep them warm, shit's freezing, shit's breaking.
18:01Just to keep the wheels on this place during the winter is a half-time job for sure.
18:27Oh yeah, she's got some water in her. Not too bad though.
18:36We've got to go check on the big boat anyway.
18:40We'll just pull the plug when we drive down there and it'll all suck out.
18:43If you know, you know, the old 60 Enduro, iconic motor.
18:58She drinks the gas like a thirsty kid in gym class, but she goes.
19:05Cold or no, she'll go.
19:14Oh yeah, just like that baby.
19:34She's only like, I don't know, a quarter of a mile from the house, nowhere.
20:04Now really there's only a few things we've got to check.
20:27Bilge, batteries, and the ropes that's holding her on for chafe.
20:33Big one is the bilge.
20:37Down here is her bilge.
20:40She's always got a little squirt in the bottom of her.
20:43The old timer I bought it off said it'll just keep the smell down.
20:47So really just got to check to make sure there's enough power to run the bilge when it gets too much.
20:55This here is my handy dandy bilge pump tester.
21:03Hear that?
21:16All right, well that's the main thing.
21:18As long as she's got enough power to keep her bilge pumps going.
21:25It's been pretty cold the past few days, so I am going to run the old girl for 40 minutes
21:30or so, just charge everything up and keep her going.
21:33This is a Perkins 135, no idea what year, cold start.
22:00Oh, what a sweet, sweet sound.
22:30Burning diesel, baby.
22:37Only other thing to check now is the ropes in front.
22:40That's an old piece of Ronnie's blanket I sliced up and wrapped around the ropes so it wouldn't chafe on the boat.
22:59Looks good.
23:04As you can see, there's lots of houses and cabins down here.
23:07There used to be over 200 families here back in the day before everything went to shit with fishery.
23:12Sadly, most of these people are only here in the summer, so it's been just me and Kelly for most of it.
23:26Well, that's it. Both boats are good for another day.
23:37Imagine being out here back then, no chainsaw, no outboard motor.
23:59They were out here and they were doing it.
24:01God, they were f***ing hard, hard as nails.
24:04I got so much respect for those old timers out here back then.
24:07Different world.
24:34Newfoundland is one of the greatest hidden gems in the world, if you ask me.
25:04This looks delicious.
25:15Great job, dear.
25:24Well, we're on a different kind of adventure today, folks.
25:27We're heading to the mainland.
25:29Big deal.
25:30Me and Kelly haven't left the area here in, must be a couple of weeks now, for sure.
25:37Now, we're not just going to the mainland for run supplies.
25:39We're going to the mainland to go skidooing with the boys.
25:43And Kelly's never been on a skidoo before, or maybe you call it a snowmobile, or whatever else you call it.
25:49But we're going sledding.
25:51Today we're going to be taking the big boat, Cape Millie, since we're going to town.
26:01Well, we can't go to town without bringing our gas cans and filling up.
26:20Another thing you can't go to town without bringing, dirty laundry.
26:24Oh, how good it is, I tell you.
26:28When that four, five, six-week miracle is around, it's finally time to do some laundry.
26:33That's right.
26:35It's really amazing how fast your whole outlook on showering and cleanliness goes.
26:40It just seems like out here you don't get as dirty.
26:42If you were in town, living a normal life, three days, no shower, you'd be a dirtbag.
26:47Out here, three weeks, not even that bad.
26:50A little bird bath by the wood stove that night.
26:53A couple of rags, a bit of hot water.
26:55I'll keep you civil.
26:57Let's go.
26:59Let's go.
27:24This is the whole reason why you have a big boat like this in the wintertime.
27:27Shelter from the weather, big waves, wind.
27:30She'll take it all.
27:57Last night there was a bit of a get-together down here in Lower Harbour.
28:14A few of the boys were down there.
28:16One of them got left behind last night, so we're going to go down and pick him up this morning.
28:20He's going to catch a ride back with us, our buddy Smitty.
28:23This is the bay version of, what do you call it, carpooling.
28:29Boat pooling.
28:49There he is.
28:53There he is.
29:16Come in, boy, come in, boy.
29:18Well, thanks for the beer, Frankie, thanks for tonight.
29:20Yes, and thanks for the boat all day.
29:23And Matt, you too.
29:24Yes, sir, yeah, it was good seeing you again.
29:26See you, buddy.
29:27Hope to see you in there this evening, this afternoon.
29:32Straight to work, Lalo.
29:36See you, old Frank.
29:37Yeah, see you, boy.
29:38I'd say today, afternoon, afternoon, pretty much till afternoon.
29:43Yeah.
29:44We'll be going up there, too.
29:46Saturday, maybe.
29:49See you later, boys.
29:51Yep.
29:52See you all later.
30:18Ah.
30:38I'll sit down Kelly's place.
30:42This is Kelly's place here, I would say.
30:45Going to town is never as simple as getting in the car and rolling out.
31:05There's always some sort of adventure involved and this is our one today.
32:06Bain Harbour Surf. This is as close as we can get to St. Joseph's by land so this is where I leave the truck to.
32:16And from here we're going to meet the boys and we're going to find Gordon.
32:35We're going to meet the boys and we're going to find Gordon.
33:05Well I'll jump up in the back I suppose.
33:11Oh yeah no, jump in front of the seat.
33:13No, sure as hell yeah.
33:14Just back of the seat fine.
33:15Until you squeeze and I'll take over.
33:20Moving off for ten.
33:22Yeah she always goes though.
33:36Oh I see the skidoos.
33:38Oh boy.
33:39Ford's got her all loaded up.
33:45Yep my son.
33:46Oh you're all geared up.
33:50Oh Kelly's first run.
33:52Woo hoo hoo yeah.
33:54I'll take this one.
33:58You're running, take this one.
33:59Yeah.
34:00That one's all for you.
34:02Yes sir.
34:03Unless you want to take a bigger one.
34:04You can take the bigger one.
34:05No I'm good with this.
34:06It's got cool tooling on the seat.
34:07It's perfect for me.
34:09Here you go, hold your beer.
34:10Yeah.
34:11That's a nice box of cork.
34:13Oh yeah Kelly, look out.
34:14Oh yeah.
34:15I just got to put on my jacket and that's that.
34:17Yep.
34:19Up here.
34:20Did she ever run through a skidoo Gordon?
34:22She never used a skidoo?
34:23Give her a quick run through.
34:24Huh?
34:25Give her a quick run through.
34:26She's never used a skidoo before.
34:27She's never run around here before.
34:28Oh no, she'll be fine.
34:29Oh yeah I'll be good.
34:30Your keel switch is here.
34:31That's how you turn her on and turn her off.
34:33Okay.
34:34Or you can turn her on and off with the key.
34:36But, I mean, all you got to do is just pull her over.
34:38Okay.
34:39She's a little bit hard to pull.
34:40You might need two hands.
34:41Okay.
34:43Woo.
34:44Woo.
34:46Woo.
34:49Wait, I've got to put her in the gear.
34:51She's already in gear.
34:52What?
34:53She's already in gear.
34:54Oh.
34:55It's a clutch system.
34:56That's why you can do it that way.
34:57See?
34:58I've got to give it.
34:59More, more, more.
35:00Okay.
35:01Take it in.
35:02Woo.
35:03Ha ha.
35:04I was like.
35:05Woo.
35:29Woo.
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