Squatter Surprises Park Ranger With Amazing Residence In The Woods


Is it possible to live a life hidden from the world without leaving any footprint or impression?

Thoreau wrote about his experiment living in Walden, and Krakauer published a bestseller “Into the Wild,” which described Christopher McCandless two years alone in the Alaskan woods.

But considering Thoreau’s experiment took place 150 years ago, and McCandless more recent journey didn’t end well, one might ponder if there are still people out there choosing to live their lives hidden and far away from society, without leaving any impression.

Yes, people are in fact living hidden in the woods, away from society and away from other people, but we don’t know about them precisely because they leave no trace or impression.

Mad River Union reported the discovery of a hidden cabin found in the Arcata Community Forest in California last summer. Arcata’s Environmental Services director Mark Andre was marking trees in one of the most remote sections when he came across the eight by twelve feet and fifteen feet high cabin.

It was built with a sturdy concrete block foundation, a proper stout frame, a peaked roof, and even a small porch. The compact house had multiple windows and the plywood walls were well covered on the outside with brown tarps, black plastic sheeting and lots of forest debris, camouflaging it to near invisibility.

“I didn’t see it until I was 12 feet from it. It’s in the perfect out-of-the-way spot where it wouldn’t be detected.”

There were no trails outside leading up to the cabin, and none of the usual environmental footprints left on forest campsites like trash piles, discarded clothing, or open-air latrine with toilet paper.

The habitant had shown nothing but the highest regards for the natural surroundings.

However, the cabin was built illegally on public property. It’s supposed to be a nature refuge. More urgently, the forest was last logged in 1984, and because the area was set for a harvest only a month later, the individual living there would have to be evicted and the structure removed.

A warning notice with APD Park Ranger Heidi Groszmann’s contact information was left on the cabin’s front door. The article spurred comments to leave the cabin alone, and also questioning the reasoning:

“So, is it being removed to preserve a nature refuge or is it being removed because it is in the way of a logging operation?”

But the story didn’t end there. According to Disclose.tv, a month later when checking on the site, it appeared the inhabitant had indeed found the eviction notice and began moving out. No trails gave away the direction to where the person were heading.

Two weeks later the cabin was gone. Some of the larger things, like the wood stove and some furnishings, were left on the ground. The access routes to the site showed no signs of heavy things having been transported and there were no reports of a person seen hauling heavy items down the trails.

The next day, everything was gone. Michael McDowall, natural resources technician for the city’s Environmental Services Department said:

“That’s the cleanest camp cleanup I’ve ever seen […] There wasn’t a nail, not even a gum wrapper left behind.”

But in fact, something was left behind. One the ground, an odd symbol had been placed, made of charcoal. It’s the symbol of the international squatter.

International Squatter leaves no impression in woods
International Squatters Symbol. Permission to use under Wikipedia Public Domain.

International Squatters Symbol. Permission to use under Wikipedia Public Domain.

Featured Image from Pixabay. Permission to use under Creative Commons.