Read This: The Last American Man
Edited by The Fashion Web
Eustace Conway is the real deal, the last of his kind. A combination of Davy Crockett and Thoreau living in the mountains of North Carolina. He is a character in Elizabeth Gilberts book, The Last American Man. Click for the continuation.
Eustace lives off the land, in a teepee, in the hills, on horseback and in the woods. He rode across the country in 103 days, setting a world record that he probably didn’t even know about.
He has immersed himself in nature since he was four years old, roaming the woods behind his suburban house near Gastonia, N.C. At age 10, he purposefully walked deep into a nearby forest, alone and empty-handed, and survived off the land for a week. After high school, Eustace canoed down the Mississippi River and kayaked across Alaska, honing his backcountry skills. Later he lived with primitive indigenous tribes in Guatemala. When he returned to the Blue Ridge in his early twenties to attend Appalachian State University, he lived in a handmade tipi, cooked squirrels over a fire, and wrote papers by candlelight.
Soon after graduating with honors (majoring in anthropology and English), Eustace found the wildest, most rugged land in Appalachia—a 1,000-acre chunk of mountain near Boone, N.C., and gradually bought parcels of it. To pay for the land that he now calls Turtle Island Preserve, he spent years traveling the country on speaking tours teaching primitive skills and revealing the natural economy hidden behind dollar bills—like where food and water comes from, where waste goes, and how clothes are made.
For the past two decades, Eustace has lived self-sufficiently at Turtle Island, growing his own vegetables and raising goats and chickens. He built a log cabin using trees from the property, and it is powered by an off-grid micro-hydroelectric system along a creek. He travels primarily by horse, occasionally riding into crowded downtown Boone on horseback to get supplies. To make ends meet, he offers educational enrichment camps for youths, adults, and organizations, as well as horse-drawn carriage rides through the deep, lush woods of Turtle Island.
If you’re looking for something to read, might be a good idea to check up on Eustace.
