Consolations of the Forest: Alone in a Cabin in the Middle Taiga

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I’d promised myself that before I turned forty I would live as a hermit deep in the woods.

I went to spend six months in a Siberian cabin on the shores of Lake Baikal, on the tip of North Cedar Cape. Seventy-five miles from the nearest village, no neighbours, no access roads and every now and then, a visit. Wintertime temperatures in the minus twenties Fahrenheit; the summer brought bears out into the open. In short: paradise.

I took along books, cigars and vodka. The rest – space silence and solitude – was already there.

In that desert, I created a beautiful and temperate life for myself, experiencing an existence centred on simple gestures. Between the lake and the forest, I watched the days go by. I cut wood, fished for my dinner, read a lot, hiked in the mountains, and drank vodka, at my window. The cabin was an ideal observation post from which to witness nature’s every move.

I knew winter and spring, happiness, despair, and in the end, peace.

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