Here's What It's Like to Live in the Woods, Off the Grid

Meet a group of people in the mountains of North Carolina surviving on what can be gleaned from their surroundings.

In 2007, a man and a woman walked into the woods of North Carolina to a small camp. The camp turned into their home, and the home into a community.

So goes the story of the early days of Wild Roots, a forest commune in western North Carolina, built on a few founding principles—living freely, not wasting, and constantly learning. On roughly 30 acres, a group of people use what they call earth skills to eat, bathe, and survive. They build what they know how and let the forest teach them what they don’t.

Wild Roots' longest-standing member, a man named Tod, who declines to be identified with a last name, doesn’t have an anti-establishment creed or fear of developed

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