How to live for free on a historic ranch in the famous American canyon

The US Forest Service offers to those who wish to spend a month away from civilization on a historic ranch in one of the deepest and most famous canyons. They don’t take money from volunteers, but they are asked to keep order in the vicinity, as well as to be ready for the Spartan conditions and the lack of mobile communication.

Hell Canyon and Snake River. Photo: Depositphotos

Kirkwood’s historic ranch is located on the banks of the Snake River, which flows into the Infernal Canyon, Present Tense.

Hell Canyon, according to Wikipedia10 is a miles-wide canyon (16 kilometers), located along the border of eastern Oregon, eastern Washington and western Idaho in the United States. It is part of the National Recreation Area and the deepest river gorge in North America at an altitude of 7993 feet (2436 meters).

At the beginning of the last century, people lived here, and now the ranch is a museum and one of the bases of the US Forest Service, where rangers offer accommodation to everyone. Free, but in return volunteers must keep order.

Charlie and Jane McCrum have been living on the ranch for almost a month now.

“We have always wanted to try a holiday like this. We heard that the Forest Service is asking ordinary people to volunteer for them. And we were lucky: the people who were supposed to live here couldn’t come for some reason,” says Jane McCrum.

The forest service began to urgently look for a replacement. So Charlie and Jane were on the ranch. According to the couple, they really like the house.

In the kitchen there is only the most basic, but everything works. There is even a real oven. The McCroom family brought food for a month from the mainland. Jane says she wrote a detailed menu for two weeks, and then doubled the number of all products.

“We noticed that people here are being more careful with food,” says Jane. “We don’t throw away a single piece.” This was not the case at home."

On the second floor there are several bedrooms, one of which is summer. Part of the walls here were replaced with mosquito nets.

“It’s incredible here, especially in the evening,” says McCrum. “The air is so fresh, it feels like you’re sleeping on a tree.”

There is no mobile reception at the ranch. The only way to quickly make yourself known is through a radio point.

There is also regular mail, which is delivered once a week, on Wednesdays. Real paper letters are placed in the mailbox. The McCrums get them from friends and children. When Jane and Charlie have mail, they raise a red flag on the shore - a sign for the mail boat to stop and pick up their letters.

There are few responsibilities: receiving tourists, keeping the house clean and watering the lawn. But the main job here is just to relax.

“I encourage everyone to try it,” says Charlie McCrum. — There is no Internet, no Netflix and no news. In our modern life we ​​forget about the earth, about nature. We have forgotten that in this world everything is so brilliantly connected with each other, that nature is so wise. But here this awareness comes immediately.”

There are several similar programs for volunteers in the local Forest Service. All that is required from those who wish to do so is to contact the rangers, fill out an application and be ready for a month’s vacation away from civilization.

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