by MEGAN NORTHCOTE
Intern Lifestyles Reporter

One day, Brett W. Butler hopes to live a life without electricity.

Like most Appalachian State University students, that would mean giving up his cell phone, laptop and Facebook account.

In September 2006, Butler, now a senior applied technology major, stumbled upon an organization that changed his life and brought him one step closer to living without the electrical grid for good.

Turtle Island Preserve, an environmental education center in Deep Gap, N.C., devotes its time to teaching about sustainable life practices without electricity.

The preserve will host its annual Fall Open House Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free and open to the community.

Blacksmithing, composting with worms, churning apple butter, making natural dyes, inducing fire by friction, open-hearth cooking, woodcarving and basket making will be among many activities demonstrated.

Every year, approximately 3,000 people come to the preserve, located eight miles east of Boone, to re-learn primitive survival skills through camp instruction, workshops, outreach programs and open houses, Desere Anderson, Turtle Island Preserve office manager and summer camp director said.

Students interested in learning self-reliance skills and how to use natural, renewable resources in their daily lives are encouraged to attend.

“One of my personal goals [for the event] is to show people how comfortable people are living in the natural world,” Anderson said.

Anderson, one of two year-round residents, first heard about the preserve when looking for a place to continue her sustainability studies three years ago.

That’s when she met Eustace Conway, founder and director since 1987.

A former Appalachian professor, Conway raised money to purchase the land for the preserve by using profits from tepee workshops.

“Tepees are not indigenous to the Eastern United States,” Anderson said. “They’re like thin membranes between you and your surrounding environment. They get people one step closer to the outdoors.”

A tepee workshop will be held Saturday to teach people how to set up, take down and maintain a tepee.
Three years ago, Butler was one of the people who attended the workshop.

Today, he lives in a tepee.

Butler shares his love of the outdoors by volunteering at the preservation, and at the Open House, he will hold a bee-keeping workshop.

By providing a general understanding of the role of bees and the structure of a beehive, Butler hopes attendees will become more aware of how closely bees are tied to the production of human food.

Butler said honeybees directly pollinate one out of three bites of our food, and Anderson knows this from personal experience.

Eating wild honey from the beehives on the preserve has always been one of her favorite activities.

Jessica C. Jordan, the Turtle Island Preserve chef, has had quite a long time to perfect many basic survival skills and trades.

She has been living at the preserve since she was three years old.

“[Cooking over an open hearth] takes a lot more energy [than modern day cooking] because you have to chop the firewood, build the fire and watch out for heat control so nothing will spark up,” she said.

Jordan gardens to produce healthy, organic foods, including beans, cucumbers and tomatoes. 

In addition, she spends time working with the animals and using goat milk to make goat yogurt.

“You can be self-sustainable,” Jordan said. “You can live simply and live happily this way.”

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