Kate Wentworth had what some would consider a dream life in the Virgin Islands for three years after college. Now, at 26, she’s bracing for a winter in a yurt in York County without electricity or running water. We called her up to find out what it was about the endless Caribbean summer that drove her to seek out endless winter.
ISLAND TIME: What was Wentworth doing in the Virgin Islands? Her dad has a search and rescue business on St. Thomas. She went down to visit a few times and then “my round-trip flight ended up being a one-way.” She worked for the National Park Service on a cleanup and restoration effort on Hassel Island.
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PARADISE LOST, INTENTIONALLY: Why leave? “I think maybe it was just living on an island that was 13 miles long (and had nine residents),” she said. “And getting tired of going to the beach.” But that sounds glorious. “I just saw a pattern developing, and I didn’t want to be a part of it,” she said. A pattern of stagnation. Ever since she finished college (she studied graphic design at the New England Institute of Art in Brookline, Massachusetts) she’s been shaking things up for herself.
SHAKE IT OFF (OR UP): She followed up her time in the Virgin Islands with a stint in Wisconsin, harvesting apples. Then there was an internship at the Turtle Island Preserve and education center in Boone, North Carolina. That didn’t last the full 14 months as scheduled; she had a disagreement with Eustace Conway, profiled by Elizabeth Gilbert in her pre-“Eat, Pray, Love” book, “The Last American Man,” during a serious cold snap when she was freezing. “I asked him for a few pieces of firewood and he gave me a big lecture on how our ancestors survived.” Then it was off to live with a boyfriend in a tepee in the Smoky Mountains. After they broke up, “I was like, ‘I am not done living in the woods or whatever it is I’m doing.’ ”
AND WHAT IS THAT? Trying to get back to basics. “Self-healing, growth, work on me,” she said. “I’m just trying to get in touch with my ancestral self.”
NOT SHIRLEY MACLAINE STYLE: Like past lives? Not exactly. Wentworth wants to get a feel for how her ancestors lived. The sight of “kids getting off the school bus with their phones in their hands, looking down like zombies” appalls her. “We don’t need this technology.” Although, it is useful for finding yurts. It was an ad she posted on Craigslist.org, offering labor in trade for free living in a cabin, that led her to the yurt.
IS IT COLD INSIDE? Generally the yurt stays cozy, thanks to the wood stove, which occasionally doubles as a cook top. (Wentworth worked out an arrangement with the landowners: She can help herself to any wood that’s already fallen, and that’s plentiful on the property). She also uses a propane stove for cooking. But during “two days of sideways rain” recently, her dog, a chow mix named Bruiser, let himself out at night and didn’t close the “door” behind him, soaking the carpets. She didn’t realize until she stepped on them. “Soggy wet socks is the last thing you want in the morning.”
MAKING FUN: Friends let her shower at their places once or twice a week in exchange for labor. Like mucking out horse stalls. She gets “ridiculed a lot for living the way I do.” How so? “They call me a granola at work,” she said. It took her awhile to figure that out; she didn’t realize it was a gently mocking term. That’s cool, though: “I find it funny because I love granola. I eat it every day.”
LIGHTS OUT: At night she uses her head lamp and a battery-operated lantern, but generally relies on candlelight. “I find I can get candles at Goodwill for like 25 cents.”
A STITCH IN TIME: How does a 21st-century 26-year-old pass the time in a yurt? Reading, hanging out with Bruiser and doing a lot of knitting. Her grandmother taught her how when she was a child. Right now she only knows how to make hats, handbags and scarves, but she’s equipped herself with books to take her skills to sweater-making level: “Because it’s going to be a long winter.”
DELIVERY WOMAN: There’s no rent on the yurt, but she’s got to eat. Wentworth pays the bills with a part-time job making deliveries for Long Horn Horse & Pet Supply. This takes her out on Maine’s back roads, sometimes delivering to farms. “I love making those connections,” she said. Last summer, she worked on an organic farm in Buxton.
FARM FUTURES: Is she thinking of going into farming when the yurt experiment has played out? Having her own herd of sheep or alpaca for wool would be nice someday, she says. But not quite yet: “Maine is so big,” she said. “The world is so big.” Her mother moved around a lot when she was a kid. “Maybe that’s why I have this wanderlust,” she said. “I want to see everything and do everything, and I don’t think there is enough time in the world to do everything I want to do.”
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