I’ve heard lots of stories of alternative lifestyles featuring dramatic life and career changes here in the mountains in the past 20 years, and have written about some of them: PhDs becoming goat breeders, librarians becoming bee-keepers, advertising agents becoming Christmas tree farmers, major record label moguls moving to the woods, rock stars writing children’s books, computer business owners turned organic gardeners, NASA pilots becoming Buddhists, real estate barons becoming world peace advocates and nature photographers .... But I’ve got the best one.

Nestled deep in the woods of Little Canada in the Tuckaseegee community of Jackson County, Jerry and Doreyl Ammons Cain are living, permanently, in a Mongolian-style yurt, which, in essence, is a large, round tent.

Designed and used in eastern Asia by nomadic Mongolian herdsmen, “yurts” (meaning “home” or “house”) are a conveniently portable shelter that can be assembled and moved easily and quickly as situations and weather demand. In Asia the yurts are usually made from animal hides.

In the case of the Cains, the eight-sided, 20-foot diameter yurts are made from heavy cotton cloth. Something that weathers well here in the wet, windy climate of the Southern Appalachians.

“When Jerry and I first met,” says Doreyl, “we spent the first year getting to know each other by hiking and camping all over the Smokies. I’m sure we spent more time in the woods and on the trails of these mountains during that year than at home or at work. We loved being outdoors in wild nature, and it was during that time that we began to think about how we could literally make a life for ourselves in the woods.”

And a little more than six years later, this is just what Jerry and Doreyl Cain are doing: camping out, permanently, in the woods of Jackson County. And who would have thought that a schooled engineer, computer programmer and land titles officer from Florida and a bio-medical illustrator and Special Projects Director for the University of Southern California School of Medicine would meet, get married, and make such radical changes in lifestyles and careers?

The Cains, however, have embraced this new visionary life and have dug in for the long haul — working on their 25 acres in the Tuckaseegee community with an eye on self-sufficiency and education as a means of taking their vision of “living in harmony with nature” into the immediate, if not indefinite, future.

“In 1994, I went on an extended six-month vacation to Colorado. After which, I returned home to Tampa, sold my house and all my holdings and belongings and moved to the Highlands/Franklin area of Jackson County, sight unseen, with the idea of leaving my old life behind, yet having no idea as to what I was going to do next,” says Jerry.

It was here that Jerry met Doreyl (who had returned to Western North Carolina after having lived in California for almost 30 years), spent a year hiking and camping in the WNC mountains, was married (1996), moved to Waynesville, started a small graphics business called “Visual Media” (1997) and began looking for land. A member of a local Toastmasters group introduced Jerry and Doreyl to the idea of yurts by lending them a video of a PBS program titled, “The Silk Road,” based on the nomadic lives of Mongolian peoples in Siberia.

They say they must have watched it a dozen times before making the decision to try and carve out a low-impact life for themselves here in the mountains of WNC that would also support their “addiction” to hiking and camping.

“It’s been my dream to live on the land ever since I came back to Jackson County in 1989 to start Catch The Spirit of Appalachia with my sister Amy,” says Doreyl. “I grew up here in the Little Canada community before moving to South Carolina at the age of 16 and then to California. My family are Ammonses on my father’s side and Owenses on my mother’s from over on Wolf Mountain, where I was born. My dad was born on Ammons Mountain over at the head of Grassy Creek, where my grandpa Tom Ammons owned about 100 acres that had been in the family for some time. My grandma on my mother’s side is Cherokee, so our family has a long, ethnic history here in WNC.

“When I was 18, I moved to California, lived there for 30 years and raised two sons. I started out at the USC School of Medicine in pre-med, but ended up with degrees in medical illustration and graphics design. In the years that followed, I worked as an illustrator doing storyboarding for the film industry, worked for the Pasadena Foundation for Medical Research (cancer), was Special Projects Director for the USC School of Medicine, worked for Karyx Corporation doing animation for the making of medical videos, and started an advertising agency — the first medical ad agency in Southern California — called Creative Endeavors.

“About 12 years ago, while still living in California, I began having reccurring dreams about coming back to the mountains and being up at the post office in Tuckaseegee welcoming people home. Inspired by these dreams, I came back to Jackson County to see what was going on, after having been away for 30 years. I met my sister (who was then living in Chicago) here in town (Sylva), and, immediately, was signed up by Ron Waldrop to speak to all the English classes at Smoky Mountain High about my sister’s first novel, Retter, which was about our grandmother and about growing up in the mountains during a different era. That visit prompted my moving back in 1989, at which time my sister Amy and I started “Catch the Spirit of Appalachia,” an educational enterprise designed to teach children about the history and culture of Southern Appalachia and at the same time to encourage their personal creativity. CSA has been growing and thriving now for 12 years, and Amy and I have kept very busy working in the schools here in the mountains and across the state. So, this is a little bit of my background and how I came to be back in WNC.”

Even with diverse and different backgrounds, both Jerry and Doreyl bring their effusive and made-for-the-modern-world talents to their new “camping” life in the woods. They have named their place, located just off N.C. 281 (Canada Road) in Little Canada, “Nature’s Home.”

“We are really just caretakers here,” says Jerry. “While we’ve made this our home, it really belongs to nature. Our mission statement for Nature’s Home is to have a tranquil place where people can connect with nature, relieve stress and to try and teach children to respect and understand rather than fear nature. We have worked here on this piece of land for the past year-and-a-half with respect and a certain sensitivity in going about making any changes to the natural environment. This land has never been lived on, as far as we know, in terms of human habitation, and so we are walking gently here as we landscape and build for ourselves and those who visit.”

During the course of the past year-and-a-half, Jerry and Doreyl have worked ceaselessly in constructing not only a yurt for themselves to live in, but two additional yurts with all the comforts of home, which are rented out weekly or on weekends to anyone interested in a little consciousness-raising R&R in the woods. Along with the yurts, the couple has also cleared several nature trails where trees, shrubs and native plants are identified with appropriate artistic signage, and created camping and council fire areas for group camping and/or community gatherings that feature Doreyl’s sister Amy’s mountain tales.
These additions, along with the beginnings of an organically composted hydroponic garden system, active beehives, and a general permaculture approach (gray water recycling, composting toilets, planting trees, shrubs and native perennial plants for food) to creating a sustainable and self-sufficient environment for simple, low-impact living, make up the present “Nature’s Home” homestead.

Unlike other come-lately owners of large tracts of property heard trying to defend their ambiguous positions and sense of self-identity in relation to the Jackson County community as well as the difficult dovetailing of land preservation and development in the Smokies, Doreyl and Jerry Cain are clear on their position. There are no loopholes, hidden agendas, clever word-bending sales pitches, or smoke screens whereas the D word or land preservation issues are concerned.

“Our enterprise here at Nature’s Home is not about exploitation or profit, but about sustainability, preservation, enhancement, self-sufficiency and education. While we are barely making ends meet from a financial point of view, from a health and creative standpoint, we are living a luxurious life,” says Jerry as we sit inside their private yurt listening to the thunder of an oncoming summer storm making its way across Bear Lake to the east.

“We are very happy here living such a simple life in such a quiet and beautiful place side by side with an abundance of wildlife. And I believe that this sort of thing should be shared. Knowledge of the natural world is a valuable resource for human consciousness, and it’s being lost to each successive generation that is growing up with values that are more centered on the accumulation of material possessions than notions of sustainability and balance.”

Only minutes later, a bolt of lightning would strike the small graywater re-circulation pond just a few yards from the yurt, burning phone lines, damaging the power system on the property and all electrical and computerized equipment in the yurt, making a rather frightening yet emphatic punctuation to Jerry’s statement!

“In a way,” continues Jerry, before getting up, very calmly and matter-of-factly, to go outside and appraise the damage from the lightning strike, “everything both Doreyl and I have done throughout the years has led up to the work we’re doing now. Doreyl’s national awards for her art work and design are being utilized, now, in her sign-making, her identification labels for trees, and designing ads and brochures. My work as a Tai Chi instructor over the past 15 years is now being played out here in this place as I literally and practically attempt to ‘get into harmony with your environment’ — which is the literal translation of the words tai chi. They key word, here, is ‘harmony.’ And that is what we try to impart to our visitors.”

Having spent five-and-a-half years living in tipis and a cabin no bigger than one of their yurts, I can identify, heavily, with the lifestyle Jerry and Doreyl Cain have taken on for themselves. And from where I stand, they are doing it right. With right attitude, to coin a Taoist phrase, and with humility and yet at the same time with great courage. My own life-in-the-woods was lived during my late 20s and early 30s. Instead of looking for a more comfortable lifestyle and livelihood at middle age — which one would expect — Jerry and Doreyl Cain have opted for a lifestyle that would test the endurance and fortitude of couples half their age! And their ambitious creativeness abounds!

And the future for Nature’s Home? There are plans for two more group camping areas; two artist-retreat tree houses up in the high gap amongst the big tulip poplar trees; construction of one more yurt (bringing the total to four); a big lens observatory platform up at the top of the ridge for star gazing (another interest and area of expertise for Jerry); a hydroponic greenhouse/gardening operation using aquaculture and growing fish (talapia) to complement the already-existing hillside gardens; expanding and adding more walking and nature trails; and continued planting of fruit and nut trees and edible berry bushes as part of their permacultural practices embracing sustainability. If Jerry and Doreyl have been busy this past year, they’re going to be busier in the year to come!

“It’s been hard, says Doreyl, “but I’ve loved every minute of it! This has been a dream of mine since I was a little girl growing up here in these mountains. And now I’m watching as that dream becomes a reality. They say be careful what you ask for. Well, I’ve wanted this, and now, with Jerry, I’m participating in the creation of this dream. This, I believe, is what life is all about. For me, and I think I can speak for Jerry, too, we have found our happiness, our bliss, and our true home, which is in nature.”

For more information about Nature’s Home, yurt residencies or tours, call. 828-293-2239 or write c/o PO Box 339/Tuckaseegee, NC128783 or email. doreyl@yurt-adventures.com or check out the web page at www.yurt-adventures.com

For inquiries about Jerry Cain’s Tai Chi classes contact. Jerry Cain at 828-293-2239 or Southwestern Community College, Sylva, or the Franklin Fitness Center, Franklin.

 

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The Smoky Mountain News