I spent two weeks isolated in a hut in Norway. This is what I learnt about life

The cabin was all wood and windows, lumber and light. Perched on top of a hill that appeared to be made entirely of trees, it had walls as dark as chocolate and cherry-red window frames. A small metal chimney poked from its slate roof. I’d been hiking for two hours, the last bit a sweaty, never-ending uphill slog, when the forest trail I’d been following suddenly petered out in a clearing. The air around me brightened and there it was, my little home away from home. I was instantly smitten.

The author’s time in the hut gave her a renewed outlook on life. Credit:

I had a vague desire to try out a simple, back-to-nature existence, to find out if I was capable of chopping wood and carrying water and being utterly alone in nature for more than a few days. Then, trawling online one lazy afternoon, I found this little cabin. It was in southern Norway, had been built by loggers in the 1940s and had recently become a Scout hut; the Scouts now rented it out to travellers when they weren’t using it.

I was still breathing hard when I unlocked the cabin’s heavy wooden door and pulled it open. Inside, I dropped my backpack on the dusty wooden floor and surveyed my new abode. The single room, dominated by an ancient wood-burning stove, was the epitome of simplicity and everything I’d hoped for, all at once.

There was no electricity, no running water. No phone reception or internet connection. Candles were provided, and I’d brought a head-torch out of habit, but I figured I wouldn’t need either; at this time of year, the sun was setting well after my bedtime each night.

Orientation done, I thought: a cup of tea would be nice. Then, a realisation: to make tea, one needs water. I’d have to walk to the lake, a downhill kilometre away, to fetch water for the next day or two. The day was warm, so I tossed my swimsuit into a daypack, picked up two plastic jerrycans I’d seen by the door and set off.

At the lake, I lowered myself into the cool water, suddenly noticing how exhausted I was, how anxious I’d felt all day about the prospect of spending two whole weeks alone. I swam across the smooth water, then floated on my back for a while, looking up at a world of sky. My body smiled all over. Back on land, I lay on a smooth rock to dry off in the late afternoon sun before shrugging on my clothes and filling the jerrycans in preparation for the 10-minute walk back to the cabin.

As soon as I started walking, however, I started to lose my bearings. I didn’t recognise any of the trees or rocks around me. In all my excitement, I hadn’t paid attention to where I was going, or how I was going to get back. Now I was going to perish in the very place I’d fantasised about.

I sat down on a log and suddenly remembered something a Scout leader had once told me (it seemed apt): in a crisis, Scouts always take action. I might have been tired, weighed down by two water containers and alone in a totally unfamiliar environment, but I could do something. I took a deep breath, then studied the hand-drawn map I’d found in the cabin and stuffed in my pocket, just in case. There was a second dotted line on it, marking a longer but more distinct trail than the one I’d taken earlier. I retraced my steps, found the longer trail and eventually spied, through those spindly birch trees, my little cabin.

My days fell into a simple, satisfying routine. The fire was a living thing I coaxed alive every morning with offerings of kindling I’d whittled with my Swiss Army knife and whispered awake with my breath at various times during the day. I watched it, learnt to read its rhythms, listened for the tell-tale crackles that told me it was happy. Then I’d boil water for tea and make porridge for breakfast and sit outside to eat and wash the dishes in a basin of water. After that, I’d find something useful to do, like mending my clothes, worn from months of constant travel, or cleaning the cabin’s windows, or splitting logs with an axe.

With my morning chores done and my next meal hours away, I had unlimited, uninterrupted time to read, write, draw and just listen to the birds and the wind rustling the tops of the trees. I collected leaves and stones to decorate the window sills, picked wild strawberries and blueberries to snack on, swam every day and paddled a canoe around the lake.

One evening, I lit a few candles and sat at the table to watch a storm approach from the valley below. The wind howled, and my little cabin shook and creaked like an old sailing ship built to withstand anything nature could throw at it, and I had an overwhelming feeling of safety. Another night, I braved the elements to run outside and danced naked in the summer rain.

I didn’t once feel lonely, or afraid. I can’t remember ever feeling so content.

When it was time to shoulder my backpack and return to civilisation, I locked the door behind me and took one last look at my cabin. In just two weeks, it had recalibrated me, become my home in some true way. And brought me home to myself. I felt more grounded in my body, in my life, than I had in a long time. More tuned in to the real world, after being unplugged from the human-centric one for a while. As I walked away from it, something inside me quietly decided: I want to live like this.

Edited extract from Tiny: A Memoir About Love, Letting Go and a Very Small House (Hardie Grant Explore) by Louise Southerden, out now.

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