Candlelight.
Close to nature. PHOTOS: SHAWNA FRANKLIN
Wood heat.
Shawna Franklin & Leon Sommé
VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY ORCAS ISLAND, WASHINGTON
Leon Sommé and Shawna Franklin, BCU kayaking coaches and owners of Body Boat Blade International, have matched their home life to the simplicity of their paddling trips. Leon says that because of the crises that are facing our world today, like global warming, “voluntary simplicity isn’t voluntary anymore.”
M
ost people don’t realize how noisy their refrigerator is. Or how much of their lei-
sure time they spend on the Internet, watching the television, or on the phone. When we get home we don’t have those
distractions so we can relax and enjoy being in the house, listening to the birds sing and the trees blowing in the wind. For years, we lived in a 12- by 12-foot wooden cabin—144 square feet, which Leon says was his true dream house! So we don’t have much room for possessions. We only have what we need which means four plates, four bowls, four knives and so on. We do have hundreds of books because we
love to read. We’ll often spend two hours a day with a good book. We love sea kayak expedi- tions because of how close we feel to nature and the way we live is an extension of that lifestyle. We run a kayaking store and school on Orcas
Island, Washington, so in the office we have electricity, but at home, candles provide our light, a woodstove provides our warmth, we have a well for our water, and a composting toilet with a fantastic view of our pond and the forest.
38 ADVENTURE KAYAK | SPRING 2010
Shawna is an artist so her linoleum block prints decorate the house and she’s made a beautiful glass tile mosaic around the woodstove. We’ve built a new house so that Shawna’s
82-year-old mother and sister, who has Down Syndrome, could come live with us. We couldn’t expect them to live like we do so they have electricity in their portion of the house, called the “power pod,” while the shared portion of the house (kitchen, dining room, living room and our upstairs bedroom) is still off the grid and as simple as possible. While we built the house we lived in the upstairs of our barn where we store our kayaks. Tat was really cozy and also off the grid. Trough our past lives as biologists and our
kayak expeditions we have come to appreciate how beautiful and fragile the planet and our lives are. It is because of this that we try to live a life that is rich in experiences, simple in what we need, and has as little impact as possible—so that we can continue to have opportunities spending time in a diverse, beautiful and un- tamed wilderness.—as told to Justine Curgenven
PHOTO: JUSTINE CURGENVEN
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