It’s officially our last day at the lucky cabin
(June 14, 2024)
Since the deal is done, here are the details of what went down.
In 2019, we bought the 3 acres for 4500 cash. We were living in College Station, TX at the time, and left it all behind to live off grid on a mountain. We packed up our belongings and all of our animals, and hit the road to Little Alaska.
When we arrived, the property was severely overgrown and hadn’t been touched in decades. There were signs of old logging roads, but most of the mountain was owned by the elk and the deer.
Our contract gave us permission to select 3 acres pretty much anywhere on the 106 acre tract, so we set up in the area where the school bus and the cabins are now. In order to transfer the deed into our name though, a survey needed to be conducted on both parcels. The land owner agreed to setup the survey since they knew someone in the business (it’s incredibly difficult to get a survey in our area)
Before the survey was conducted, something happened to the land owner that had him “tied up” for two years. There was no way for me to communicate with him, and our survey was never conducted. I was understanding of his situation, and we had no issues utilizing our 3 acres at any point during our time up there.
During these two years, we developed the homestead, adopted wild horses, built a greenhouse, started our gardens, and turned that school bus into a beautiful mountain oasis. I also started building my first log cabin, and had roughly 20 trees processed and ready to build.
Living such a lifestyle allowed us to save up enough money for an investment property in town, which we are so grateful for because it literally saved our lives….
Shortly after we purchased this ancient foreclosure home in Las Vegas, the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon fire struck New Mexico. Nearly half of the state burnt down, including our 3 acres in Little Alaska. We lost our school bus, greenhouse, gardens, and thousands of irreplaceable items and memories that we had stored up there.
That bus was our home, and we had most of our stuff up there still. We were quick enough to get most of the animals safely to the house in town, but the horses escaped two days before the fire struck our canyon (smart animals, I hope they are okay)
Nearly 70% of the 106 acre parcel was completely roasted, and our dreams of building our cabin were crushed. The land owner entered a claim with FEMA for fire damage, and I was told that we couldn’t finalize the survey/deed until he settled his claim. Despite the deed delay, we still had every right to use our property and there was still never an issue with the landowner.
We used the property recreationally for the next year, but didn’t have the motivation to build another cabin until Will Survives showed up.
Having Will out here changed everything… He brought so much positivity to this incredibly depressing patch of burnt trees. We will always be grateful for Will and Jesse (and yes, they were completely aware of the land situation. There were actually discussions of getting Will his own piece of property when the surveys were finally conducted)
We had an epic journey up here for 7 months building this cabin, but unfortunately things went south with the land deal. The landowner demanded a percentage of our KZfaq profits, and used the survey/deed as collateral. There were threats made by the land owner that were uncalled for, which created an unpredictable environment for Willy. He made an incredibly wise decision to pursue an opportunity with Nate Petrosky, and we are so proud of everything he has accomplished. It’s been an honor meeting you dude!
I had every right to be on that property, and I would never kick Will off my land. He will always have a home where we are! Could we have could for the property in court? Sure. Could we have been petty and burnt down the cabins? Maybe. There’s a million negative actions that we could’ve taken in this situation, but we chose to approach the situation peacefully and avoid the stress of an unnecessary battle.
The land owner was apologetic for what was said and how things were handled. They were willing to sit down with us and work out a resolution, which was initially supposed to be a completed survey paid by them. Unfortunately the local land laws changed after the forest fire which prevented the subdivision of land in our region.
Since the property transfer was going to become its own legal mess, the land owner offered to pay us double of what we paid for the land if we walked away. At first we were against this decision, but soon realized that we could never work up here again without Will Survives. We took their offer, and are currently looking for a new property.
Everything happens for a reason, and we are all better off because of it. There are big things in the works here at the lucky house… stay tuned!