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Grace Brogan and John Kamman live in a yurt. 


It's a squat round structure with lattice walls, a dome skylight and a few layers of canvas over the whole thing — think of a tent with stiff walls. Tents are great in the summer, but this is winter. In northern Minnesota. 

Why would two employed people with three master's degrees between them choose to live with only a quarter-inch of material between themselves and the elements? And how do they stay warm?

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To find out, I drove a dozen miles north of Bemidji on a recent morning and hiked a quarter-mile across a snowy field. It was not yet dawn, and from the outside, the yurt's vinyl windows glowed with firelight.


Inside, a small home's worth of furnishings lined the circular wall. A calm mutt named Mabel loitered near the crackling wood stove. The yurt was actually a really nice place to be. 


Grace, 29, works for Renewing the Countryside, a rural development and food systems nonprofit. John, 31, works for Ecology Project International —  an organization that partners high school students with environmental scientists. Both work from the yurt via high-speed Internet, their only connection to the grid.

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They are not hermits. They drive into town when they need to, and even flew to Mexico on business. "I don't want us to operate under the delusion that we're saving the planet by living in a yurt," John said. "For me, it's just fun to problem-solve our daily lives."


We sat down to talk about life in a yurt. 


Most people go to college so they can afford certain modern luxuries, like electricity and a house with solid walls.

So why would Grace and John choose to live in an off-the-grid yurt? 


The yurt is 24 feet across, covering roughly 450 square feet. To build a simple cabin with those dimensions would be relatively inexpensive.


The couple moved to their Minnesota yurt from Missoula, Mont., in May of 2013. They hoped for mild weather and got the coldest winter of either of their lifetimes. By now they have some experience staying warm. 

But with temperatures plummeting every time the fire dims, how do they sleep comfortably?


Yurts don't generally come with septic systems, so Grace and John have an outhouse. In the winter, the seat lid is cold enough to build up a thick layer of frost.

With no running water, how do they keep clean? 

After a year and a half, do they recommend yurt living? 

Gallery

John Enger

Author

A Bemidji-area couple want a house with fixed walls, someday. For now, they enjoy a life of hands-on problem solving in a sort-of tent.

Even in the frozen North, a yurt's so good

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