On Whale Island: Notes from a Place I Never Meant to Leave

A memoir of a year spent on a deserted island off Nova Scotia, from the New York Times–bestselling author of My Old Man and the Sea.

After Daniel Hays and his father built a twenty-five-foot boat and sailed it around Cape Horn, he thought he’d finally put his wanderlust to rest. He bought a house, took a job, and got married. But as it turned out, in the “real world,” he just felt lost.

Yearning to escape civilization and find a new adventure, he bought an island off the coast of Nova Scotia; built a tiny house; packed up his wife and stepson, two dogs, and three boatloads of supplies; and moved there.

This is the true story of fulfilling a fantasy: to live by your own rules and your own wits. Taking Thoreau’s ideal of self-sufficiency to heart, Daniel generates electricity from solar power and a terrifying windmill, funnels rainwater for their showers, creates a toilet seat out of a whale vertebra, and strings their bed up on pulleys so that by day it can be lifted out of the way. For him, every morning is a wonder and every storm a blood-coursing thrill.

But while Daniel loves this simple life in the wilderness, his wife longs for the world they left behind, and his spirited stepson is feeling isolated. Soon, their Swiss Family Robinson existence becomes a vision only Daniel can see.

Funny, tender, and fascinating, filled with the details of an unconventional life, this is the story of how the Hays family lived on Whale Island, and how, finally, they had to leave.

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