The Wilson family knew only one person in Maine when they bought their homestead in Aroostook County: an off-grid YouTuber whose videos had helped them decide to leave their home in Alaska.
Seven months have passed since Robert and Crystal Wilson, their two teenagers Ava and Walker, and several cats and dogs drove across the country to build an off-grid cabin in Maine. The journey hasn’t been easy, but they’ve found a community of supportive homesteaders and people living off the grid.
The Wilsons are part of a wave of homesteaders heading into northern Maine since the pandemic and before. Their story shows the role social media can play in how and why people move to the state.
The family left their home in North Carolina 10 years ago for Robert to take a grocery store butcher job in Ketchikan, a city on an island at the southeastern tip of Alaska’s panhandle. He’s worked as a butcher since he was a teenager, learning how to process entire animal carcasses and wild game.
At the time, Alaska was popular on YouTube channels and television shows, and the family felt called to its wildness. Robert said the sudden death of a friend also pushed him to take a risk.
His new employer supplied meat to local logging and fishing camps, where Robert met a logger from Maine who said the two states were similar aside from the rain. More than 12 feet can fall each year in that temperate rainforest, or nearly daily precipitation. The Alaskan panhandle is also several growing zones warmer than Aroostook County.
Food and supplies come to Ketchikan by barge, and supply chain disruptions in the pandemic’s early days made the family realize how fragile their access to food was.
“That really pushed us to make the decision to try to go back to the old ways of homesteading,” he said. So did their desire to have a simpler life, know where their food came from and get around without a long ferry ride.
It would be difficult to homestead on the island, where topsoil is thin and the dampness causes livestock hooves to rot.
But the family had already started researching land in Maine, drawn by more affordable prices and less restrictive building codes in the unorganized territories. Google searches told them the state is one of the best places to start a homestead.
“That also helped us make the decision,”’ he said. “The freedom you have to just move up here and start a homestead.”
Crystal said they likely would have ended up in Maine even without social media. But a year ago, they bought a 27-acre property in Smyrna Mills that they first saw on YouTube.
Andrew Mooers, a real estate agent in Aroostook, has more than 24,000 followers on his YouTube channel promoting the area. He said he’s seen people coming to the area to homestead for decades, but sales have stayed higher than ever since the pandemic.
Most of his buyers are from out of state or other countries, often attracted by the videos he makes about available properties and what it’s like to live in the area. They’re drawn by low crime rates, more affordable land, looser zoning, closeknit communities and the idea of a rural lifestyle.
“You know they work when you get hundreds of views,” Mooers said of his videos. He considers the clips showing everyday life and interviewing local residents to be the most important influence on people’s decisions to buy in Maine.
It’s working: Aroostook County’s population grew 0.4 percent between April 2020 and July 2023, from 67,099 to 67,351, according to the latest available data from the U.S. Census Bureau. That may look like a small number, but the county had been losing thousands of residents each decade since the 1960s.
In June, the Wilsons and their five pets drove across the country to their new home, bought a 30-foot camper to live in and started their cabin. Robert had never built a house before; he and a contractor drew a design on a napkin and got to work, he said.
The family started a YouTube channel of their own in mid-December to document their progress and show friends and family back home that they “aren’t crazy,” Robert said. It’s attracted 1,400-plus followers already. They’re also hoping it will help prospective homesteaders like themselves and show people what hard work can accomplish.
Their handful of videos are honest about how difficult it’s been: the cost of clearing land and starting an off-grid homestead, a long timelapse of cabin construction, their likes and dislikes about the lifestyle and why they moved in the first place.
The four lived packed in the camper with their pets for almost six months while rushing to finish the cabin by winter. It was hotter than they expected and the bugs were biting. Both adult Wilsons also work full time – Robert has brought his butchering skills to the local Hannaford – leaving limited time for construction.
They have wondered if they made a mistake; they have thought about giving up.
“It’s not always as easy or fun as social media makes it seem,” Crystal said. “It’s a crazy amount of work, exhausting and so stressful at times. Our family gets through those hard times by supporting each other and reminding each other that it’s all going to be worth it in the end.”
Still, they’ve found a close and mostly welcoming local community well-populated with other homesteaders and people living off the grid.
In November, Robert had a type of serious heart attack called a “widowmaker.” People who barely knew the family showed up to help as he recovered.
The family slowed down their work after his heart attack, and are now renting in Houlton while they finish the inside of the cabin with hopes to move in this spring. Next on the list is to build a barn, start a garden and get some livestock.
Though YouTube has been instrumental in their lives, the Wilsons are spending the winter finding books on homesteading so they’ll have a permanent library to pass on to their teenagers. The kids are coming around to life in Maine too — their 18-year-old daughter is interested in learning taxidermy, a craft she also saw on YouTube.
The biggest adjustment? Maine’s biting insects.
“Maine, y’all have some summer bugs, I’ll tell you that,” Robert said.
