The latest cover story in the History Channel’s magazine profiles “Mountain Men: Living Off the Land.” The article is not yet posted online, but the following excerpt opens the piece.
“What this land means for me is life. It’s about existence,” says Eustace Conway. “This is home.” From the time he was 16 years old, Conway has seen his hoe expand to include more than 500 acres in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Triplett, N.C. This plot of land, which he calls Turtle Island Preserve, is a sanctuary for Conway and others who have carved out a self-sufficient way of life in the wilderness, deliberately cut off from the trappings of modern society. The inhabitants of Turtle Island Preserve embrace a simpler life in which they rely as much as possible on the land and its resources to survive.
The article says “Conway’s most serious challenge” in the first season of the “Mountain Men” television program “arose when a lien was placed on his property” The article offers nothing about Conway’s battles with Watauga County regulators. You can learn that story here, as documented by Carolina Journal‘s Don Carrington. (Conway is featured in the second photo to the right.)
BOONE — Watauga County mountain man Eustace Conway’s passion for teaching primitive living came to a sudden halt in October when local government officials shut down his operation, citing safety and health concerns.
After receiving a tip that Conway had built structures without a permit, Watauga County Planning and Inspections Director Joe Furman obtained an administrative search warrant to inspect the roughly two dozen buildings and structures at Turtle Island Preserve, Conway’s 500-plus acre retreat in the mountains east of Boone. In September, Furman assembled a team of building inspectors, health department officials, a tax assessor, and sheriff’s deputies who made a surprise visit to the site. Conway refers to the inspection as a “raid.”
The following month, local officials ordered Conway to stop hosting visitors and interns at Turtle Island Preserve until he obtains several permits.
Conway appears to have the sympathy of state building code regulators and Watauga County health officials, but he faces a series of legal and regulatory barriers if he wants to keep Turtle Island Preserve open to the public.
Conway is not your average regulatory scofflaw. He was the subject of a 2002 book titled The Last American Man and co-starred in the History Channel’s 2012 series “Mountain Men.”
But he also has become entangled in a maze of modern-day rules and codes that both make no sense and cannot be applied consistently within the primitive environment he is working to preserve. He believes that if he followed the building and health codes to the letter, they would undermine the reason for Turtle Island’s existence.
