Back Out at the Outback

The parents of a dear friend of ours have a small sheep farm out east of Innisfail, and last June, they invited us to join them out there for a (physically distanced) weekend. Shari and Dave and their family stayed in their trailer, but Bonar and Sandra put us up in a lovely cabin he built close to their house. They call it The Outback (on account of it being, you know, out back) and it is one of the coziest and most delightful places I have ever stayed in. As we drove away, I regretted not having taken more pictures of it. 

So when they invited us back again for a similarly distanced Victoria Day weekend, I leapt at the opportunity to both get out of the city and to try to document this wonderful place.

The Outback is just behind the house at the Far Side, Bonar and Sandra's farm. The Far Side name came around because many of the structures built by the original owners were neither level nor square, causing Bonar to observe the place was "as crooked as a Far Side cartoon." 

He built the Outback as a place to house guests, and a significant portion of it was built with salvaged, scrounged, recovered or recycled materials. For instance, the siding was simply left over from an enormous 'holiday home' built in Canmore, and Bonar was asked if he might have any use for it as it was going to be thrown out otherwise.

The stones used around the door and fireplace backing were leftover from another building on a property adjacent to their own, and the flooring came from a high school gymnasium that was scheduled to be demolished.

The beds are homemade as well, using trees that were felled for utility access but never cleaned up. The step on the ladder going to the upper bunk is actually made from the rib-bone of a cow, and the rawhide lashings were likewise made by Bonar himself.

Although there is electricity in the Outback (necessary for CPAP users such as myself), there is no plumbing. There is a portable toilet on a raised platform for nighttime business (not shown, but similar to this), and a basin for washing up, using water dipped from a 5-gallon pail. There is also a kettle for warming the water on wintry days. The view from the bathroom window is delightfully pastoral, no matter which angle you approach it from.

For heat, there is a tidy wood-burning stove in the corner, but they have also added a radiant electric heater which does a marvellous job of warming the space in no time whatsoever. (Which is almost a pity as a wood fire would have made the Outback even cozier during Sunday night's rain!)

Callbacks to agricultural heritage can be found throughout the cabin, from the Calgary Stampede posters on the wall to the recreation of the family brand in the floorboards. 

My favourite farmland element though is probably the hinges made from horseshoes on the Dutch door.

As cool as the Outback is, however, the very best thing about it is not its rusticated charm, nor its secure coziness, nor its recycled moxie; it is the quality of the people in its immediate vicinity, and the privilege of spending a cool but pleasant weekend with them.