La Conner Weekly News - Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper

Given national and international news, you may be thinking that it would be great to build a self-sufficient cabin in remote northeastern Washington.

My grandfather did that, about 120 years ago. However, my grandparents’ cabin wasn’t very comfortable by today’s standards. They had to collect firewood to cook. The outhouse was a few hundred feet away from the main house, so grandchildren were warned about bears prior to bedtime. One might think that was just grandparents having fun at their grandchildren’s expense, but it wasn’t. There were bears! They did eventually get grid ele...