France Benoit and Doug Ritchie have named their house ‘Le Refuge’ – The Refuge. It’s located on Madeleine Lake, about 25 km east of Yellowknife. It’s a cosy log house made out of recycled telephone poles and it’s not connected to Yellowknife’s power network. France and Doug live off the grid.
Photos by Levon Sevunts
France Benoit and Doug Ritchie have named their house ‘Le Refuge’ – The Refuge. It’s located on Madeleine Lake, about 25 km east of Yellowknife. It’s a cosy log house made out of recycled telephone poles and it’s not connected to Yellowknife’s power network. France and Doug live off the grid.
It takes a lot of wood to heat a house in the NWT’s sub-Arctic winters, especially if you’re not connected to the power network.
France and Doug are avid gardeners and grow a lot of their food. They’ve built this greenhouse to take advantage of the short but very intense growing season during long summer days.
Planning for the summer garden starts in the winter. France and Doug use intense growing lights and the warmth of their house to prepare seedlings for summer planting.
France and Doug use a slow-burning wood stove to heat their house and a specially designed fridge, which uses very little power, to keep their food fresh.
France and Doug use a slow-burning wood stove to heat their house and a specially designed fridge, which uses very little power, to keep their food fresh.
France and her husband Doug clear the brush around their house to protect it from forest fires.
Doug Ritchie cuts down trees around his log house to protect it from forest fires.
France and Doug are burning branches and brush to protect their log house from summer forest fires.
Doug takes a short break, felling trees is a tiring business even when you have a modern chain saw.
Born and raised in Armenia, Levon started his journalistic career in 1990, covering wars and civil strife in the Caucasus and Central Asia. In 1992, after the government in Armenia shut down the TV program he was working for, Levon immigrated to Canada. He learned English and eventually went back to journalism, working first in print and then in broadcasting. Levon’s journalistic assignments have taken him from the High Arctic to Sahara and the killing fields of Darfur, from the streets of Montreal to the snow-capped mountaintops of Hindu Kush in Afghanistan. He says, “But best of all, I’ve been privileged to tell the stories of hundreds of people who’ve generously opened up their homes, refugee tents and their hearts to me.”