Vancouver author’s memoir describes 3-year sojourn in backwoods cabin

Spending the past pandemic year-and-a-half stuck inside a small east Vancouver apartment really didn’t faze author Stephen Altschuler. In the late 1970s, Altschuler opted for a stretch of self-imposed exile from the world of people that was much longer and much lonelier.

“I spent three years living in a cabin that was 12 by 16, and the only convenience was that the outhouse was attached,” he said. “After a while, that small space started looking like a whole universe to me.” 

Altschuler’s introspective journeys through the New Hampshire woods — and through his own searching psyche — are the subject of his poetic memoir “Into the Woods … and Beyond” (Sacajawea Press, $14.99) released earlier this year.

Altschuler said he grew up deeply introspective and prone to anxiety and depression. When he was in high school, the one pursuit that seemed to fit his introverted personality and bring out the best in him was that game of individual concentration and momentary perfection: golf.

“I think golf saved my life,” he said.

A Philadelphia native, Altschuler studied psychology in college, then was drawn to meditative Buddhist philosophy and Zen training. He worked both as a state-prison social worker and as a freelance features writer for Yankee magazine.

The former features writer also struck a deal with a local radio station to write and record his own five-minute, twice-weekly, autobiographical radio segment called “Backwoods Cabin.” It was up to Altschuler to raise his own sponsorships. He’d write and read ads for local stores on the air in exchange for food, equipment and, eventually, the wood stove of his dreams — which made life in the cabin a lot comfier. 

“It struck a chord, the show did, and people, including kids, would stop me in town, after recognizing my voice, to ask if I was ‘that Backwoods Cabin guy.’ It was fun to do,” Altschuler writes. It even made him feel like he was contributing to the community

The short segments he wrote for “Backwoods Cabin” supplied much of the material and structure for “Into the Woods … and Beyond,” he said, which is presented in 57 brief, bite-sized chapters.

Eventually, he got too comfortable being a hermit, and decided he’d better return to civilization before he could never come back, Altschuler said during an interview with The Columbian. Having tested his limits, calmed his anxieties and proved his resiliency, the deep introvert made another discovery: He missed people.

The final chapters of “Into the Woods … and Beyond” outline Altschuler’s return to city life, his marriage and his 2019 relocation to Southwest Washington. It skips over several spiritual books he wrote and published in the meantime, from “The Mindful Hiker” to “The Mindful Golfer: How to Lower Your Handicap while Raising your Consciousness.”