Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    On Whale Island: Notes from a Place I Never Meant to Leave
    Unavailable
    On Whale Island: Notes from a Place I Never Meant to Leave
    Unavailable
    On Whale Island: Notes from a Place I Never Meant to Leave
    Ebook221 pages5 hours

    On Whale Island: Notes from a Place I Never Meant to Leave

    By Daniel Hays

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    Listen to the audiobook instead

    About this ebook

    A memoir of a year spent on a deserted island off Nova Scotia, from the New York Times–bestselling author of My Old Man and the Sea.
     
    After Daniel Hays and his father built a twenty-five-foot boat and sailed it around Cape Horn, he thought he’d finally put his wanderlust to rest. He bought a house, took a job, and got married. But as it turned out, in the “real world,” he just felt lost.
     
    Yearning to escape civilization and find a new adventure, he bought an island off the coast of Nova Scotia; built a tiny house; packed up his wife and stepson, two dogs, and three boatloads of supplies; and moved there.
     
    This is the true story of fulfilling a fantasy: to live by your own rules and your own wits. Taking Thoreau’s ideal of self-sufficiency to heart, Daniel generates electricity from solar power and a terrifying windmill, funnels rainwater for their showers, creates a toilet seat out of a whale vertebra, and strings their bed up on pulleys so that by day it can be lifted out of the way. For him, every morning is a wonder and every storm a blood-coursing thrill.
     
    But while Daniel loves this simple life in the wilderness, his wife longs for the world they left behind, and his spirited stepson is feeling isolated. Soon, their Swiss Family Robinson existence becomes a vision only Daniel can see.
     
    Funny, tender, and fascinating, filled with the details of an unconventional life, this is the story of how the Hays family lived on Whale Island, and how, finally, they had to leave.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateMay 31, 2002
    ISBN9781565128095

    Related to On Whale Island

    Related ebooks

    Personal Memoirs For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Twisted Tales

      Oct 1, 2021

      Twisted Tales
      4 min read

    • Article

      Why Kate Spade's Life And Suicide Resonate With Women

      Jun 7, 2018

      Twelve hours after news broke that Kate Spade had taken her own life, the store that bears her name in the city where she was raised displayed a message intended to be as effervescent as the designer herself. A single blush pink rose lay on the sidew

      3 min read

    • Article

      Small Wonder

      Apr 1, 2020

      Small Wonder
      3 min read

    • Article

      The House In Winter

      Dec 20, 2022

      The House In Winter
      1 min read

    • Article

      My Father’s House

      Apr 25, 2023

      My Father’s House
      6 min read

    • Article

      Survival Food

      Dec 4, 2023

      Survival Food
      20 min read

    • Article

      My Tea Bag Caddy Collection

      May 21, 2019

      When you stop by my rural home, I will welcome you and most likely offer you a cup of tea. As you make your way to my kitchen table, I’ll put the kettle on and set out placemats, napkins, cups and saucers, a selection of tea bags, and perhaps a small

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Knocker-uppers

      Nov 1, 2022

      The Knocker-uppers
      8 min read

    • Article

      Snow Angel Mittens

      Nov 1, 2021

      THE WINTER OF 1933. Some remember that time as the depths of the Great Depression. But I remember it for something else. Life, as we knew it, had ground to a halt in our small town in the Blue Mountains of northeastern Oregon. When the bank failed,

      7 min read

    • Article

      Canyon Of Mystery

      Dec 4, 2021

      Black shiny ravens patrol the cliffs, swoop down and scold the approaching intruder—“Caw, caw, caw!” I try to communicate in ravenspeak that I’m here to visit, not to harm, as I descend into the ancient structure. The thick sandstone walls dampen all

      3 min read

    • Article

      It’s Come to This

      Sep 1, 2021

      It’s Come to This
      16 min read

    • Article

      Welcome

      Oct 7, 2021

      Welcome
      1 min read

    • Article

      The Shrink Next Door

      Nov 21, 2021

      The Shrink Next Door
      3 min read

    • Article

      Buck, Buck, Moose

      Feb 28, 2018

      Buck, Buck, Moose is the third offering from award-winning chef Hank Shaw and follows on from his earlier book Duck, Duck, Goose. Having already covered waterfowl, Hank has now turned his attention to another major staple of hunters across the world.

      2 min read

    • Article

      It’s A Kind Of Magic

      Jun 23, 2021

      It’s A Kind Of Magic
      4 min read

    • Article

      Someone Cares

      Sep 26, 2023

      Someone Cares
      2 min read

    • Article

      Angels in Bloom

      Feb 26, 2022

      Angels in Bloom
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Beautiful Unforeseen

      Sep 2, 2022

      The Beautiful Unforeseen
      9 min read

    • Article

      THE EDGE Of Ourselves

      Mar 22, 2024

      THE EDGE Of Ourselves
      7 min read

    • Article

      Hayley + The Clarence

      Sep 2, 2021

      Hayley + The Clarence
      13 min read

    • Article

      Damien Cave On Letting Go

      Aug 22, 2021

      When I was about four years old, after our cabin in the woods of New Mexico burned to ashes, my father decided to get me out of my mother’s orbit. Her drug habit was spiralling faster than his, so he threw me in a borrowed VW Kombi and stepped on the

      8 min read

    • Article

      Just Say Yes

      Jan 1, 2022

      Just Say Yes
      5 min read

    • Article

      Ten Years Gone

      Jun 9, 2021

      Ten Years Gone
      3 min read

    • Article

      My Renaissance

      Apr 25, 2019

      My Renaissance
      6 min read

    Reviews for On Whale Island

    3.5/5

    14 ratings2 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      A trio of husband, wife and preteen sell it all and move to an isolated island for a year - escaping the world and society at large - this diary-of-sorts really pulls you along. Daniel Hays shows himself, warts and all, and the struggles that landed them on the island and their time there, good and bad. Only very rarely does the writing get repetitive and self-aborbing - worth the read.
    • 3/5
      Amusing at times, and a few interesting insights. I must say that his wife had amazing fortitude.