HUMANS 101

What 24 Days of ‘Primitive’ Living Taught Me

Modern life is way too easy, and that’s a huge health problem

In the old days — like 1940 — just getting by could be good exercise. Credit: Library of Congress

BRIDGER-TETON NATIONAL FOREST, WYOMING — Ample firewood is strewn across the wide, dry flood plain of Pacific Creek, just outside Grand Teton National Park. Three trips in different directions, returning each time with a bundle of dried-out former branches and beaver-hewn tree trunks, yields enough for tonight’s fire.

I’m not gonna lie: It was a bit of a workout, with all the bending, lifting and carrying. Not exercise, mind you, but part of a day’s “work” out here among towering conifers, miles from any store that might sell packaged firewood.

At least I didn’t have to chop it myself.

My wife and I and our dogs are near the end of a 24-day journey through Western states, seeking out remote campsites along rugged and sometimes barely navigable backroads where — horrors! — we often have no cell service. We’re roughing it, as they say, with our magically unfolding origami chairs and aluminum tables, propane-powered stoves, and onboard fridges electrified by solar panels connected to shoebox-size lithium batteries.

At the risk of sounding awfully privileged (as I type this into my 11-inch iPad Pro with detachable keyboard) the…