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Eustace has been living in the woods for twenty years now. He makes, builds or kills anything he needs, so it's somewhat difficult to buy the guy a house gift. Still, my mama taught me never to visit anybody without bringing a present. This caused a dilemma: What do you give the man who has nothing? In the end, I decided to bring Eustace a jar of my father's homemade honey. I figured his traditional American heart would appreciate that—the fruits of the labor from a small family farm, etc. I thought it was a very intuitive gift. Something he might actually need.

Days later I drove up the twisted roads of the Blue Ridge Mountains towards his home. Eustace lives way over in the western corner of North Carolina, almost on the Tennessee border. He's only about twenty miles from the nearest Hardee's, but they're a dramatic twenty miles; once you get off the highway, you are in serious Appalachia. As the mountains get higher, the houses become tin-roof shacks, with yards full of fossilized appliances and ancient cars. "It might look like Deliverance to you," Eustace had warned, "but don't be scared." Hoping the locals weren't too enthusiastic about guns, I drove slowly and politely. I survived a series of convoluted dirt switchbacks, and then I was finally driving on Eustace Conway's property. There were his horses. There were his antique plows. And there were his rows and rows of goddamn beehives.

"I brought you something," I told Eustace and held out my gift.

He started laughing.

"It's honey," I said.

He hugged me. I hugged him right back, happy to be welcomed but thinking—as I have often thought before and since—This guy likes me, but he doesn't really need me.

Eustace Conway doesn't really need anything. He's transformed Turtle Island into something like a small, self-sufficient planet. It's a much more sophisticated compound than I had expected. I'd never visited Eustace before, so I was surprised to discover that he doesn't even live in a tepee anymore.

"After seventeen years in a tepee," he said, "I decided it was time to move up."

Now he lives in a toolshed.

There are other buildings on his land, though: a blacksmith shop, a handful of barns, a large open-air kitchen with wood-burning stoves, several log cabins for campers. He's cleared acres of pasture from his forest. He keeps horses, hogs, chickens, turkeys. There are gardens on his land, and roads. There are bridges, three of which he built in a single day. None of this was here ten years ago, but Eustace cleared, constructed and arranged every sturdy and ingenious piece of it.

Recently, a North Carolina anthropology professor heard about Eustace Conway. She heard there was this young guy living in the hills who farmed with mules. She heard he made his own roofing shingles, built cabins without nails, did his own blacksmith work. Fascinated, she sent an envoy up to Turtle Island to ask Eustace if he would come down the mountain and explain to her anthropology class exactly how he'd done all this.

Eustace, who will generally go anywhere to talk to anyone, sent the envoy back home with this message for the professor: "Tell her I did it by working my fucking ass off."

The week I was there, there were no campers at Turtle Island, so we had the place to ourselves. The only other inhabitant was a quiet college kid named Christian, who was working as Eustace's apprentice. Their interaction was simple: Eustace gave brief, articulate instructions; Christian obeyed. I got the feeling the two could pass entire days without speaking a superfluous word. They worked the land from dawn to dusk. Christian made meals, like venison stew and cornmeal pancakes. They ate with wooden spoons, from wooden bowls. Before each meal, the two would bow their heads. A long silence. Then Eustace would say gravely, "We are grateful for this beautiful day and for the blessing of this food."