‘Hippy’ Shares His Survival Secrets

If society crumbles, Mike Oehler won’t.

He’ll crawl inside his wood-and-glass den like an aging grizzly and hibernate through the holocaust or paralyzing computer failure or killer meteor shower.

“If the world goes up in fire and I have an underground house, I can survive the end of the world,” Mike says.

But he doesn’t want to survive alone, so he’s sharing his secrets in his just-published book, “The Hippy Survival Guide to Y2K.”

“I’ve always known this was coming - the breakdown of civilization,” he says. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think computers would cause it. I’m still not convinced they’ll cause the whole thing.”

For those of you asleep for the last few years, Y2K stands for the year 2000.

It’s also become synonymous with a more ominous message. The lack of foresight on the part of midcentury computer programmers may cause technological gridlock as the century changes.

Many computers are programmed to recognize a two-digit date, for example ‘99. They may recognize ‘00 as 1900 because they don’t have the capacity to recognize a new century.

Predictions of what this problem will cause range from Armageddon to nothing.

Mike, 61, figures it doesn’t hurt to prepare, so his 40 acres just south of Bonners Ferry are full of nearly invisible hideaways he’s built during the last 31 years.

Boundary County was a good place for him to build. He needed no permits, only to meet the zoning laws.

His back-to-basics philosophy may strike some as odd, but Mike appears as level-headed as he is resourceful. His lifestyle suits his need to live in harmony with nature, in solitude that benefits his writing.

“He’s a colorful local character,” says Chris Bessler, Mike’s co-publisher and the former publisher of the Bonners Ferry Herald. “I probably share a lot of his philosophy.”

Y2K prompted Mike’s newest book, but he’s been preparing for society’s demise for 30 years, maybe even longer subconsciously.

“I never felt at home in civilization,” he says. But it took years for him to find his own answers.

He’s never disliked people.

Friendly and easygoing, Mike was popular at school. He joined the U.S. Army in 1956, assuming he’d be drafted anyway. After his obligatory two years, he enrolled in college. He realized there that he didn’t want to go where the mainstream seemed to be heading.

In 1960, Mike joined the growing wave of mainstream dropouts. He hit the road, picking cotton in Mexico, fishing in Alaska, longshoring in Seattle - any job to support himself while he wrote.

In 1966, he found a northern California seaside town where he fit in. The residents were hippies, writers and poets. He nearly stayed, but awakened one morning knowing he had to get farther away from civilization.

“I don’t know what pushed me over. There was a lot happening - the Panthers were forming, Vietnam protests, the Tet offensive, the Martin Luther King assassination, that picture of the execution of that young Vietnamese soldier,” he says. “I just knew I couldn’t stay in any city anymore.”

He hit the road again, checked out land in Montana, but found what he wanted in North Idaho. It was 1968. His forested hills hadn’t been logged since the 1950s.

The dilapidated shack into which Mike moved was cold and not worth insulating. He considered building a log home, then began thinking even more practical. He wanted a shelter the wind couldn’t reach - something underground.

Reason guided him to sink his house into a hillside and install his windows on the uphill side for plenty of light and better drainage.

He dug by hand, preferring to leave his land unscathed by machines. He took lumber off his land for posts and beams, and castoff mill ends for the walls and roof.

Solar panels provided electricity, a wood stove his heat. He bought used windows at yard sales and auctions and spread straw over his dirt floor. He added no plumbing, but packed in water. The tiny rustic house - a bedroom, kitchen and root cellar - cost him $50.

In 1975, Mike tripled the size of his house. He added a cozy loft and spent $300 on new carpet. He covered his dirt floor with waterproof polyethylene and laid carpet right on top of it.

He sank a metal trash can into his earth floor, which already was 8 feet below the surface, to use as a refrigerator.

Then, Mike added a two-seater outhouse and, over the next few years, a guesthouse with two bunks and woodstove, a greenhouse, chicken coop and sauna.

The book his work inspired him to write in 1978, “The $50 and Up Underground House Book,” sold more than 65,000 copies and earned him worldwide attention. A two-person British Broadcasting Corp. team lived in Mike’s guesthouse while they recorded a story on his hillside havens.

Students also flocked to Mike. He helped them build another house on his property, much larger than his private residence. Over the years, it’s remained a work in progress.

For 28 years, Mike planted and hunted his food. He raised chickens and concocted his own brews. He even fasted periodically. But, he didn’t totally eschew the rest of the world.

He picked up odd jobs when he needed money, and occasionally bought clothes, stamps, beer and easily prepared food.

“Sometimes, I’d just get lonely,” he says.

Which is why he’s chosen to share his survival expertise in “Hippy Survival Guide.” He wrote it on a typewriter in an old trailer he bought three years ago to use as an office.

In the first 150 pages of the book, Mike lays out his case, quoting experts and reports that predict Y2K will bring at least a temporary breakdown in public services.

Then, he launches into the practical survival advice, with tips for city dwellers as well as country folks. He recommends digging underground quarters and explains how to make a nest to stay warm.

He covers where to find dry kindling (twigs on the ends of branches) and how to dry wood, store and find water (for instance, in pipes) and keep shelters lighted.

Besides storing canned food, Mike reminds readers that pigeons and dandelions are decent eating, and that nature offers edible plants such as fiddleheads and purslane. He even explains how to eat thistles and cattails.

“It’s good sense, how to be prepared,” says co-publisher Chris. “We don’t really know what the situation will be in Y2K.”

As the century’s end crawls closer, Mike’s office phone rings more often. People who once called him an oddball now want his advice. Mike isn’t smug about it.

“You have to work with your neighbors,” he says, mildly pleased that at least some people understand that fact. “Man’s gone through times of trial before - and we’re still here.”

This sidebar appeared with the story: FAST FACT Buy the book “The Hippy Survival Guide to Y2K” costs $14.95 and is available at most North Idaho bookstores, at Auntie’s Bookstore in Spokane and via the Internet at Amazon.com.