Freedom Cove: B.C. couple lives on nature-inspired floating island

Couple's floating island thrust in media spotlight The international media has caught on to Wayne Adams and Catherine King’s floating piece of paradise, but they’re dealing with the attention

Off the grid? How about off the shore?

For the past 25 years, B.C. couple Wayne Adams and Catherine King have been living on an artificial island that they created themselves.

The island floats majestically at the end of an isolated cove that is located a 30-minute boat ride away from Tofino.

PHOTO GALLERY: Freedom Cove floating island

Adams and King began building their dream home a quarter-century ago.

“I’ve built a lot of things before I started this project and I was 43 when I did, I’m 69 now so it’s something I’ve always wanted to do and I just couldn’t turn down the opportunity when it came up,” Wayne told CTV Vancouver Island.

The man-made island that Adams and King called Freedom Cove was built on top of recycled fish farms. There is a house and several outbuildings, including four greenhouses.

Everything they consume is either caught from the ocean or grown themselves.

“I grow all my own vegetables and I’m able to grow year-round,” King told CTV Vancouver Island. “Seasonally, I have fruits and berries and herbs and edible flowers as well.”

Most of the couple’s possessions are re-purposed items, such as the glass on the living room floor that came from a hockey arena in Victoria.

“Our place is always transforming and so my mind is always open to the next transformation,” King said. “Nature sometimes inspires that, through storm damage, and that’s OK.”

The couple spends much of their spare time carving and making elaborate decorative masks using feathers birds have shed on the property. Freedom Cove has attracted attention from beyond Canada’s borders, too.

“People coming from all over the world have told us that they’ve never seen anything like what we do, so we are pretty unique,” King said.

With a report by CTV Vancouver Island’s Gord Kurbis at Freedom Cove