NOMADIC | VOLUNTEER | POSITIVITY

Leaving Our Positive Mark on The World

Using our creativity and other skills, we vastly improved the property where we stayed this winter

Our view of the Atlantic Ocean on our final days of staying in the Cape Breton wilderness. Photo Credit: Jillian Amatt — Artistic Voyages

A couple of days ago, on January 16th, 2026, we left a 50-acre wilderness property on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. We had been there for 3.5 months, staying at a resort and volunteering.

Our volunteer tasks were varied. Our main task was to paint directional signs for the property, but we also did other work. These tasks ranged from building a garden bed, feeding and tending to chickens, painting a few walls and murals, helping to transport and stack firewood, laying some tiles, and picking and pressing apples for cider.

Painting Murals

In exchange for our volunteer hours (roughly 4 hours per day), we were given accommodation and food. In the beginning, we stayed in a very old staff house, which needed a lot of TLC. Almost immediately, we took it upon ourselves to brighten the house up by painting murals and artwork on the walls. Though we spent some volunteer hours on these murals, much of the work was done in the evenings during our free time.

For us, painting murals is very therapeutic and it had been quite some time since we had added our artistic touch to anything. We were happy to get creative and we know full well how impactful some fun images and color on the walls can be. Right away, we could sense that not only the house needed an uplift, but the staff morale as well.

Murals and artwork by Jillian Amatt and Chris DeCap.

Of course, the staff that we were living with were thrilled with the changes, and all agreed that the art really lifted the vibe and brightened the place up. Which often happens, our positive work led to other staff members taking an interest in improving the house as well.

One young man, in particular, took it upon himself to get the wood stove reattached to the chimney and functioning again. It had been out of service for about a year and a half after a fire inspector had deemed it unsafe.

Fixing the woodstove

This small detail also gave us the opportunity to live in the house for much longer than in previous years. This house does not have central heating and the woodstove is the primary heat source. The electricity structure in the house only allowed for so many space heaters to be plugged in at once, which made it challenging to stay warm.

Part of what made it not safe was that it sat on a small brick platform. Canadian codes outline that woodstoves need to have at least 18" (46cm) of non-combustible surface from the front of the stove in case sparks fly out. Already, there were small singe marks in the painted plywood floors beyond the platform — a sign that this regulation makes perfect sense.

Because I have tiling experience, I volunteered to tile around the bricks. I was contemplating doing a tile mosaic because of its rounded edge. This would require breaking tiles up with a hammer and using the small pieces to create the round shape.

But then I remembered that the property has a beach, which has an abundance of small stones on it. One morning, I almost sat straight up in bed and declared to Chris, “I’m going to do a stone mosaic around the woodstove.” I realized that the stones would be much easier to curve around the bricks than busted-up pieces of tiles.

Chris and I went down to the beach to collect some stones, then I made a plan. After three days of focused work on the project, we all agreed it turned out really nicely and added even more aesthetic value to the home. I even built a stone platform on the side to house the wood that we would bring in daily.

The photo below doesn’t show it, but one of the other volunteers then built a short wooden wall between the stones and the TV stand, which held the wood in place and allowed us to stack it up high without it falling all over the place.

Having the woodstove going really changed our enjoyment of the house, and the five of us that lived there would get cozy in the living room each evening as we sat around it while watching movies on the old VHS player.

Talk about a scene straight out of the eighties!

After getting the woodstove functioning again, we were all warm and toasty in there until the beginning of December, when we were then moved to another, more insulated building on the property (with heating and plumbing that didn’t freeze!).

Progress of extending the non-combustible surface for the stove to sit on. Photo credits: Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages

Building a garden bed

For the garden bed that we built, we used a technique called lasagna gardening. Starting by placing cardboard on the ground, we added layers of compostable materials on top. First, we put a thin layer of horse manure that had been sitting in a nearby pile for quite some time. Then we added a layer of fallen leaves, followed by another layer of manure, a layer of sawdust, more leaves, seaweed, more manure, more layers in general, then a final thick layer of dried leaves.

The idea is that by adding different layers of compostable carbons (dry ingredients) and nitrogens (wet ingredients), they will react with each other and will naturally break down. By spring, they should be able to plant in the soil that is created by the natural decomposition that will take place over the winter months.

Chris is adding the final layers to the mix. It’s hard to see, but the pile is about 1.5 feet (50 cm) thick and will reduce in depth by at least half by spring. Photo Credit: Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages

We have used this technique in many places around the world now, but most of all in our own backyard on the West Coast of Canada, where we lived before we sold everything to travel full-time in 2017. It’s a proven technique and we grew incredible produce from the rich soil we built from scratch in our own backyard.

Painting signs

The day after we arrived, our host gave us a tour of the property, which offers numerous yurts and domes as accommodation options for guests. They are scattered throughout the forest — across 50 acres — down small paths and rugged dirt roadways.

One of the first things that he mentioned to us was that they needed signs to be painted. We could already see that most of the signs were either weatherbeaten and in bad shape or had been painted poorly without much thought as to how they looked.

Over the next few days, we took it upon ourselves to really get a sense of what was needed for signage and realized that, above all else, this is how we could contribute in a positive way.

We knew that signs were definitely a priority.

Early on, though, we came upon some resistance to what we wanted to do. The owner didn’t seem to think that the signs needed to be as nice or as comprehensive as we were making them, but we knew differently. Plus, pretty much every staff member that we spoke to complained about the fact that when there are guests around, they are forever showing them where to go because the signage was so poor.

We knew that this one critical detail would not only provide the staff with some relief and help them avoid wasting so much energy showing people where to go, but also give the guests a much more enjoyable time finding their own way rather than being frustrated and having to ask directions the minute they arrived.

As we settled into the property, I listened to many people tell me which signs they thought were important, and I took mental notes and started a list of signs that needed painting.

At the end of it all, there are a few more signs that could have been painted, but what we did will at least send people in the right direction from the property's reception area. It’s hard to believe that places like this can exist for so long without this basic infrastructure for their guests.

Most of the signs we painted over the course of our stay. Photos by Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages

Sadly, I didn’t take too many before pictures, but here are a few, just to give you an idea of what was here before we arrived. However, much of what we created was nonexistent, and we created the majority of them from scratch.

A few signs before we reinvigorated them. Photo credits: Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages

While the owner seems impossible to please, and it was hard to get any sort of approval from him as he always felt we were taking too long and that we should have been working on things that were more ‘priority’, the other staff members were overjoyed with what we did, and we know that it is them, and the guests, that will benefit the most from our efforts.

Throughout our years of painting in many places (mostly for free), we have come to realize that these bright little touches will send good vibrations and positive energy to many people.

While the signs will definitely have a positive impact on this property, we also know they will uplift and bring joy to many who see them. This energy will radiate out into the world in unexplainable and immeasurable ways.

This is the sole reason why we are committed to sharing our artistic skills in this way, and it makes us feel good about our positive impact on the world as we navigate our nomadic life.

The view from our second location. Normally a chalet that guests stay in for the summer months, we were blessed with a warm and modern wooden house and a straight view out to the Atlantic Ocean and the rising sun. Photo Credits: Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages

Enjoying the wilderness and a quiet reset

Despite all of this work, we found the past 3.5 months to be a quiet and much-needed rest and reset. We tried as hard as we could to pull ourselves away from our online work and the inevitable scrolling and distractions that come with it.

We took many walks through the forest and along the trails that wind around the property, plus we headed out to the beach as much as possible. We also greatly enjoyed the second house we moved to, where we would wake to the sun rising over the Atlantic Ocean.

We had no cell phone service there, so that also allowed us to unplug and step away from society in a way that would be difficult to do in many places. As we emerge from our winter hiding place and join society once again, we remain grateful for the peace and quiet we experienced this past winter.

Leaving a positive impact on the world

We are now staying in Halifax while we wait a few days for our train to whisk us off to Ottawa, where we will be house-sitting and caring for a 19-year-old cat for seven weeks.

At the end of March, we will make our way back across Canada by train and will once again offer our gardening skills to a farm in British Columbia for the entirety of next summer. Officially, we are volunteering, but we will also be bringing produce to a weekly farmers' market where we will have the opportunity to earn a commission from our sales.

Plus, the market will give us the opportunity to sell our artistic wares, and Chris has been wanting to try selling the gluten-free goodies he has been developing for quite some time — this will be a great opportunity to do that.

Of course, no matter where we go and what we do, we will continue to do our best to uplift the people we meet and the places we stay, however we are able. It is this simple act, after all, which gives us focus and keeps us going in this increasingly crazy world.

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