Rural Beginnings to Building a Soul-Filled Life: Jack Whitfield’s Journey

From his humble upbringing as a self-proclaimed “bush kid” born and raised in Australia in the 80s to fulfilling his life’s purpose with Sol Projex in Hawai’i today, Jack Whitfield’s journey is both inspiring and enlightening. Join us as we explore Jack’s life from those formative years to his ventures in Canada and eventual relocation to Hawai’i.

Growing up “In the Sticks”

Raised in a small, rural community on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia, Jack remembers the journey to the end of the driveway as a long and bumpy forty-minute journey, there was no electricity and as such, every meal was cooked on fire. Resourcefulness wasn’t a trendy ‘buzzword’, but a way of life for Jack’s family, who played a significant role in nurturing his creativity, with artists, architects, and creative builders, commonplace in his family tree.

Jack describes his mother, in particular, who built a remarkable stone house over the space of 20 years. Each day after dropping her three boys off for school, Jack’s mother would collect rocks from the roadside, mixing cement by the wheelbarrow load, carefully and gradually constructing their family home. The family unit was always determined to provide, demonstrating the power of harnessing limited nearby resources.

Sadly, as a result of the devastating 2018 wildfires in New South Wales, practically all life where Jack grew up, had been brought to ashes. Where native trees once towered and wildlife was plenty, returning after such devastation was “full on and horrific” Jack describes, “to witness that place engulfed in that kind of intensity” “You could see so far because everything was flattened, it looked like a warzone.” yet his family home and wood stove still stood proud. This experience solidified in Jack, his passion for restoration and harnessing the natural abundance, a theme that guided him throughout his journey.

Moving closer to town as he grew older, it was still a four-hour round trip to attend high school, where Jack and his friends found joy in skateboarding. This teenage pastime allowed Jack to explore the pragmatic side of art and creation by building functional skateboard ramps. “Building or creating is always fun, and artwork is fun, but the practical art, functional art is really my thing. To build something and then see how it performs.” The experience of building and testing the ramps’ performance, no doubt had a major role in Jack’s affinity for practical art, leading him to excel in areas where his passions lay while not really absorbing traditional academics at school.

Woodworking was calling Jack from a young age, “It brings me a lot of joy, it’s fun, it’s beautiful, it’s exciting, it lights me up” Jack smiles. He recalls witnessing a Peterson Swing Blade Sawmill in action as a boy. The sawmill Jack witnessed, belonged to a partnership of his best friends’ fathers, who were “hard-working woodmen” using the sawmill to provide valuable lumber and materials for their building projects. This also gave them the chance to produce high-value slabs and mill dimensional timber for sale, providing further income at the time. Even though Jack had limited exposure to milling, the presence of piles of wood and witnessing the men’s hard work left a lasting impact on him. Clearly…

Apprenticeship and Restoration Work Abroad

At the age of sixteen, after finishing grade ten, Jack embarked on a furniture finishing apprenticeship in Sydney, Australia. Honing his skills and expanding his creativity, Jack explains “I remember on my lunchtimes and every time I had spare time, there was a cabinet shop next door so I would always be over there building stuff” “It was always this creative joy of mine and I would bring home all this crazy furniture and stuff that was salvaged or screwed up or the client didn’t want it. However it worked, I always got it and refurbished it or turned it into something that was practically needed in my little home”.

Spending four years doing his apprenticeship with an extra year in Sydney to keep learning and save money, Jack was able to leave Australia and travel to Canada, pursuing his love for snowboarding. Initially planning a six-month holiday, Jack found he got “really hooked” on snowboarding and didn’t want to leave just yet.

“I played really hard, snowboarding in the winter and then worked really hard in the summertime” “I ended up doing re-models and renovations on homes. So, similar to what I was doing on furniture but now on a larger scale” Jack shares.

“It seems like a lot of what I was doing was restoration if I look back on it, it was restoring things”.

Amidst his restoration work, Jack realized the importance of nurturing and restoring existing materials and systems rather than completely rebuilding from scratch with modern building materials. Discovering the toxic nature of certain industries, such as food, pharmaceuticals, education, and construction, Jack felt compelled to contribute to the restoration of healthier choices, both environmentally and socioeconomically.

“At that stage, it was almost like research and development. I was learning what I did and didn’t want to do, and I hated a lot what I didn’t want to do, because it was just making money and showing up”.

This mindset led Jack to purchase his own house at twenty-four years old, to add his value and on-sell. With a taste for income from re-furbishing and “flipping” properties, Jack went on to buy and sell six properties in Canada, each in need of some TLC. At the same time, Jack maximized the ability to rent out the rooms in each of his houses to his friends in a “super ski-bum style” for further income. He describes, “I got to live in them and trial them. You know, we all imagine we’re doing good work, remodeling and renovating and making things better, but if you don’t live in it and see it, you don’t see what works but also what doesn’t work” “Doing it so it’s effective financially while trying to choose more mindful materials, so the Fung Shui and the flow works, but also doing it in a way that has that integrity.” Jack laughs: “having that many ski-bums and young party people living in the houses, you also got that test of integrity and durability”.

After eleven years of living in Canada, operating a successful business, and having two children, Jack and his family wanted a simpler and more sustainable way of life. “That’s what my Canadian chapter was really good at, it was good at trialing these modern materials and what is, working with them extensively for years upon years. Diving down the rabbit hole of the norm”.

“I would keep wanting to bring in more driftwood and rough-sawn timber, so I made good friends with a gentleman there who was milling a lot of my timber, so I was starting to branch out of the modern material way because it was sickening, it was gross” “I started to grow up and out of just what is, and started to push into what feels right”.

In Pursuit of Simplicity and Honouring the Land

After living almost a decade on the property ladder in Canada, Jack Whitfield, with his family, left Canada to pursue a more sustainable lifestyle in the tropical oasis of Hawai’i. Dissatisfied with the banking system, they sought to remove themselves from the chains of traditional land ownership “thinking it was weird to own land” and into a place of seeking connection in proximity to the land instead. Jack explains, “In essence, we wanted to live in a community, but where there are other families and other people that are in a similar core values system of wanting to take care of the land, live sustainably and grow food. Kind of similar to how I grew up, but in a way that was more wholistic.”

With the help of a generous donation from a gentleman who wholeheartedly believed in their mission, Jack and his family decided to completely root themselves in homeowner financing – a major first step in creating a self-sustaining community independent of traditional financial systems. They eventually purchased 8.8 acres of land in Kauai, Hawai’i.

Shifting the land into a not-for-profit operation intended for cultivation and conservation. This gave life to Jack’s dream of Sol Projex and allowed his family to fulfill their craving of “not ownership, but what I call honor-ship. Where you care for the land, cultivate it, and respect it as it does to us, how our ancestors did it” Jack describes.

“From my understanding, there is a lot of history that we can lean back into and learn from, and use that wisdom gained and apply it to todays ways, rather than what I see; a lot of families stewarding land where they do every component themselves and it’s very daunting and overwhelming, but when you come together with many families, like a tribe, there’s so much more that can happen, because you’re supporting each other with different age groups, and different skill sets”