Yurt Living in British Columbia: Meet the Homeowner
Last Updated: Apr 13, 2025For over three thousand years, the yurt has been one of the most common types of housing alternatives in Central Asia. From Mongolia to Kazakhstan, yurt living offered a number of benefits to a mostly nomadic population that needed a sturdy and reliable structure that offered protection from the elements while also being easy to dismantle and carry with them. Herodotus, a Greek historian, actually mentioned a structure similar to a yurt when detailing the livelihoods of the Scythians who were a nomadic nation that’s lived in Central Asia from as far back as 600 BC.
While we might not consider our modern-day civilization to be nomadic, the fact of the matter is that Americans move an average of 11.2 times over their lifetimes. Having to go through the hassle and stress of selling and buying a home, or dealing with the sometimes exorbitant price of rent is one of the least appreciated aspects of moving to a new place. While tiny homes and ADUs offer more affordable and sustainable alternatives for people who move often and don’t necessarily want to take on a $300,000 mortgage, the ability to take apart your home, pack it into your car, and move across the country is something that is uniquely specific to the yurt.
Rise recently sat down to talk with Mark Su who is currently living in a yurt that he purchased, assembled, and finished. While we previously had featured a tiny home on wheels that Mark had built on his own for $24,000, driving a tiny home into his new homestead in the Kootenay Mountains of British Columbia in the months leading up to winter was going to be a problem. His yurt, which historically was carried compactly on the backs of camels or yaks as nomadic civilizations wandered across the steppes of Central Asia, made it easy to carry his house with him across Canada and quickly set up a durable, sustainable home that keeps him warm even during the cold mountain winter.
What is a Yurt?
Mark tells us that “a yurt is a portable round structure that consists of mostly lightweight materials with the use of lattice, rope, and a circular shape for structural strength.” While the frame for yurts was traditionally made from wood or bamboo, yurts that are designed today include ribs, poles, and rafters made from a wide range of materials, including steam-bent wood, fiberglass, and Douglas fir latticed frames.
Table of Contents
- The Benefits of a Yurt
The roof structure is designed to be self-sustaining, though additional posts can be added for extra strength. After a couple of snowstorms in the mountains, Mark was somewhat worried about the extra weight on the self-sustained roof structure of his yurt.
“One thing to consider when putting a yurt in the snowy mountain region is the snow load,” Mark tells us. “Here where I am in the Kootenay Mountains at 900 meters (2,952 feet) above sea level, we get around seven feet of wet snow by the end of winter. I have heard of yurts collapsing due to snow load, hence I have reinforced the roof structure with additional poles and 2x6 rafters.”
In most yurts, the top of the wall remains firm through a tension band that balances out the force of the roofing structure. For natural lighting, yurts also include a type of skylight in the dome of the circular structure. The small dome in Mark’s yurt allows light to flood into the round structure. “My favorite aspects of living in the yurt,” according to Mark, “is how spacious it is inside along with the nature skylight from the dome.”
Tobias Roberts
Tobias runs an agroecology farm and a natural building collective in the mountains of El Salvador. He specializes in earthen construction methods and uses permaculture design methods to integrate structures into the sustainability of the landscape.
