"All this," he says, "was built on marijuana."
Over four years, Frank - not his real name - tended a patch of marijuana plants in a forest clearing about 45 minutes' walk from where his cabin now stands.
He regularly pooled his harvests with those of several other growers in the small British Columbia (BC) town in which he lives, to sell wholesale to young men from just across the border in the US state of Idaho.
Frank says he made hundreds of thousands of Canadian dollars before hurriedly leaving the business when his American buyers were arrested.
But tens of thousands of illegal "grow-ops" remain in Canada. Estimates suggest marijuana may generate up to C$7bn (£3.5bn; US$6.1bn) a year in BC, the sunny province thought to be at the heart of the industry.
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