Build Beyond the Grid.
Remote construction is complicated. Planning it shouldn’t be.
BackcountryOS is the operating system for building beyond the grid — practical project services from a builder who’s done it, and a planning platform in development for owners who want to run their own project with real structure.
The Problem
Remote construction is a different trade.
No road to the site. No hardware store run when something’s missing. Materials move by boat, sled, or plane — in the season when moving them is possible, not the week you need them. A mistake that’s a $200 fix in town becomes a lost season at a remote site.
On remote projects, even excellent craftsmanship can’t overcome poor planning. Missed freight windows, underestimated logistics, and improperly sequenced work can turn manageable challenges into expensive setbacks. That’s the gap BackcountryOS exists to close.
The Solution
Experience first. Systems behind it.
You get 25+ years of construction experience — including building my own off-grid log cabin in Alaska — applied to your project before the expensive mistakes happen. Feasibility, honest budgets, logistics that respect the seasons, and coordination that keeps a remote build moving.
And because the same planning problems show up on every remote project, BackcountryOS is being designed as a planning platform too: digital tools that put this process into software. Services today. Platform in development. No vaporware — every capability is labeled for what it is.
How It Works
Five stages. One plan.
From “can this land even work?” to a building that runs through an Alaska winter — each stage has its own questions, costs, and decisions.
Project Services
Help that’s available now.
Remote Site Feasibility
Can this property support what you want to build? Access, seasonality, buildability — before you buy, or before you commit.
Preliminary Budgeting
A budget built on remote reality: freight, seasonality, and mobilization included — not town prices with a markup guess.
Logistics Planning
How everything gets there — boat, sled, air, or road where it exists. Staging, delivery sequencing, and the cost of each option.
Seasonal Scheduling
A schedule built around freeze-up, break-up, daylight, and weather windows — the calendar remote work actually runs on.
Procurement Coordination
The right materials, in the right order, batched for the freight that exists — subject to project scope.
Contractor Identification
Finding and vetting the people who can actually do the work in that area, subject to project scope and requirements.
Construction management and full project delivery are taken on by individual evaluation. No fixed pricing published, no availability promised — every project starts with a conversation.
Planning Platform
In Development.
A planning system for remote construction: project setup, budget estimation, construction sequencing, logistics coordination, and infrastructure planning for energy, water, waste, and access — designed from real projects, not imagined ones. Every capability is labeled Planned — none is available for use yet, and no launch date is promised. What owners ask for first is what gets built first.
Field Experience
This is the classroom.
Real remote work — and what each job proved about access, freight, systems, and sequencing.
Field Mishaps
The lessons were not free.
- The Winter Freight RunWhat a snowmachine supply chain teaches you about scheduling everything else.
- The Yentna Boat SagaRiver access is a plan until the river has opinions.
- Bear ProblemsBuilding in bear country, learned the expensive way.
- Milled Too SoonTiming is a material property. Mill early, pay twice.
- Pure GeniusThe newest lesson, fresh from the field.
The Founder
Built it himself first.
I’m Chad McCormick. 25+ years in construction, and I built my own off-grid log cabin in Alaska — the hard way, which is the only way it comes. BackcountryOS is everything I learned, organized so your project doesn’t pay the tuition mine did.
Build Beyond the Grid.
Own the land, or still looking? Either way, the next step is a plan.