While he may be worth billions today as the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk had some pretty humble beginnings on his rise to the top – including a series of odd jobs here in Canada.

According to the book Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, Musk left his South Africa home at just 17 to move to Canada, where he lived and worked on his cousin’s farm in Waldeck, Saskatchewan. He also became a Canadian citizen, as his mother was born in Canada.

On my cousin’s farm in Canada at 17, wearing a hat on a hat pic.twitter.com/U96ClGz5gZ

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2017

From there, he moved to Vancouver and got a job as a bonafide lumberjack, cutting logs with a chainsaw. He then took a job as a boiler room cleaner at a lumber mill after searching for high-paying jobs at the time. The gig paid him $18 an hour.

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Musk ultimately gave up the manual labour life to obtain a degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and would go on to build his now high-profile career.

Today, Musk is married to Canadian musician Grimes, and the couple have one son, X Æ A-12 Musk.

This past January, Musk surpassed Amazon’s Jeff Bezos as the richest person in the world.