Dreaming of intentional community
RD: Regarding the housing articles in the September issue, “The right to exclude,” (by David Boehm, page 16) and “Small solutions to a big problem,” (by Matt Jones, page 10), my partner and I have been working on making our rural property a resilient homestead this past decade. Ever since I bought the land 20 years ago, I have felt we could support a community on our more than 100 acres. The land was never going to be used for industrial ag, instead going back to sustainable, regenerative, permaculture ways, but this would require many hands – hands we did not have.

As realists, we knew the coming future was bleak; survival would depend not just on key skills (e.g., how to grow food), but more importantly the relationships one has with others. Because of this, we have sought to create an intentional community of sorts, inviting folks to come live on our land. We have considered various arrangements, from renting long term to outright purchase of a parcel to buying a share in the farm. Along the way we realized that we needed to provide housing, which we didn’t have for a long time; we assumed folks would roll up with some form of THOW (tiny house on wheels). We eventually were able to provide a renovated, off-grid shipping container for rent until folks could set themselves up in their own home.

Well, it turns out that most folks can’t hack it, or have no interest in being off-grid. In the end, we have had hundreds of conversations. We have had a few folks come and live for the short term, but then realized they were damaged goods, and they could not be a functioning part of a community until they sorted out their crisis lives. We have had other folks who were just dreamers in the end, being out of touch with the realities of the struggles of trying to live simply and off the land. Other folks had established homes and families, and just didn’t really want to give that up for an unknown – understandably so.

Looking for one’s tribe is not easy when tribe members that fit would be few and far between. Looking at the conflicts in the extended settler families certainly doesn’t guarantee any success in relationships of support; if anything, the exact opposite is often true. We have found that most folks still want to do their own thing; the cult of individualism is a fact of our society, so why should we expect otherwise when folks are not raised with an ethos of mutual cooperation and collaboration but instead one of competition and convenience.

There did seem to be a small window when the pandemic first hit, in which folks came together to support each other. It was during this window that we offered our container for quarantine purposes and had some lovely young folks take advantage of this before they began studies in Halifax. We have since sold one parcel, but these folks who bought it aren’t interested in the community aspect. We have had other very good fits, but due to extenuating (life) circumstances, the arrangements inevitably fell through, even if friendships were formed.

So after more than 10 years, we are done. The emotional toll and the energy and time needed to respond to the folks seemingly interested, has been too much. The kicker is that if we were in B.C. we would be overwhelmed with interested folks, but we can’t afford land there. If we had the money or were willing to go into debt, we would build an affordable housing complex for all types of people, not limited to only one age group or family configuration. I guess I can still dream.

Wilma van der Veen
Pictou County, N.S.

(Thanks for sharing this quite personal account, Wilma. I think it will resonate with many people who have imagined some type of collective arrangement oriented toward sustainable and secure rural living. Arguably, individualism has been at the heart of homesteading culture for centuries, so perhaps it should be no surprise that these visions of cooperative living are rarely realized – at least, not over the long term. Because there was a time when old farms in the Maritimes could be bought cheap, many of us acquired acreage that we are not fully utilizing, and we may be drawn to the idea of having some like-minded people around to help fulfill the land’s potential. But there will always be the question of who’s in charge, and whose vision is being realized. Some would say that a functioning farm needs to be a business, with a managerial hierarchy. An alternative may be found in somewhat larger, more formal cooperative structures, in which the terms are set down very clearly and there is less influence from individual personalities and agendas. David Boehm’s follow-up article – “In trust,” on page 21 in this issue of RD – offers some interesting perspectives, especially the example of the Tatamagouche Community Land Trust. I hope people will continue to experiment with different models, on various scales. It seems that much could be accomplished with more effective collaboration in our communities. We would love to hear from other readers who have some experience with such endeavours. DL)