Aging Homesteaders

My partner and I live on a 50 acre homestead in Port Neville Inlet, British Columbia, Canada.  It is a beautiful piece of property, forested, south-facing with ocean frontage.  Not perfect … whatever is?  However, it’s been a wonderful home for us for a good many years now.  We bought the land when land prices were still affordable—raw acreage with just trees and brush.  The property is remote—8 miles by water to the nearest community, a forty minute ride in a fast boat or 3 hours in a slow one.  This may seem like a long distance to some, but our access to facilities is much better than many other “islanders” in the region.  We cleared some of our land and built a little cabin.  Over time, we developed the site—added some outbuildings, and planted a large garden, a fruit orchard (apples, plums, cherries, and many varieties of berries), and a nut orchard (walnuts, chestnuts, hazelnuts, oaks, some of which are just beginning to come into production).  We grow most of our own fruit and vegetables, forage mushrooms locally, catch the occasional fish, and shoot the odd duck.  We live a happy and healthy life.

Once upon a time, Port Neville was a bustling little community, with a post office, a small store, and a school.  When we arrived in the community, there were still several families living full time in the Inlet.  Sadly, times change … and not always for the best.  Property owners aged and started to need assistance.  Hiring people for odd jobs in a remote location is virtually impossible.  Most people want full time work, but it is impossible to pay a worker’s salary on a pensioner’s income.  Property prices had increased dramatically, 5 to 10 times their original values.  Young families interested in homesteading were unable to afford these properties.  Ultimately, lacking the assistance that they needed to age in place, the old timers sold out to rich absentee land owners.  Now the properties are virtually abandoned—their rich owners only come for a few days a year to fish—so buildings are no longer maintained, gardens have gone wild, and bears have destroyed the orchards.  My partner and I are the only remaining full-time residents in the Inlet.

We are starting to feel the same pressures as the elders who went before us.  Now both retired, we live comfortably on our two old age pensions, something we would be struggling to do if we lived in the city.  However, we can see the day coming, maybe 5 years in the future, maybe 10 years, when we will need help with the homestead.  We do not want to leave this land … we have put our hearts and souls into this place.  All we want is to live here to the end of our days.  We cannot afford a “live in”, nor do we require that level of assistance, as we are still both healthy and hale.  And we most certainly don’t want to sell our land to the highest bidder (even though that might fill our pockets with cash), and watch all our work come to naught.

So, how can we make a happy ending for this story?  My partner and I dream of something called “succession”.  This is a concept that doesn’t fit well into modern homesteading discussions.  We are not really “homesteaders looking for helpers”—what we need is something both more (a long term commitment) and yet less (not full time assistance) than a hired helper.  Nor does the concept fit into “intentional community” discussions—we are definitely intentional in our approach to our life on the homestead, but are too few in number to be considered a community.  Long, long ago, land was passed from parents to children.  This doesn’t happen anymore, and I wonder, “Why not?”  It seems that parents would prefer to get rich from their land rather than see it benefit the younger generation.  Is everything in life all about money?  Our land is completely paid off, but when we are gone, there is no one to inherit it, no children, no family.  We have been looking for some years now for a person or family who might be willing to live on our homestead full time, creating their own futures on the land and taking over when we are no more.  Unfortunately, everyone wants to “monetize” the opportunity.  How much can they make?  How much can we pay?  In the end, money does not create a healthy, fulfilled life.

For the right person(s), this is what we offer:

• • A place to build their home and make a life.
  • The peace and joy of living with Nature.
  • Our experience with the land—our knowledge, observations, and wisdom gleaned from years of living here.
  • The right to become stewards of the land when we are gone.

In exchange, we ask for a little assistance as we get older, maybe some help chopping wood or fixing a roof.  Working together, we could expand the homestead, bring in some animals—chickens, rabbits, milking goats/sheep—plant more nut trees, culture mushrooms, and further enhance our sustainability on the land.

This is the happy ending we are looking for … the ability to age in place and know that the land will be cared for when we have moved on.  Please share this story around.  Contact me if you have any ideas or solutions.