So You Want To Be Self-Sufficient

Exactly what is self-sufficiency and how is it achieved?  That question led to many lively debates among us back-to-the-land types.  Even a narrow focus on just the material aspects of self-sufficiency such as water, food, warmth, shelter, tools and transport, leads to the realization that no-one achieves self-sufficiency on their own.  We begin life, live it and end it fully embedded in social networks: family, friends, classmates, roommates, co-workers, co-religionists, political parties, economic groupings, clubs, cults and on and on.

It seems that material self-sufficiency actually begins and ends with community.  So what is the minimum size of a truly self-sufficient community?  The family? The clan?  The tribe? The bioregion?  The nation-state?  The continent?  One important parameter is the technology being used.

A clan of hunter-gatherers using stone tools, spears and the bow and arrow can be self-sufficient, if there is enough game and food available within walking distance.  But they do have to be ready to move on to unexploited habitat when food runs out locally.  And there were times when they went hungry.  A few remnants of this stage of society still existed when I was young, but in my lifetime they have all been ‘discovered’, disrupted and engulfed by industrial civilization.

The next level up is quite a leap: settled agriculturalists and herders living in cultures with complex language, writing, social classes and castes, law, organized religion, property rights, specialization of crafts, kings and urban centers.  Some of these groups thrived for thousands of years all over the planet.  Many examples still exist, but all of them are enmeshed with the dominant global culture to some extent.

When we get to industrial societies, it seems nothing short of access to the resources of the entire planet is sufficient to sustain the current level of development, and even that may not be enough, given the primitive technologies currently in use.

My desire to be self-sufficient came with a parallel wish to live in community.  As I moved away physically, intellectually and spiritually from the Jewish, middle class, suburban, Toronto community that I had grown up in, I searched for a new community that would reflect and support my hunger for new experiences. 

My first communal experience was with my partner, a recent refugee from that hotbed of alternative living, Berkeley California.  We hooked up soon after I had returned from my mind-altering journey to India.  Jane was three days older than I.  She was staying at the house of friends of mine, with her 3-year-old daughter.  On our first meeting we talked long into the night.  I never left.  Soon we departed from Toronto and flew out to Vancouver Island on the west coast of Canada.  The search for community had begun.

Back to the Land

Yes, we were young, foolish, brash, overconfident, full of ourselves, arrogant, fearless and ignorant.  But we had a lot of fun!!  And we were not alone.  The back roads of Lanark County were seeded with others like ourselves, refugees from urban centers, exploring new/old ways of living.  There were plenty of work bees, potluck dinners, parties, sharing of resources and a sense of community.  The social conventions that held our parents and grandparents in a vise-like grip seemed fragile.  Experimentation was the new norm.  Just get out there and do it!!

After a few years of living on and from the land, I began to believe that surviving the collapse of civilization was not that big a deal.  After all, just a few generations ago my ancestors had the necessary skills to survive on the land.  Humans have exploited every possible ecosystem on the planet for thousands of generations.  So it became a question as to how far back did I want to go to pick up the thread of living off the land:  the days of the European pioneers, who saw the forest as the enemy (after the native inhabitants had been extirpated by imported disease and war), and managed to denude the entire landscape with only axes, handsaws, horses and oxen; the Aboriginals of North America who lived lightly on the land but battled endlessly with other tribes over access to resources; the Bronze Age? The Stone Age?  Where to stop the journey into the past and take a stand?

Some friends eschewed the use of power tools, preferring the axe and double-handled buck saw to fell trees for firewood, hauling the wood back to the house with horses.  But where did the metal come from to make the axe and the saw?  What about the chains that hitched the horses to the sled- where did that originate?  And there was still the pesky problem of coming up with cash to pay the taxes on the land so that one had a place live while striving for “self-sufficiency”.

Get Me Out of Here!!

January 13, 2012

I began with a hunger for direct experience and a belief in the impending collapse of ‘modern’ civilization.  I did not want to be buried in the rubble of a disintegrating culture that was consuming non-renewable resources at an accelerating rate while poisoning the air, water and soil with thousands of untested chemical formulations.  The whole stinking mess, so sensible and rational when viewed from the inside, appeared as sheer madness when examined from the outside.

I wanted out.  I wanted a ‘natural’ experience.  I wanted to taste the earth, revisit the old pathways, learn how to grow food, create shelter, be self-sufficient; live without electricity, telephones, newspapers, radio, alarm clocks, money (never figured that one out!).

Those burning desires led me out of the city and into the countryside: the back roads of Lanark County, Ontario.  I found what I sought up on the Canadian Shield, a land of granite outcroppings and forested hillsides, crossed by streams and full of small lakes.  I had a partner as crazy as I was, several small children and soon a few animals: laying hens, meat chickens, milk goats and a pair of workhorses.



Just living became a full time job. We broke ground to plant seeds, nurtured the plants, harvested and preserved food, hauled water from the well, gathered firewood for the winter, collected eggs, milked the goats, fed the horses……….   Self-sufficiency was way more involved than I had expected.  We never did get to the part where we kept sheep to harvest the wool to spin the thread to weave the cloth to make the clothes to keep us warm.  Or kill the cow, then skin it for the hide, then tan the hide, then cut the leather, then make the shoes.  Not to mention lighting (candles? Kerosene? Propane?) or soap (start with wood ashes and fat….) or transportation (how far can a horse travel in a day?) or medicine (herbs? Plants? Dentists? Penicillin?).
I began to develop a grudging admiration for the gifts of civilization, but was still determined to do it my way.

The Journey Begins

 My journey towards sustainable living began in 1969 when I first travelled to Europe, Africa and Asia.  I grew up in the suburbs of Toronto, Canada.  That first trip abroad opened my eyes to the amazing variety of choices we have available when it comes to living on the earth.  I also discovered how much of our current civilization is derived from those who have come before us, stretching back thousands of years.

At some point I realized that I was actually living in the dreams of my ancestors.  All the forms and the content making up my social experience had started out as 'mere' thoughts, ideas and desires in the minds of other human beings who had left the scene long ago. 

The combination of the creative impulse of a human being and the receptive nature of the universe, expressed over time, has resulted in modern technology, agriculture, transportation, cities, educational institutions, fashion and all the other attributes of North American life in the 21st century.

Simultaneous with that realization came the next: I could dream up new ways of being, new ways of living and even new ways of perceiving.  Reality was not rigid and unchanging, but amorphous, mysterious, full of incredible potential.  I was no longer a victim of circumstances, but a co-creator of my own experience.  I was ready to dive right in and start experiencing!!