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”.
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