If you dream about a rural homestead life, I understand the attraction. More than 35 years ago, I was an idealistic 22-year-old from suburban Canada. I’d never lived in the country, but that didn’t stop me from laying down my life savings and then some to buy a 91.5-acre piece of vacant farmland and forest on Manitoulin Island, Ontario. The plan was to build a modern homestead life on that patch of ground, and my wife, Mary, and I are still here and still living the dream. I define a modern homestead as a rural place where you can practise a range of self-reliance skills while living on your own terms, and this is now easier to achieve than ever.
When it comes to life, there’s theory, then there’s practice. The two are usually quite different. Many of the things we thought would be important for the success of a modern homestead turned out to be not important at all. Other things we’d never considered turned out to be vitally important. This article is one that I wish I could have read before we got started.
Here is what you need to
