Hey John,
I haven’t come across any permanent communities practicing the lifestyle you seem to be looking for. Might be worth exploring ic.org (intentional communities.com), you may find something there.
I have met a few individuals that have taken on that lifestyle on there own. Typically, they spend most of their time on public lands (usfs/blm). A couple have had a friend that had property where they were able to use as a “home base”.
There is a community across the nation of “primitive skills” practitioners that come together at various locations for “gatherings” put on by different groups. Depending on where you’re at, you
should be able to find a couple in your area.
I have pondered what such a Life might look like and believe that at any point in history, individual humans didn’t ever do it on their own. We’ve always had a community (both a localized “tribe” and broader community of trading partners) supporting us. No matter the technology available, we’ve always done it together. I think of the story of Ishi, a Californian Indian (
Native American) whose entire tribe was murdered by the white colonists. He evaded the genocide as long as he could but eventually had to come out of the hills and walk right into one of the white towns to survive.
Our models are indigenous peoples across the globe. Here in North America, most peoples were nomadic, ranging over broad territories. It’s now essentially impossible to do that without trespassing or breaking laws. I think there are a few regions that could provide
enough resources on a relatively small parcel of
land to Live a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, but that land is not going to be cheap or easy to find. I’m in the west, where the
local Indians we’re labeled “lazy” because they had such abundance here they didn’t need to “work” constantly to survive. Even though there’s still a relative abundance, the salmon don’t choke the rivers like they once did and the game is harder to come by. And both of those are “illegal” at least part of the time.
As I’m writing, I do remember hearing about a community of folks that Lived in tipis outside of Ashland, Oregon. From my understanding, they had a summer location and a winter location that they would travel between. I believe the winter location was a multi-thousand acre parcel that was sold and they lost the rights to stay on. Not sure what has become of them. I imagine connecting with a landowner that has thousands of acres could be an option. I’ve also thought that it could be something that was set up with the USFS. Establish an “experimental forest” (they do this) to study humans as part of an ecosystem (or whatever you want) and get a chunk of land where a tribe could try to make it happen without the threat of being arrested. Of
course, this would require data collecting and presenting findings to someone.
Ultimately, such a community may be something you need to create. Why don’t you tell us all about your thoughts. Where you are, where you think you might be able to pull this off, how you might develop the skills to achieve it, what the community might look like, etc.
good luck in your search.
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