Tyler August

Thanks for replying!
A rocket forge would be amazing. I cannot wait to hear how that goes.

That was... not what I expected. A 4-placer? With... rowing benches? There's so much wrong with this I'm not sure where to start.
For one, the four place model seems oh-so-silly, in that most of the time you're not filling your car. Who wants to lug all that extra weight around? I sure don't.
Next, the rowing benches are pretty much inexcusable, unless you are designing for the disabled. Pedals are a much more efficient use of human muscle power.
Third, the aerodynamics are rather awful. You won't be going very fast.
There's no way I would buy this at just under $15,000, OR make my own.

What I thought you were going to be talking about is one of the electric-assist velomobiles available on the market. A velomobile is an aerodynamically sheathed recumbent bicycle, which a reasonably fit person can get upto 40km/h, and and atheletes can push 50km/h average speeds. (The top speed record is around 80km/h; there's a race on to get to 100km/h). They're available with electric assist to help you get up to speed, climb hills, etc-- the things that are harder in a velomobile due to the added weight of the aerodynamic sheath. So, human/electric hybrid. You could also cheat and cruise on the assist, I suppose, which would make it an electric car.
One of those I've seriously considered purchasing/building.

It is a solved problem, but not one you're likely to find at home depot:
The Lineur system. A brief description is buried in this article, which is where I heard about it. In short, it's a vaccum toilet; differential air pressure carries waste away to be composted without diluting it with water. Some cities in Europe maintained these systems well into the 20th century, before eventually switching over to the water-wasting sewers we all know and love to hate.
But they still make pressure-operated fixtures for trains, planes, and ships. In fact, google tells me Sealand sells them under the name VacuFlush. Is that the type of SeaLand toilet you meant? In that case I'd say go for it. I've no experience with Humanure, but if it worked on the city-scale back at the turn of the last century, there's no reason it shouldn't work for you.

So I've been advised that building a house out of buried logs here in the boreal forest is completely and utterly daft-- the wood is, I'm told, certain to rot. Even tamarak, which the local go-to rot-resistant wood. Now, the fellows telling me this had never actually tried building such a structure -- but they'd seen a lot of wood rot between them so I am inclined to take the caution at face value. Respecting my elders and all that.
So we were brainstorming what wouldn't rot, other than stone-- and we remembered Earthships. Is there any reason why not to make an wofati-style earth integrated structure with earth-rammed tyres like an Earthship, aside from killing the W in the acronym?

EDIT: You know, maybe my elders weren't comprehending that the logs would be only in contact with DRY earth. Anyone in the Boreal biome care to advise?

Dale Hodgins wrote:      I have traveled to many of the sorts of places where this land is available. There are residency requirements and development requirements. I've also checked out lots of land which was selling for between $15 and $100 per acre. There were very good reasons for this cheap price and I ended up buying land in a more hospitable climate where people live. The $15 per acre stuff was north of Sudbury Ontario. It was clear-cut black spruce and Aspen. In that climate it takes about 75 years to get any useful stand of forest. The land tax over time ends up costing considerably more than the original purchase price. I'm a Canadian and have been to every province and have never encountered any free land which was worth owning.

    A century ago there were great opportunities for free land, then the government thought it would be a good idea to create northern development through land giveaways. Distance and climate have kept most of these communities from thriving.

    To see just how far governments will go to create development in inhospitable climates check out what the Soviet Union managed to do in Siberia. They moved hundreds of thousands of people into some horrible spots. Today the offspring of these people invariably head south.

... how far north of Sudbury? Timmins? Kapuskasing? Spruce and Aspen might be further north still. It sure doesn't seem to take 75 years for pine in the Sudbury area to get nice and pulpable again.
One of my grandfathers tried to make a go of it in Kap; I don't know what his full agricultural ambitions were but I do know it never went past hobby farm. My other grandfather in Kirkland Lake has one of the lushest gardens I've seen anywhere in the province. Maybe it's a matter of perspective, or maybe it's just way further north than I'm thinking (Moose factory?) but man. 15$/acre? Seriously?