Sleepless in Alberta- looking for co-op start up

I have lived in Alberta all my life and found it to be a great place to live, however, finding and affording land is a bit of a pipe dream when you go it alone.
What I am looking to find is other individuals or small families who like me live day to day paycheck to paycheck. I want out of the dog eat dog life and I want to grow my own food and raise my own animals. But I want to do it will the Earth and People in mind. I don't want to be political or religious about it. I feel that these two topics often stifle growth and close minds, not to mention create heart ache and hard feelings. I am not looking for a swinger type attitude either. Now, that being said, I have a large living space in a small town that has lots of employment. Finding work is not too hard, actually know some people here working three jobs. If there is a good fit and a great plan that we co-opt together we can achieve the purchase and building up of a homestead farm that is based in permaculture using a vast diversity that the Alberta climate will allow. Who's interested? send me a pm and lets chat about ideas. I am open to a wide variety of ideas.

My husband and I are looking for the same kind of lifestyle, we also have a son. We want to live a homestead type of lifestyle without secluding ourselfs from the real world. Become self sufficient without loosing touch with the society we currently live in. We are non religious hard working people but are having trouble getting our "foot in the door". We are wanting to move back to northern alberta but our chosen place is just to expensive. Trailors start at 90k in a trailor park. buying a plot of land is completely out of the question right now and we have no idea where to begin. Where are you located? Any suggestions as to how you think we should start? What exactly are you looking for in the type of people you want to co opt together with?

Hi. I'm in east central AB. Have some land and a decent start on it. We are open to the idea of land-sharing. There is more here than we can manage in the farming style that we aspire to (diverse, natural, horse-powered) We have a pretty low-key, low impact, off-grid life. A bit of solar power. Hand pump water. Some potential for making a living but not the easiest market access. I imagine we will need some off farm income for some time to come. I value my independence quite a bit, but I also value community and friendship. I can see that working together at things makes sense.

If either of you want to pm me and chat about possibilities, you're welcome to. I'm not about to jump into anything, but with the right people and the right arrangements something might work out. I'm not sure what the details would end up looking like. We live in a yurt and would be more welcoming of people ok with living simply in small / nomadic dwellings...i'm not really foreseeing putting up any dream houses on the place. Maybe a little barn someday soon.

I am looking for people who want change, and yes I don't want to be secluded from others in society. But if I can convert some materialistic ideas into good for the earth good for me too, then that is a bonus. I live central alberta near saskatchewan/alberta border, not far from lloyd. here there are beautiful rolling hills that go on for miles. the kind of place where permaculture would be fantastic. as far as starting off, it would be a matter of pooling resources, working as much as possible and spending as little as possible as well. if we could purchase a piece of land say 10 to 20 acres and have two or three maybe even four families or couples or even a single here and there we could construct a townhouse style green building that is private but built using recycled building materials and cob and a little earthbiotech style building. I have spent days on end researching different styles of homes and ways to heat and found some awesome ideas. I have even started growing trees in my livingroom to have for when this finally comes to light. currently i am in a three bedroom with basement townhome and I am only occupying one room. I have plenty of furniture and such, but as i go through the month and work hard I find that there is rarely any left over to put toward land. i do have investments that i can throw into the initial purchase of land but then comes the where do i live and save enough to build problem. I have an awesome job, and there are several jobs in the town i live in. Employment here is never a problem. as for how to get ideas on where when and how that would have to be a group decision.

Sounds like heaven Kari. Awesome, you are not too far from me so it sounds.

By coincidence, author Diana Christian (an expert on intentional community) is on the forum now, and just started a thread that might be of interest to you over in Intentional Communites

There's a pretty active group over at Viking now working on getting an ecovillage going, have you ran into them? Alberta Rural Sustainability

hey, im in peace river, 10 min out. email me @ terrifiedprojects@gmail.com if anyone is interested. iv got 53 acres, open for builds. all trees now. cheers guys.