The Beginning

Before we set off for the wilderness —
Before we sold everything and walked away from jobs and city life —
Before we made the bold leap out of our day-to-day —
We had a desire.

We had a deep, persistent longing for land.
A place to build a future that didn’t require 40+ hours a week for barely enough money, while our bosses grew rich from our labour.
We wanted peace.
We wanted quiet.
We wanted to build something we could one day retire on — to be as self-sufficient as possible, and to do it while we were still young and strong enough to handle the work it would require.
It started with dreaming.

We talked about growing our own food. Maybe raising chickens.
Fresh eggs. Fresh vegetables. Fresh fruit. All of it grown with our own hands. All of it from a place we could trust — because we built it ourselves.
We’d both felt this yearning for some time.
A longing to have our own space.
A home we didn’t owe money on.
A place we could wake up in and feel the pride of our own handiwork.

Those early conversations became more detailed.
We started saying “one day.”
We began watching — completely hooked — the success and struggles of others on YouTube who were walking a similar path. Even the failures didn’t shake our dream. If anything, they taught us. They inspired us.

Then we started browsing. Land listings from $5,000 to $5,000,000. We knew we couldn’t afford most of them, but it was fun to dream. And the more we dreamed — the more we researched systems, building, farming, growing — the stronger that desire grew. And the more disillusioned we became with the status quo. The daily grind became drudgery.

But the dream? The dream started getting us through. We started listing what our “utopian” land would include. What we needed it to have. Where we wanted it to be. And still we browsed.Still we researched. Still we half-heartedly searched — with no real plan, no firm budget.

Then, something shifted.

We discovered we had access to $50,000. We won’t go into how — that’s private — but suddenly, we had a boundary. A target. A limit that made the dream feel like something real, not just an idea.
At that point, we’d been dreaming, researching, and planning for five years.

It was the winter of 2023.

Everything became real. We started looking seriously at properties across the country. We narrowed our search.

We finalized what features were essential.
We decided on Ontario — close enough to family, but far enough to start fresh (as opposed to staying in Alberta, where we were living at the time). The search wasn’t easy. In that price range, most properties were either tiny, landlocked, or within organized townships.

But we wanted freedom. We wanted something remote. And we wanted at least five acres.

We needed help.
So we reached out to our friend Stephanie, a realtor who understood the process. She guided us through what we didn’t know. We found a few properties. But frustratingly, most of the listing agents never responded — not to her, not to us.

It was disheartening. We lost count of the false starts. We viewed and discussed over 200 properties. It was exhausting. It was often soul-crushing.

Then, one morning, I got a notification from a site we used.
There it was.
80.25 acres.
Unorganized township.
$50,000.

It checked off most of our list. Not all — but enough.
We talked it over, quickly.
And then we called Stephanie.

I won’t go into the details of the buying process — that’s another post on its own.
But when the documents were signed and the land was ours…
It felt surreal.

It was July, 2023.

Our original plan? Wait 2–3 more years. Save money. Pay down debt. Build slowly. Then move. But the world had other plans.

Costs were rising — food, gas, utilities. Rent had gone up 12% in May alone. Saving while keeping up was becoming impossible. So we started discussing an early move — maybe April 2024 instead of waiting years. We’d scrimp, save, stockpile over winter. Maybe we could pull it off.

Then our landlord dropped by with a letter. A new rent increase: 22.5% — with 90 days’ notice. It was October. That meant almost 35% increase in less than a year. And we knew — our salaries weren’t going to rise by even 5%.

It sent us into a panic. Winter was coming. The economy wasn’t improving. And our savings were dwindling faster than we could replenish them. We had to decide: Stay, survive, watch our resources disappear — Or leap, even if we weren’t “ready.”

We made the leap.

We started selling everything we could. We searched for a camper to live in while we built a cabin.
Found one for $3,000 — decent shape, with a rough solar system. We parked it in a friend’s backyard to begin prepping. We listed items for sale. Held a household contents sale (which flopped). But Facebook Marketplace worked — slowly, and often frustratingly.

On December 1st, work announced a 2% raise.

We gave our two weeks’ notice. Gave the landlord our 30-day notice. There was no turning back. We doubled down. Selling. Packing. Planning. Preparing for the scariest move of our lives. We weren’t “ready.”

The timing wasn’t perfect. We were leaving Calgary in the dead of winter. But we were resolute.

December was a blur: Marketplace transactions. Trips to the dump. Stockpiling food and supplies. Donations to charity. Preserving and prepping.

By Christmas, we were sleeping on blankets on the floor of an almost-empty house. The landlord — who hadn’t re-rented the unit — gave us a few extra days. We used every one.

The final sale on Marketplace happened as we were getting in the truck after a frustrating walk-through with the landlord (who tried to find fault with everything — even pre-existing issues). We didn’t care. We were done. We drove to the camper. Hooked it up.

And at 3:00pm on January 3rd, 2024, we hit the road.

Our new — better — life was about to begin.