Freedom Cove: A Libertarian's wet dream?

in #libertarianism8 years ago

Tucked away in Clayoquot Sound, BC, floating gently in the coastal inlets of Cypress Bay, you will find a patchwork of 12 interconnected buoyant platforms bearing all the necessities of life. Four greenhouses to grow food, three lodgings, solar panels, diesel generators...all in service of a vision shared by artists Wayne Adams and Catherine King who began building all of this back in 1992 (see below for an earlier version)

Wayne is a sculptor, Catherine a retired ballerina. The sort of eccentric couple you would expect to build and dwell in a place like this, surely. They raised the money by selling their artwork locally, as well as some of the excess produce grown in their greenhouses and gardens.

Their protein comes from fishing, some of which is sold alongside the produce. All in all they want for nothing, as their floating colony meets every need save for the occasional trip to get more fuel, which ensures power is not interrupted on cloudy days.

As they float on an ocean inlet, the water they built on is unsuitable for drinking. Instead they collect drinking water using a rain catching system as well as sourcing it from a nearby waterfall on land. Anything they can't or don't produce themselves they can make trips to land for, though it is accessible only by boat, as there's no direct connection from the floating settlement to the shore except the ropes it's moored with.

The greenhouses make possible year-round cultivation of edible crops. A necessity as besides being their full time home, Wayne and Catherine have raised two children here. What a place to grow up! Just imagine the childhood memories. Imagine the reactions of friends you bring home for a sleepover! What more enduring human trait is there, especially among the very young, than the desire for cool forts? What cooler fort is there?

Perhaps you'll recall my article about Ephemerisle the other day. Similar construction methods are used here, but due to the close proximity to land, unique problems have cropped up. The wooden foundations have been gnawed on by large rats now and again, and attempts to raise hens had to be abandoned when wolves and other predators from land became aware of it and tried to get at them.

Technically a seastead as it's floating on an ocean inlet rather than a lake, Freedom Cove represents a rudimentary early effort at establishing floating colonies on the sea. In this case just for a couple and their kids, but one day for hundreds or even thousands of families like theirs. Far from land and thus, far from government, immune to taxation provided trade with the mainland adheres to US regulations.

Some haven't waited for that dream to come true on its own, and I applaud them for it. Talk about taking matters into your own hands! Wayne and Catherine are creative pioneers far ahead of their time, their lovely floating settlement a tantalizing glimpse of things to come.

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This is so cool!

Looks absolutely beautiful & idilic! How does it work with zoning/planning permission, surely some government bod turns up at some point looking for some 'protection money'?

I was wondering along similar lines. The land they're near is isolated, so the property taxes would be minimal and their probably would be no zoning regs. But I was wondering how they got their hands on the land, or if they even own the land. From what I've seen, the govs in Canada are notoriously resistant to opening up government-owned land to homesteading. I don't mean land designated as a park, I mean land that's in the hands of the gov because it's de facto unowned: i.e., no-one wants to use it for anything as of now. Because of that tight-fistedness, I was wondering if they even own the adjoining land at all...

Looks like a paradise!

it looks a bit small :)

For a community perhaps, but for just one family it seems like overkill to me.

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