Owning the Land: a blessing or a curse - Hunter-Gatherer perspective

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#6

Some HG cultures in some ecosystems in some periods of ecolutionary time. I’m not comfortable with this generalization applied broadly, and am concerned that it’s an inroad to justifying (the narrative as such, and not your particular use of it) HG cultures by imposing an agricultural/civilized framework by which HG cultures can be measured and compared. This seems to spring from the idea of Lockean property rights wherein property rights arise through mixing labor with land in some intentional way. It seems to force HG cultures into the ideological framework of property rights, which it seems unlikely that many traditional cultures would acquiesce to if asked directly.

I first observed this in Charles C. Mann’s book, 1491. The editorial arc is basically:

  1. Colonizers justified colonization because inhabitants of the so-called Americas were uncivilized.
  2. New evidence shows they were very advanced/civilized.
  3. Therefore, colonization was unjustified.

To my reading, blanket statements about HG cultures resembling agricultural societies falls under plot point #2 above.

My preferred editorial arc is something more like:

  1. Hunter-gatherer cultures have inherent value.
  2. Therefore, colonization is unjustified.

I’m not saying you’re making this argument, Mark. But I do think it’s important to be clear on tending the wild assumptions (as well as recognizing that some HG cultures have been almost 100% sedentary on their own accord).

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#7

Whether it’s squatting or buying property or constantly traveling, they all have their problems and benefits. They are almost not comparable because they offer such different opportunities.

I’ve squatted in the woods for years, travelled and lived in veg oil vehicles, rented shitty houses and acreages in the bush and am close to becoming a property owner. I still can’t tell which one I think is best because at the time of each , that is what was best for me.

Assuming you aren’t into going 400 miles off into the bush because you want to maintain some sort of connection to family or other humans, it’s pretty difficult to find a place to squat and or live nomadically long term without being crushed by the authorities.

What excites me is the idea of connecting with local native tribes who are interested in reclaiming their territories and working with them to do so. Living on the land under their permission with the understanding that in order to live on the land we must defend it.

Unfortunately this too is a rare situation and requires the right kinda people and connections.
But it’s gotta start somewhere

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#8

Anything in civilization is a curse from a hunter-gatherer perspective, but we’re all looking at varying spots on the path back to HG life, not coming from within it. I think it’s best to think of these things as steps rather than solutions. Naturally, they’re not going to be possible or the best solution to everyone, but the hope is to get enough going to build up community and having spots where trying to live wild isn’t a matter of permits and looking over your shoulder.
From a HG perspective, private property is one of their greatest threats. It’s ironic to buy land working towards becoming a hunter-gatherer, but we aren’t left with many options.
As a land owner myself, I can totally see why I do it and I can totally see why others would think it’s a waste of time and resources. In the end, we’re both right, but when I’m listening to a nightly spring chorus of spring peepers, tree frogs, coyotes, and whippoorwills, it’s definitely better than paying rent in town. I don’t want to overstate that: me owning land isn’t destroying civilization, but hopefully it’s a part of the community building and resistance against civilization.

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#9

I “own” land and was still run off of it by the authorities(illegally). My friend has a lawsuit in Federal court against the local government over it. But even at that, I still have a lot of my belongings there, could camp and use it to a significant degree if I wanted, and, importantly, had recognized avenues available to fight back.

On the “200 km from” everything part, those are available in a few places. But that’s more isolated than I’m interested in. I would want want access for any significantly remote location.

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#10

There are pros and cons to everything I suppose. I don’t own land, and it has been liberating in the last few years to grow into an ever more comfortable nomadic life, following the wild harvests and seasons. I may not own any land except for the dirt under my fingernails, but I do have hundreds of thousands of acres of National Forest to play with. That is liberating.

At the same time, I long for a place where I can dig in some deeper roots. I’d love to start a nursery, and maybe build a little cabin for storage and wintering. If I had land, these are both things I would surely do. But how invested would I become in these little property-based projects? Would I lose focus on the twenty thousand acres of National Forest nearby me? I would hope not.

I think both are good, it just depends on what you do with it and your attitude. Don’t let the limits of your private property become the fence around your mind. Use that space as a tool and bridge for making greater connections with the whole landscape all around. And inversely, don’t let your love for wild, open spaces invoke a hatred for divided, privately owned plots. Let your understanding of the total ecology of a landscape inform your treatment on its tiny, fractured pieces. In other words, we can turn our private properties into something like wildlife corridors, or arks for biodoversity.

Hell, even a large vegetable garden is a good thing if it leads to more self-sufficiency and health. I’m not a purist – while I don’t agree with agriculture, I think organic vegetable gardens may be a necessary reality until we’ve rewilded the landscape to the point where it can support the many facets of human habitat again. Again, what you do with it and your attitude means more than just the objective reality of the thing. Don’t let your vegetable garden become your prison. Use it as a means of nourishing your life, so that you can do the greater work of tending the landscape around you.

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#11

I’m starting to see why our opinions are so different. You live in the US. I’ve never been there, but from what I’ve heard and what you wrote I see that you are living in an anarcho-capitalist hell, where “Eye for an eye”, “justice”, death sentence, utter respect for the Law and government, which cares about money more than its own citizens, is still in effect.

In contrary, in EU there is no such a thing as criminal trespassing! You can’t just shoot people for this. In some countries (Finland, Norway, UK) land owners even HAVE TO let others onto their land for trekking, camping, etc. It is unthinkable for the government to take your land without your permission and even if it does, you can individually SUE ANY EU STATE and win. The first lawsuit against Poland was won by a prostitute… We don’t have borders, cultural boundaries, everyone may live and work where they wish to. And the money is shared: e.g. I pay taxes in Poland, part of the money goes to the EU budget, then through EU donations to Finland wilderness management and they build cabins along the trail which I can then use for free. And there is unlimited free firewood as well.

So, Andrew, I don’t feel any kind of psychological impact of trespassing when I’m out in the wild. Sorry if you actually felt upset by what I’ve written. My friend once had to break into a private cabin after having almost drowned under the ice. He warmed up, stayed for a few days, then left a note and some money on the table and had no further problems. My other friends once put up their tent on a green lane between two highways going opposite directions. Guess what? Noone cared. We have been also camping just outside Helsinki airport. It rained so we didn’t have a fire, but, according to the law, we well could! Not to mention countless situations when I was offered help and even free $$ from absolute strangers.

And why not go 400km into the wild? Satellite internet and a friend rule out isolation. Even the most remote places on earth are within reach of a floatplane in some 3h at most, if you don’t want to make the trip. Ridiculously dangerous, you’d say? Well, 2 days ago the chain in my bike snapped, and fell onto a road and I was pretty much ONE SECOND from death in a car accident. We should rethink what really IS dangerous… Civilization only offers an ILLUSION of protection, but we DO pay the price even if most of us can’t see it.

But we all agree that having at least one, small, legal home on a private lot offers a lot of benefits. And this is not that expensive after all. I’ve seen offers that were less than $10K, for quite decently sized lots. I see though, that the argument: “No one can kick you out” is invalid in the US…

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#12

Hey Flapjack,

I heard you were looking for a place in the Yukon or BC. I’m also in BC. Was looking in the Stikine… I have indigenous connections up in the Skeena… was also up in YK a couple years ago and went down to Atlin too… wondering if you found something?

Let me know- I’m looking to create village.

Mark

#13

Hey Mark,
I’ve read your website, amazing stuff. I’m also looking for a place in Yukon or BC, even asked Andrew earlier about this. If you find something let me know, I can contribute to buying land if needed.
Liras

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#14

Hey Liras,

Cool! There are many options for land… but… my gut feeling tells me to work on community first. Work on connection first. Build relationships with local and indigenous communities, and find folks who have similar vision… that’s why I built my website- as a way to put out there what I’m into, the ways I want to live… it’s also why I’m filming- to connect with existing communities and share the stories and help build a web of people who are remembering to steward ecosystems.

I want people to know that there are ways of living more connected, of simplifying… etc. I am learning these myself.

I’m not ready to buy land because I don’t yet have a network of people who I trust are on a similar page, and would ‘go in 100%’ with me. I need to continue learning and practicing on the land and in community, and hopefully find some folks to call a community, to call a home. I’m open to that looking different ways. I have put up my core values and vision here because I feel strongly about these things:

http://sacredbalanceschool.tumblr.com/vision

I’m curious more about you and the different folks on this website. People seem to be coming from different places, with some common themes but different attitudes and experiences and desires too…

#15

Not that the US is better (it may be worse), but some of my first real experiences with this were in BC, Canada.

Part of why we chose Alaska is that long-term subsistence use is basically legal on state land as long as you don’t built permanent structures. Part of why we chose the land we chose is that it’s surrounded by state owned land instead of ferderally owned.

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#16

What gets really weird for me is that native owned ("tribal’, imprecisely) in Alaska is now owned by native corporations instituted by the federal government, and tends to be highly restricted. On one hand, duh. On the other, the corporations behave as corporations, and have succeeded in converting native political groups into capitalist extractive efforts which look and perform a lot like the energy and logging companies that have destroyed landscapes worldwide.

There’s too much nuance to accurately discuss this here, but I find it important to try to understand how the commodification of wild spaces continues, and how that intersects with our relationship to the land in the context of this conversation.

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#17

Yeah it definitely depends on the people in your area or the political climate. In this area there are band councils which are very similar to what you ate describing. They technically only have jurisdiction over reserves.

On the other hand there are lots of grassroots people here who still control (or are fighting to take back control) of their territories under hereditary guidance. And are largely against industrial practises.

So , again it depends on your specific situation and locale to determine what the better option is for setting up home

#18

This made me think of a sad reality/not so funny story. My cousin is big into kayaking the rivers around us here in the Ozarks. When I moved he was talking about going on trips and shit like that, we were at our creek talking about right-of-way and having to avoid going two properties down in our creek because the neighbor is going to shoot anyone who does so. My cousin tells me, and this is supposed to be reassuring, that the use of banks and sand bars of creeks and rivers is fair game, as evidenced by a court case last year where a kayaker stopped on the sand bar along a river and the property owner shot and killed him for trespassing, BUT the property owner ended up getting thrown in jail. So, if you get killed, at least, ya know, you weren’t wrong about it.

#20

I dislike referring to myself as a land owner or the land as mine. I just think of myself as a steward of this place. Living completely nomadic though isn’t an option though for me being a father. A single person may get kicked off a property or fined whereas being nomadic with children risks having your kids taken away and its just not worth that risk for me. As far as trespassing goes, as long as someone is respectful to “my” land I have no problem with it.

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#21

And my experience, owning 240 acres of very cheap wooded land, was that the trespassers were always hunting and fishing and they left a LOT of trash. I quit giving permission, and maybe that’s why they shot out the cabin window. Twice. Or maybe not. I don’t know who kept stealing the tools either, but the cops never caught them.

And I just say I “so-called own this land” to distance myself from the ridiculous common understanding and yet let people know that it’s not theirs to ruin.

People from this crowd, I expect I’d welcome.

#22

I like to think of myself as a steward as well. Unfortunately in the US you don’t have full rights to use the land as you please unless you “own” it. Even then there are things you’re not allowed to do. I found myself bregrudgingly mowing the little lawn I have (leaving as much to grow wild as possible) because I know if I didn’t mow the lawn I could be fined or have action taken against me by my neighbors. I am also looking to have more access to allow wild lands to grow back and purchase land next to me (about 25 acres) to foster an outdoor behavioral health therapy location since there are none where I am. There are benefits and cons to owning land but sometimes we are only able to freely use the land as we please if we “own” it unless we find people or nice neighbors. The benefits of not being completely nomadic and having some land is that we are also able to learn the land and fauna/flora more intimately each season and apply that to further enhance our understanding and knowledge of the unique ecosystem we have adapted to.

#23

I agree with the benefits in this. I also think it’s absolutely possible to live a regionally nomadic life and likely gain a deeper understanding and connection to the ecosystem(s) we inhabit.

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#24

A point that I probably rambled too long to remember making in another recent post was that feral diet strategies are difficult to combine with land ownership/settled, permaculture/ag based lifestyles because the time/energy commitment to the farm inherently limits the movement necessary for more feral diets.

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#25

One of the central concepts of this project that’s different from others is the idea of buying the smallest chunks of land with the largest access to hunting and fishing. While this does pose a limit in some sense of the word, I don’t think it’s a functional limit if properties are selected with purpose.

Working at it from the other direction was part of the impetus for this post comparing paleo, permaculture and feralculture diet concepts.

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#26

That’s why I love this project so much. It’s actually doable. Buying small pieces of land to conserve that are near big pieces of public land makes a ton of sense on many levels.

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