In 2016, we sold everything we owned, said goodbye to family and friends, and hit the road with our truck and travel trailer in search of a place that would become our greatest teacher. Our desire to understand our food systems and root deeply with a place, had been calling to us for some time. The pressure of urban life and accelerated growth was not a life we wanted to continue living and we knew in our heart of hearts that if we truly wanted to understand our relationship with food and with the wild community (nature), this was the calling that we had to respond to.
In 2017, we landed in Judique, Cape Breton after several months of travelling across Canada and the American Southwest. Here in this little village tucked away on the western shores of Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, we found the land that had been calling to us for years. We had arrived home to 74 acres of forest. There were no roads into the property, no structures, and no power lines along the main access road. Only a beautiful forest and magical spring-fed brook that meanders through mature woodlands of Arcadian forest.
For almost a decade now, we have been slowly creating a site that is inspired by permaculture design, supported by the health and well-being of the forest and watershed that breathes life into this place.
Our Vision for this place is that she be given the opportunity to continue returning to a completely mature and healthy forest once again. That this place will remain intact, that she will serve as a refuge, a sanctuary, a pocket of cultural and ecological re-membering. A place that also demonstrates the ways in which human activity can support healthy ecosystems and permaculture-inspired living, where we live in reciprocity with the land and where we are co-creators with the wild community. This is where we must learn to live and thrive with nature, not fight against her or try to control her.
We must learn to once again foster healthy relationships with our food systems and nature if we are to navigate what is coming our way. It is a process of remembering all the ways of being that our collective human cultures knew at one time in our histories, which is why we see this place, Twisted Roots Farm, as a Centre for Ecological Re-Membering.
We know that in order to realize this vision we need community. Community building is key to the success of this little project in the woods. We have, since the beginning of our time here, invited others to share and learn together, helping build the foundation of this vision. We have hosted volunteers since 2018, where people from all over the world, young and old, have volunteered with us to learn about off-grid living, permaculture, homesteading, raising livestock, building, and nature-based connection. The stories we have held and witnessed are truly amazing, giving us the inspiration and fortitude to continue with this vision despite the hardships and challenges we have faced over the years.
The land here is truly magical, one of those special places that is willing to hold us, offering her healing wisdom while listening to our stories. Those who have been willing to truly immerse themselves here have had life changing experiences through their interactions with the farm and the wild community that surrounds us. Like the young man from Tokyo who had experienced a lifetime of pain in his body from growing up in a large city, yet found relief from the pain by sleeping in the forest and taking early morning cold plunges in the brook in late September. Or the young man who visits us every year on his path to becoming a priest, who sings and finds beauty within the healing waters of the brook, or the young engineers who were looking for new directions in their lives and fell in love with our goats and then chose to say goodbye to good paying jobs and start a small goat farm and dairy.
We are also in deep gratitude to the wonderful community of Judique and Cape Breton who have welcomed us to this place and continue to support all that we have put out into the world from the beauty of this place. Every year, we expand and add to the ways that we invite others to the farm and the forest, from goat walks in the woods to offering a variety of workshops and classes, including yoga to soap making in our newly built brookside lodge. This space in the woods has opened so many opportunities for us to host others in a unique forest setting, allowing for wellness and learning with nature.
This project is about community; learning as a collective how to build resilience in a quickly changing and troubled world by relocalizing our systems so that we may give back to our communities, human and wild alike. Our Vision for the foundational work that is being developed here at Twisted Roots Farm is that this project continues beyond our time. To realize a continuance plan for all that is being created here. This starts with community and a new way of understanding land ownership in the shadow of a capitalist culture.
In order for the work to continue, we know that there will have to be those who believe in what is unfolding here at Twisted Roots Farm. One of our goals for 2026 is to initiate the process of forming a non-profit society that will help navigate a continuance plan and create covenants and land use designations required to ensure the protection of this place for future generations. This will take much work and dedication from a community of folks invested in how this project unfolds. Once this has been accomplished, we see the role of the non-profit helping guide educational offerings here at Twisted Roots Farm, allowing for funding options that create more accessibility for all. We do not view this place as an exclusive spa or eco-retreat centre for only a select few.
Our hope is that a non-profit of this nature can serve as a model of how land owners can create protected areas on their lands for their community, creating healthy ecosystems for future generations. Over time, we see the non-profit inheriting this land to continue the work that will be created here.
We have risked everything and made huge sacrifices to be here, and we continue to listen to how this land wants to unfold her vision. Our dedication to this place goes beyond words, and our work, our form of engaged environmentalism, is the continued protection and preservation of this land. This place is and will continue to be an example of what can be done on a community level to demonstrate climate action, and how we must relate with the land, how we must be connected to our food, and how we can generate wellness through our relationship with nature.
This is our life's work.
