Carol’s Norwegian roots are obvious in her fair complexion and height, but the wandering spirit of her Scandanavian ancestors wasn’t apparent in the first years of her life. “We lived on a farm in Saskatchewan and regularly saw our extended family. Chickens, farm animals, open space — it was a wonderful childhood,” she says. When …
“We are not planners,” says Julia. When she saw the notice for a cohousing info session she thought, “It’s a couple of blocks from our house, I really don’t know anything about cohousing and it sounds sort of interesting. Why not?” She and Lee packed up their new baby and their three year old and …
When Chris’s parents emigrated from Vietnam, they were asked to choose where they wanted to live. Knowing nothing about Canada, they decided that the middle of the country seemed sensible. So they chose Saskatoon. The first snowfall was a life altering experience for them. “What have we done?” they asked. “In retrospect, they made a …
Tara’s and Aaron’s childhood experiences could not have differed more. But their desire to live in cohousing has the same roots: they want their kids to grow up in a big warm community and to live in one themselves. Aaron grew up in Connecticut in a small, loving family with a dad who is a …
What do you do when the life you’ve made for yourself is thousands of miles from family and home? Building a new one might be a viable solution. Born and raised in Scotland, Alistair left the UK for a two year job in Kingston Ontario in 1992. His move mirrored his uncle who immigrated in …
I grew up in Red Deer Alberta, the oldest daughter in a large family. In those days, families ate their meals together. As kids, we even ate our lunch at home with our dad because we all ‘worked’ close enough to home. Our large family meals were about what you’d expect. Noisy. Newsy. Sometimes contentious. …
I became interested in cohousing long before I even knew cohousing existed. Even in my twenties, I sensed that there had to be a way to live in community with people who liked and supported each other. In my home country South Africa, nothing like cohousing existed so I had no name to put to …
Like many people who eventually wash up on the shores of cohousing, I had been feeling for a long time that the way I was living didn’t make sense. I’m an introvert, so I wasn’t unhappy with my singular life, really, but I felt something was missing. I had loving daughters and a great circle …