Co-operative immigrant settlements were formed across Canada, especially on the Prairies, which needed farmers. A range of ethnic groups were involved: Manitoba’s New Iceland dates from 1876, while New Jerusalem and New Hungary were founded in Saskatchewan in the 1880s. In 1887, the first Mormon settlers established Cardston in Alberta. There are many other examples.
The idea of a utopian community could only have come to us from Renaissance Europe. Before Sir Thomas More and his fellow humanists, medieval society prevailed. Everyone subscribed to the medieval world view, which was framed by the great corporate monoliths of church and state. Everything had its place, even poverty and war. There were schisms within the church, but all agreed on the primacy of Christ and his teachings. Then along came Utopia, which described a new, alternative form of existence—one not based on Christian doctrine but on how men and women might improve the social contract that bound them together in everyday community life.
Christianity, however, continued to have a powerful effect on utopian thinking. Many idealistic sects subscribed to the belief that the kingdom of God would shortly be established on earth and that those who passed the entrance requirements would enjoy a thousand-year interval of peace and prosperity. These groups, which are described as millenarian or chiliastic, did not try to form deliberate utopias—that would come naturally in due course. Their Christian duty, as they saw it, was to follow simple, communal routines and prepare themselves for the joyous day.
Age-old millenarian convictions have been curiously mirrored by more modern, secular ones. Brother XII, for instance, thought that a two-thousand-year period of tranquil, universal co-operation would follow the dawn of the Aquarian Age. In the 1970s, some back-to-the-landers shared similar views of the future. The Texas Lake Community felt itself to be “a part of the plan which will bring about the New Age on Earth.” The Marxist Ochiltree Commune recommended BC’s hippie settlements protect themselves “against those that would try to divert us from our destination—the creation, ultimately, of a new society.”
Other groups were sure that the kingdom of God already existed—within the human heart. The Doukhobors, Quakers and Emissaries, who founded some of BC’s longest-lasting settlements, adhered to this belief, which may have allowed them to survive and succeed. When each member of a group can find, internally, the utopian principles that guide and energize the community, there need be less reliance on an eloquent chief. The truth is no longer invested in just one individual. Within the Doukhobor sect, for example, the role of the divine leader has dwindled in importance, replaced by the raised consciousness of the fellowship as a whole.
Leaders of many early intentional communities in BC were chosen on the basis of their lineage or their charisma. Some were capable but inflexible (i.e., William Duncan at Metlakatla), and that rigidity usually doomed the enterprise. “Distributed” forms of leadership, where executive duties were handled by a select group (i.e., in the Bella Coola valley), proved more successful in the long run. Modern intentional communities often place a heavy emphasis on co-operation, consensual decision-making and shared responsibility. Today’s co-housing groups, in fact, have become leaders in developing consensual practices. The process requires patience, trust and effort. It’s not for everyone. Sometimes the search for consensus can become so drawn out that the wheels grind to a halt. A balance—and, often, a compromise—must be found.
There are many ways for a community to founder. Financial naivety and unrealistic economic plans are a common cause of collapse (Sointula). An isolated location and transport difficulties have been fatal for some groups (Cape Scott). While a strong leader has not always been a hindrance, he (and it always seems to be a “he”) can be a hard act to follow, as the Doukhobors found to their sorrow. Succession is a big issue that intentional communities all over North America are struggling with today: handing the reins over to the next generation, bringing in younger people with new ideas and energy while still honouring older members.
But British Columbia, despite witnessing any number of community failures (many quite spectacular), has been fertile ground for some idealistic seekers. Its vast spaces, which newcomers have wrongly seen as empty, were a promising location for attempting to bring utopia—or “nowhere”—to life. Because many people fear communal modes of living, and because North American society is hostile to anything that threatens privacy and private property, early utopian communities were forced to BC’s margins. Now we seem more comfortable with alternative lifestyles, and today’s intentional projects have become increasingly mainstream and urban.
Businesses, in fact, are beginning to manufacture and market what appear to be intentional communities like any other commodity. Consider Celebration, a twenty-year-old fantasy from the Walt Disney Company, still making merry in Florida. This village development, with its old-fashioned architecture and folksy centre, was touted by Disney as an ideal community, one with “family values”—a showcase of all the most appealing and beneficial characteristics of American small-town life. Celebration is an example of “new urbanism,” a design movement that promotes environmental goals through the creation of walkable, planned neighbourhoods that contain a range of housing types and businesses.
Another housing trend that seems at first glance to be similar to intentional community–making is “co-living.” The movement got its start in San Francisco in 2014 and has since spread to New York—two cities with some of the most expensive housing in the world. Existing apartment buildings are renovated so that each unit contains several (usually four) bedrooms as well as a shared kitchen and living room, and several shared bathrooms. The units, all rentals, are chicly furnished, and a cleaner comes once a week. Some buildings offer a floor for female residents, a floor for men, with the rest of the floors mixed. Co-living is currently aimed at younger people and at singles, and has been described as “dorms for grown-ups” (though nicer). The goal of at least one developer, however, is to soon build co-living facilities for families.
But Celebration and co-living are not genuine intentional communities, designed and brought into existence by those who will be part of them. Celebration harkens back to a nostalgic past, when life was safe and predictable, rather than forward into the unknown. Co-living is cheap rental housing, born out of desperation in cities where young and low-income individuals are finding it difficult to survive. True intentional communities celebrate common values and shared objectives. They cannot be mass-produced and sold.
For two years, as I wrote this book and meandered happily down the dusty corridors of BC’s history, poking into archival attics and cul-de-sacs, I was struck by the powerful quality of faith that the early utopians possessed. They travelled to the human periphery, to the physical and psychological edge, and often truly did not know where their next meal would come from. As I met today’s communitarians and visited their homes, what touched me most was the trust they had—in themselves and each other, in the future, in life itself. They inspired me with hope.
Ultimately, all utopias are doomed. The goal is unattainable, but also strangely irrelevant; only the journey towards the “good place” has true value. We have outgrown the medieval view of the world, unified though it may have been. We have almost destroyed the First Nations unified view of the world. Yet we must find a new view, one that allows us to control the damage we are causing to ourselves and to the earth. Today’s pioneers are working to turn sustainable visions—ecovillages, permaculture and bioregionalism—into reality. Utopian communities are living laboratories, places where we keep trying to invent improved versions of ourselves so we can survive and evolve as a species.
Metlakatla
Chapter 1
A Beacon of Light
William Duncan and Metlakatla
Thus the surrounding tribes have now a model village before them, acting as a powerful witness for the truth of the Gospel, shaming and correcting, yet still captivating them …
—William Duncan, letter to Church Missionary Society, 1863
A prolonged spell of early May sunshine blessed my first visit to Metlakatla, in the mid-1990s. This