LAND ACCESS STORIES: Wildwood Farm – Pouce Coupe, BC

Posted by Kat Roger on October 20, 2024

ABOUT WILDWOOD FARM

Wildwood Farm is a 160-acre, off-grid cooperative farm in Pouce Coupe, BC, started by Tim and Linda Ewert 50 years ago when they moved to the Peace Region with their young kids. Kolby Peterson, the farm’s successor, joined Wildwood in 2018 and after years of conversations, developed a lease-to-own agreement with Tim and Linda through the BC Land Matching Program (BCLMP) in 2022. Kolby and her partner Will live and work cooperatively with Tim and Linda on the land and recently brought a new community member into the world, their daughter Arlie. 

Currently, Wildwood raises grass-fed cows, pastured pigs and free-range chickens for eggs and meat. The farmers milk a dairy cow in addition to growing annual and perennial gardens for fruits and vegetables. In trying to keep nutrient and life cycles continuous on the farm, they grow as much of their own grain and hay for their pigs, chickens and cows as possible (given drought conditions), while also grinding some of the grain into flour for themselves. The farm buildings have all been crafted using as many local materials as possible, often sourced from the forest on their land or from forests nearby. Wildwood also uses a small solar array to supply their power needs. Finally, the farm has a cemetery association and a legal, private “green” cemetery on their farm to honour the continuity between life and death on the land.

HOW WILDWOOD FARM CAME TO BE

In 1973, Tim and Linda drove out west and discovered the Peace River Country. They were in their early 20s and wished to build a farm. By chance, they found a parcel of crown land with a beautiful creek and waterfall, but with no buildings, fences, dugouts or any of the other necessary things to start a farm. With great dreams, lots of energy and very little money, they turned the land into Wildwood Farm over the course of four decades of love, labour and community on the land. Tim and Linda were especially passionate about working with draft horses to support much of the labour needs on the farm. As they neared retirement in the 2010s, with their three children spread out across the province, Tim and Linda started to think about farm succession, hoping to find stewards they could mentor to carry on their remarkable vision.

Meanwhile, Kolby grew up on a hobby and hay farm outside of Grand Prairie, Alberta and became seriously interested in farming as a livelihood during her time at university. Kolby attributes falling in love with farming in part to a course called “Spirit of the Land,” where assignments included going to the farmers’ market, talking to local farmers, visiting organic farms in the surrounding county and sharing local food with classmates. Kolby was ‘pierced with a passion’ she didn’t know she had, and after finishing university, started apprenticing on different farms. These experiences confirmed that Kolby wanted to farm for the rest of her life as both a career and a vocation. Kolby also experienced the joy of farming alongside her friends during some of these apprenticeships and began dreaming about stewarding land in community for the long-term. Hearing Kolby’s desire to move up north, some of those same friends suggested she reach out to Tim and Linda in Pouce Coupe, who wanted to mentor a young farmer. Kolby had heard of Wildwood previously but had never seen their farm. 

Kolby went up to visit Wildwood and immediately fell in love with the farm and developed a deep kinship with Tim and Linda. It was 2018, and Kolby was overwintering in a little cabin in a very small town in Northern Alberta, piecing plans together for what was to come, feeling pulled to Wildwood just across the border in BC after her initial visit. She decided to take a full-time job in Grand Prairie that spring and spent every weekend going back and forth to Tim and Linda’s. Spending long days working together and having sprawling chats over coffee, the three developed a fast friendship. Those conversations transitioned organically into dreaming together, talking about what they would like for the future of their farm and for the future of farming in general. Tim and Linda were at the end of their farming career while Kolby’s career was just beginning. Together, they realized it might be a potent opportunity to combine their dreams into a common future. 

Kolby moved to the farm full-time in the spring of 2019, and they spent the next couple of seasons farming together, dreaming “pie in the sky” about starting an agricultural cooperative. Through a process of trial and error, Kolby, Tim and Linda realized that in order to develop a community that could live and work harmoniously together, it couldn’t be “created” but rather had to assemble itself organically. Despite their enthusiasm for a utopic communitarian future, they began to realize that community-building could not be forced or accelerated. Instead, they focused on what was already true: their shared commitment, care and trust for each other and the land, and the knowledge that Kolby would be part of Wildwood’s future while Tim and Linda would remain on the land for the remainder of their lives. Hoping to build some material security into the future of the relationship for both parties, the team started exploring farm transition models and looking for support to help them answer big, daunting questions about land, lifetime, money, resources and community. All much more excited about living and farming on the land than thinking about money and legal agreements, Tim, Linda and Kolby recognized that the scaffolding of a thorough, mutually-informed written agreement for their shared future would preserve the safety and sanctity of their very special bond.

Working with the Central-North Land Matcher and with Darcy Smith, the BC Program Manager, the Wildwood team started building out their transition plan with the B.C. Land Matching Program (BCLMP)!  With Jolene and the BCLMP team’s support, the big daunting questions became a bit less daunting – there was a framework to follow, a pathway already forged. As Kolby describes, they no longer had to “bushwack” their way through the process, and instead had a smooth, elegant and graceful process at their own pace, ebbing and flowing in and out of the big conversations in accordance with the seasons. The team at Young Agrarians put them in contact with accountants and lawyers, in addition to creating content around non-traditional and non-family farm transition that meant the Wildwood team didn’t have to explain themselves over and over again to external resource providers. 

Ultimately, with the BCLMP team’s support, Kolby, Tim and Linda landed on a lease-to-own agreement. Arriving at a price tag for the farm was extremely challenging, and both parties’ aversion to assigning monetary value to the bounty of the farm – so much of which Tim and Linda had crafted by hand – made putting a dollar value on the lease-to-own agreement even more difficult. There were no other properties to compare Wildwood to in order to assess market value – between the off-grid log house, composting toilets, solar power and the bounty of perennial crops and farm infrastructure, Wildwood was entirely unique. Eventually, with the support of some folks in real estate, Tim and Linda landed at an estimate for the market value for the property. While Tim and Linda wanted to know relative value, it was more important to them that the younger generation actually be able to take over the farm in a sustainable manner. Tim and Linda came back to Young Agrarians with the estimated market value and explained that they would prefer to sell the property to Kolby for below market value through a lease-to-own agreement. The first five years of the lease would be a very low lease rate to allow Kolby to build the farm business up to viability, including any necessary infrastructure improvements. Their agreement stipulated that Tim, Linda and Kolby would revisit the lease after those first five years of startup to see if anything needed to be changed based on how the seasons went, and then would continue for a further five years with the farm purchased outright by year 10.

Now in the third year of the lease, Kolby and her partner Will (who joined the farm in 2022) are running Wildwood almost entirely themselves. Kolby reports that there were immeasurable gifts about starting off at Wildwood, though the farm still requires a lot of infrastructure repair after decades in operation. Kolby and Will are tasked with establishing and marketing a viable business in their community that produces enough income to purchase down the line, but they feel confident that their agreement with Tim and Linda will make that possible. Meanwhile, Tim and Linda have (mostly) retired and have moved into the retirement home they built on the property. Their house overlooks the farm and their legacy, and they look forward to spending the rest of their days on the land they call home. With their shared future at the forefront, the relationship between Kolby, Tim and Linda has grown and changed, and Tim and Linda look forward to continuing to mentor Kolby and Will. Kolby, Will, Tim and Linda are bound by the gift that is each other, and the land, after years of dreaming and strategizing to build the container for their shared vision. As they move forward, they are working in ways big and small to understand the meaning of their vision for future generations to come and for the greater, not-yet-imaginable timescales of the land and water that has made everything possible.

CULTIVATING GENERATIONS: WHY WILDWOOD

In their own words, the group at Wildwood describe their vision:

“This land is our source of holistic nourishment, of balance between cultivated abundance and wild abundance, and of hope for the future of creative human expression through regenerative farming and community cooperation.”

Wildwood’s stewards aim for the farm to ‘feed itself,’ meaning that the animals, plants and humans on the land are all feeding and being fed by the farm in turn. Both generations of farmers are committed to simultaneously managing and participating in the various life cycles on the land. A variety of relationships make up these life cycles, whether they are growing grain for the livestock, sustainably harvesting fuel and milling lumber from the forest or supporting pollinators. Kolby describes a hope to reclaim more and more ways not just to sustain their lives and meet their sustenance goals but also to give health and wealth back to the land. In so doing, their lives at Wildwood can be a creative force, not just healing degenerated land but actually generating life on the landscape. For Will, Kolby, Linda and Tim, these goals are interchangeably part of learning how to live well while living a life that creates good.

In addition to the tangible use of and contribution to resources on the land, sustainable well-being at Wildwood also requires a functioning economic model that connects Wildwood to the outside world, in addition to relational well-being on interpersonal, community and interspecies scales. Working through their lease-to-own agreement with the BCLMP helped the group at Wildwood tackle both big questions and specific details about their farm’s economic goals, and the trial-and-error process of forming a cooperative since then has helped Will and Kolby understand that their farm’s economic model will change over time – Wildwood will likely have a different labour situation every year until the farm is ready to host employees, and Kolby and Will are growing more comfortable with that uncertainty. In the meantime, developing strong organizational systems is a priority alongside hosting working visits and seasonal stays with potential cooperative members. 

As Kolby and Will work towards their vision for the farm, they benefit from the work Tim and Linda have put into the land, business and surrounding community over the decades. Direct marketing beef in the fall and winter meets farm status requirements for the property, while selling pigs and broiler chickens provides some year-round income. Kolby, Will, Tim and Linda have ongoing conversations about how to use capital and whether and how to use debt as a tool versus favouring incremental growth over time. These kinds of conversations involve exploring each person’s lifetime goals on the land, questions of risk and capacity and always, exploration of their collective vision. As a product of some of these discussions, Kolby and Will secured a loan this year to build additional market garden infrastructure, and feel confident about the wisdom of investing in seasonal crops. Over the years, they hope to test the waters with several different farm entreprises to understand not just what they like doing, but also what their customers and local community are excited about.

As Kolby and Will build their future on the farm, Tim and Linda have been excited to watch the progress happening around them and to offer wisdom and advice from their deep well of experience. Kolby notes that the transition of the farm ebbs and flows, and there are always conversations to be had about what to continue and what to change. One of the most beautiful aspects of the generational land transition, she notes, is that Tim and Linda’s lifetime of work has allowed Kolby and Will to springboard ahead on their own work, meaning they don’t have to replicate the trial-and-error processes that Tim and Linda encountered in their early years on the farm. The open communication channels between the two generations are structured by a shared desire for reciprocity with the land, the capacity to talk about how to communicate with one another and a deep respect and honouring for one another’s knowledge, wisdom and intentions. Many of these conversations happen around the kitchen table or the dinner table, and Kolby notes with laughter that communication breakdowns tend to mean the two generations are not eating together enough– they have shared a meal once a week for years, and only when their lives get busy and they don’t make a point to eat together do they lose sight of one another.

In the past year, their intergenerational bond has grown stronger with the addition of a third generation: Arlie! Kolby and Will welcomed their daughter Arlie into the world in 2023, and the cooperative at Wildwood has only become more precious to them. At the forefront for both generations of farmers is long, long-term thinking about the land and the people who will steward it, and Arlie has brought many of those questions into relief. Thinking about the future of the farm, which decisions to make about infrastructure, economics and community, Kolby wonders: “what is it that we hope future generations will be grateful for? Will they say ‘gosh, I’m so happy that great-grandma and great-grandpa planted those fruits and nuts on the ridge’…. Or that the ponds fill with minimal rainfall… or that the buildings are so strong and sturdy that they won’t need to be renovated?” Even with the littlest questions that come up every day, the team at Wildwood is committed to putting the time in upfront to imagine larger and longer-term designs, to really think about whole ecosystem management. Kolby and Will are still learning the ecosystem through deep observation, silence and listening, while always benefitting from the gifts of Tim and Linda’s 50 years of knowledge. In the face of inevitable change on the landscape, all around the region and the realities of climate uncertainty, sharing knowledge and listening to the land has become more important than ever. Kolby notes that ever since she arrived at Wildwood in 2018, Tim has been saying “this is the first year ever that…” whether he’s talking about drought, wildfire or market conditions. 

Tim loves Arlie so much that he comes down to visit every day, and it has become clear to Kolby and Will that raising a child is a village business. They want that village to be on the farm, and they are building the conditions to make it possible. Kolby feels confident that if they stay on their path together, alive and passionate and in love with what they are doing and how they are living, the right people will come along to expand their little cooperative. She and Will are dreaming-in-action the community they want to live in, little by little, and are grateful to have the opportunity to do so – Kolby says: “I am not desperately trying to find a way to live out my dreams – I am. The complexities, the frustrations, the deep joy, the setbacks, the excitement – it’s all wrapped up in the life I am living right now.”

WHAT’S NEXT FOR WILDWOOD FARM?

Just this summer, Kolby and Will have started to run a small CSA program with their offerings and are excited about relationship-building and expanding Wildwood’s presence in the community. Kolby is enthusiastic about integrating into the local community through ideas like a farm-to-table dinner on the farm to bring more people into the peace and bounty of the land at Wildwood. Sitting with the complexity of her future ownership of the land title while not believing that land can or should be owned, Kolby believes that the land needs to be shared as a healing space and hopes to take small, wise steps down that road with each passing year. Looking into the near future, the team at Wildwood also wants to think intensively about drought resiliency on the land in order to start designing broad-acre water harvesting and plan hydro-ecologically for generations to come.

Kolby, Will, Tim and Linda hope that the dream they have created at Wildwood will serve as a model for other farmers in addition to drawing new cooperative members to join their team at Wildwood. Read more about Wildwood’s commitment to modelling intergenerational farm succession and their search for new cooperative members on their website: https://wildwood.farm/.

CONNECT WITH WILDWOOD FARM:

Facebook: Wildwood Farm

Instagram: @wildwoodfarmers

Check out our on-demand webinar, Non-Family Farm Transition with Wildwood Farm to hear more from Tim, Linda and Kolby and learn about models for farm succession.

Read Tim and Linda’s Farm Legacy Letter to future generations on the Young Agrarians blog.

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Got Land? Want Land?

Through the B.C. Land Matching Program, Young Agrarians offers support to farmers looking for land for their farm business, and landholders looking for farmers to farm their land. We’ve made more than 339 matches on over 12,301 acres to date! To learn about available land opportunities, and to learn about the B.C. Land Matching program, please visit youngagrarians.org/land or contact the Central-North Land Matcher, Andrew Adams, at andrew@youngagrarians.org.

The B.C. Land Matching Program is funded in Central & Northern B.C. by the Government of Canada and the Province of British Columbia under the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership, a federal-provincial-territorial initiative, with additional support from the Real Estate Foundation of BC.