I've been a homesteader in British Columbia for some forty years, and before that I lived a similar life in rural Quebec. At the same time, I've done lots of other jobs as well -- creating videos, making radio documentaries, doing human rights work, writing, teaching, working at an alternative artists' centre and more.

My idea of a good time is to walk out of our little homestead, amble up the road, and then spend three or maybe six days hiking around the wilderness.

What would my friends say about me? Our Australian ex-wwoofer and friend Emily wrote that I'm the most outrageous person she's ever met. (Later, she brought her parents to visit.)

Or, as ex-wwoofer Wilfe put it: "You're a dirty old scum-bag, and as kind and generous as they come." (Thanks, Wilfe, that's lovely.)

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Officially, I'm new to couchsurfing. My partner, though, has been a member for some years and we spent five months doing a lot of couchsurfing in Turkey. See his profile for lots of references: his user name is Holti. More recently, we've been couchsurfing in Bali, Australia and New Zealand. Great!

Interests

We have a lot of visitors at our house (mostly wwoofers and HelpXers -- volunteer workers from around the world who come through the wwoof.ca and helpx.net websites); it's great to take them with me to the backcountry with backpacks, tents and -- of course, the big draw -- bears!

I also like the homesteading work my partner Uli and I do. That means growing most of the vegetables, fruit and meat we eat, and also slowly working (for maybe another twenty years?) at finishing our house and farm buildings. This year, for example, I need to become a stone mason, to finish the walls of our new, forest-fire-resistant woodshed.

A few other things I like to do:

- Play piano duets with the 97-year-old musician down the road.

- And trombone duets with ex-wwoofer Bob.

- Singing. Sometimes even singing in a community opera production.

- Contact improvisation (it's a kind of improvised movement or dance form, usually with another person or two, that involves physical contact, rolling around on the floor, flying in the air and other novel and interesting ways of relating with bodies).

- Talking and thinking about interesting new ideas.

- Meeting interesting people.

• animals
• cats
• dogs
• chickens
• writing
• books
• singing
• documentaries
• dancing
• human rights
• walking
• flying
• gardening
• flowers
• volunteer work
• drawing
• homesteading
• music
• piano
• opera
• hiking
• canoeing
• skiing
• swimming
• volunteering
• wwoof
• lakes
• rivers
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

My favourite music:

- to play: probably Chopin Nocturnes.

- to listen to: Almost any live music.

- recorded music to listen to: Beethoven. Oum Kaltoum. String quartets. The brass quartet that played in the mountains for my last big birthday party!

Books I've found fascinating:

- Collapse, by Jared Diamond. (How do we prevent our civilization from disappearing like, say, the Norse in Greenland?)

- Sex at Dawn, The Prehistoric Origins of Human Sexuality. (Amazing ideas about how our bodies are programmed to express our sexuality -- raising interesting questions about what kinds of sexual lives would be appropriate for us to live today.)

- The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict From 1500 to 2000, by Paul Kennedy. (Set a frame around my view of world politics.)

- The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs (Has made me see the cities I see in my travels quite differently.)

- Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, by Samuel Delaney. (Great sci-fi.)

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

The five most amazing natural events in my life were:

- a six-day blizzard.

- swimming naked at night in a phosphorescent sea, when each stroke lit up the dark with glowing plankton.

- walking out of a house I used to live in and seeing the "dormant" volcano send a column of lava 1.5km into the air.

- watching a single live tree, which had coals left from a forest fire glowing at its base, burst into a column of flame about 30 metres tall.

- holding my new-born son in my arms and staring into his eyes.

Teach, Learn, Share

Here are some of the things I've been learning about: Homesteading (gardening, growing fruit, raising animals, building ponds and lots more). Backcountry hiking. Making appropriate judgments. Figuring out how to live happily . . .

What I Can Share with Hosts

Our beautiful homestead in a valley that looks like a fjord: lakes, trees, mountains, rivers.

Hiking, backcountry skiing, swimming, skating, canoeing . . .

Lots of useful work if you want it.

Our vegetables, flowers, orchards and animals. The specific animals change with the seasons and our whims: usually sheep, chickens, ducks and, this year, Henrietta the turkey poult (who turned out to be a tom). A lovely puppy but no cat at the moment.

Countries I’ve Lived In

Algeria, Canada, France, Guatemala, United Kingdom, United States