You can still homestead in Canada

Homesteading. You know it as the way that Canada and the U.S. effectively crowdsourced the development of their Western frontiers.

You take a big chunk of prairie, divide it up into squares, run a rail line through it, and then offer this deal to potential settlers: If you can turn your square into a viable farm, you can keep it.

The plan worked perfectly. In just a few decades, a giant chunk of North American wilderness was transformed into one of the most productive agricultural regions in human history. At a net cost to the government of about zero dollars.

But surely *you* missed the homesteading boat, right? The government’s not just going to give you land no matter what you promise to do with it.

And while that’s mostly true, a version of homesteading does still exist into the 21st century. And you can find it right here, in the Yukon Territory.

Basically everything consumed in the Yukon is imported by truck via the Alaska Highway. So for decades, authorities have had some interest in developing local food production.

So, if you know where to look, the territory retains a policy on the books where they will give you free Crown land if you promise to turn it into viable farmland.

Basically, identify a piece of potential agricultural land, submit this form to the Yukon government with details of your proposed farm. If they like what they see, you get to start clearing the land. Give it a couple of years, and if you can prove to a government inspector that 60 per cent of it is cleared, ploughed, seeded and growing something, then that piece of Northern Canada becomes yours forever more.

The land isn’t technically free, but it’s basically free. What they do is assess the value of the land, and then debit that cost from whatever improvements you make to it. So if you just fill a plot of land with old cars, that’s not going to count and you’ll be on the hook for the price of the land.

Now if you’re wondering why the Yukon isn’t currently overwhelmed by strapping Gen Zers trying to start idyllic new lives as Klondike grain farmers, the answer is simple: Farming is hard. And farming North of 60 is really hard.

Even in ideal circumstances, if you’re turning undeveloped land into a farm, the raw cost of that real estate is not going to be anywhere close to your biggest expense. And in the Yukon, all those land clearing expenses are higher, because your supply lines are longer.

But unlike a lot of the North, you can actually farm here. The growing season is short, but it’s intense, what with the midnight sun. And with the right breed of cow, you can keep them outside for most — but not all — of a Yukon winter.

The genius of homesteading is that it naturally filters out layabouts. You need a particular type of grit and determination to turn a remote piece of Canada into a farm. Those that had it were rewarded with land. Those that didn’t usually gave up pretty quickly.

So if you are fit, hard-working, resilient to cold and innovative, the Yukon wants you to have one of the last pieces of free land on the entire planet. If you’re none of those things, well, you’ll find that out soon enough.