Poole's Land was an eco-village and a

countercultural A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Ho ...

intentional community An intentional community is a voluntary residential community designed to foster a high degree of group cohesiveness, social cohesion and teamwork. Such communities typically promote shared values or beliefs, or pursue a common vision, wh ...

Tofino Tofino ( , Nuu-chah-nulth language, Nuu-chah-nulth: ''Načiks'') is a town of approximately 2,516 residents on the west coast of Vancouver Island in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia. The District ...

Vancouver Island Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest ...

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

, Canada, that existed between 1988 and 2020. Operated by founder Michael Poole, the community functioned as a popular tourist destination as well as a place of low-cost residence and accommodation, particularly for seasonal workers working over the summer months. Residents were encouraged to participate in a

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, counterculture of the mid-1960s to early 1970s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States and spread to dif ...

lifestyle, living in camp-like conditions with an emphasis on

sustainability Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long period of time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions (or pillars): env ...

and a community culture that espoused

empathy Empathy is generally described as the ability to take on another person's perspective, to understand, feel, and possibly share and respond to their experience. There are more (sometimes conflicting) definitions of empathy that include but are ...

as a core value and that was highly tolerant of soft drug use. Poole's Land came to an end due to a combination of dissatisfaction by local authorities, the failing health of its founder, and the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

paralysing operations.

History

Origin

Poole's Land was created October 7, 1988, by Michael Poole when he purchased an forested property in the area of Tofino, a small settlement on the west coast of

. It cost Poole $50,000 to purchase the site, and afterwards he had little funds remaining to develop it further. In keeping with his vision of creating a "communal living area free from any corporate structure", he began to offer accommodation on the site in exchange for labour. This formed the basis of what came to emerge on the site, a "hippie commune" often labelled as "

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...

", although Poole himself considered it more of a

humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential, and agency of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humanism" ha ...

venture. In the summer of 1993 Tofino and the surrounding area was the epicentre for the Clayoquot protests, an organised environmental campaign against

clearcutting Clearcutting, clearfelling or clearcut logging is a forestry/logging practice in which most or all trees in an area are uniformly cut down. Along with Shelterwood cutting, shelterwood and Seed tree, seed tree harvests, it is used by foresters t ...

in the

Clayoquot Sound Clayoquot Sound is located on the west coast of Vancouver Island in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia. It is bordered by the Esowista Peninsula to the south, and the Hesquiaht Peninsula to the North. ...

area of Vancouver Island. As the campaign escalated that summer, thousands of environmentalists arrived in the Tofino area to participate in the protests, many of whom came to temporarily stay on Poole's Land and helped establish its reputation and ethos.

Culture

If guests at Poole's Land were unable to afford to pay for accommodation at the site, they could instead volunteer their labour, such as working in a communal kitchen or in a communal garden. Labour could also be undertaken in exchange for a gift of drugs such as

cannabis ''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae that is widely accepted as being indigenous to and originating from the continent of Asia. However, the number of species is disputed, with as many as three species be ...

magic mushrooms Psilocybin mushrooms, or psilocybin-containing mushrooms, commonly known as magic mushrooms or as shrooms, are a type of hallucinogenic mushroom and a polyphyletic informal group of fungi that contain the prodrug psilocybin, which turns into t ...

LSD Lysergic acid diethylamide, commonly known as LSD (from German ; often referred to as acid or lucy), is a semisynthetic, hallucinogenic compound derived from ergot, known for its powerful psychological effects and serotonergic activity. I ...

, the use of which was promoted by founder Poole as "herbal medicines". Inversely, hard narcotics such as

cocaine Cocaine is a tropane alkaloid and central nervous system stimulant, derived primarily from the leaves of two South American coca plants, ''Erythroxylum coca'' and ''Erythroxylum novogranatense, E. novogranatense'', which are cultivated a ...

and

heroin Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a morphinan opioid substance synthesized from the Opium, dried latex of the Papaver somniferum, opium poppy; it is mainly used as a recreational drug for its eupho ...

were shunned by Poole and the community as destructive and addictive. One custom maintained by the camp was that the recruitment of a new resident to the commune would be celebrated by the smoking of cannabis from a

peace pipe A ceremonial pipe is a particular type of smoking pipe (tobacco), smoking pipe, used by a number of cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Americas in their sacred ceremonies. Traditionally they are used to offer prayers in a religious ceremo ...

. Residents cited the tolerant culture of the camp as one of the main benefits of living at the site. Community Member Michael Goodlife suggested the longevity of Poole's Land over similar communal living communities was due to the community not taking itself too seriously and emphasising the fun of living in the alternative lifestyle of the camp, as well as stating that he felt the camp's overall central philosophy was simply "empathy" and "taking care of the person next to you". Poole's Land practised

permaculture Permaculture is an approach to land management and settlement design that adopts arrangements observed in flourishing natural ecosystems. It includes a set of design principles derived using Systems theory, whole-systems thinking. It applies t ...

, growing some of its own food and plants for its own communal consumption. Residents of Poole's Land lived in camp-like settings, occupying tents, wooden cabins,

treehouse A tree house, tree fort or treeshed, is a platform or building constructed around, next to or among the trunk or branches of one or more mature trees while above ground level. Tree houses can be used for recreation, work space, habitation, a ha ...

s, or

tiny homes The tiny-house movement (also known as the small house movement) is an architectural and social movement promoting the reduction and simplification of living spaces. Tiny homes have been promoted as offering lower-cost and sometimes eco-frien ...

, many placed on the back of trailers in order to abide by local Tofino housing bylaws. Even the remains of a disused school bus (known as the Magic Bus; not the same bus in the photo) served as a place of residence. There was no on-site plumbing, with the community making use of

outhouse An outhouse — known variously across the English-speaking world otherwise as bog, dunny, long-drop, or privy — is a small structure, separate from a main building, which covers a toilet. This is typically either a pit latrine or a bucket ...

s and

composting toilet A composting toilet is a type of dry toilet that treats human waste by a biological process called composting. This process leads to the decomposition of organic matter and turns human waste into compost-like material. Composting is carried out b ...

s for bathroom facilities and using the nearby

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

to wash. Poole estimated that, in any given year, during the summer months there could be as many as 100 residents living simultaneously on Poole's Land. Many Poole's Land residents were poor or even homeless as they arrived but often found work in the area as unskilled labour. Critics of Poole's Land associated the residents with criminality, but supporters suggested that the site offered some of the only affordable accommodation in the area during the summer, as all other accommodation in the town would be rented out to seasonal tourists, and thus was very important to the Tofino workforce. Many of those who sought out residency on Poole's Land also came with

mental health Mental health is often mistakenly equated with the absence of mental illness. However, mental health refers to a person's overall emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It influences how individuals think, feel, and behave, and how t ...

issues, something Goodlife acknowledged but said he was committed to attempting to manage. Poole's Land was a popular destination not just for prospective residents; it was estimated that approximately 20,000 tourists passed through the site in a 30-year period, despite the remoteness of its location.

Demise

In 2013 founder Poole was diagnosed with

prostate cancer Prostate cancer is the neoplasm, uncontrolled growth of cells in the prostate, a gland in the male reproductive system below the bladder. Abnormal growth of the prostate tissue is usually detected through Screening (medicine), screening tests, ...

. This, coupled with a general feeling of being "burnt out" by 30 continuous years of running the community, resulted in Poole placing the property up for sale in 2018, hoping to secure a price of $2 million to $3 million. It was Poole's ambition to use these profits to purchase a lot on nearby

Long Beach Long Beach is a coastal city in southeastern Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is the list of United States cities by population, 44th-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 451,307 as of 2022. A charter ci ...

in order "to solve the staff-accommodation problem and the homelessness". By 2019, local authorities had begun to apply fines to Poole's Land for violating zoning bylaws, which in turn resulted in most of the permanent structures on the site having to be dismantled or destroyed. In the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic, Poole's Land was declared "permanently closed" as of March 2020. On June 25, 2020, Manisha Krishnan, a journalist from ''

Vice A vice is a practice, behaviour, Habit (psychology), habit or item generally considered morally wrong in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character trait, a defect, an infirmity, or a bad or unhe ...

'' magazine who had written a number of articles about Poole's Land as well as created a short documentary about it, wrote an article stating that Poole had died on June 16, 2020. He was 68 years old.

Legal dispute

Following the death of Michael Poole, legal possession of Poole's land was contested between his daughter Lilly Woodbury and a former romantic partner of Poole's, Sandra Gloria Varga. Varga claimed to be Poole's

common law wife Common-law marriage, also known as non-ceremonial marriage, marriage, informal marriage, de facto marriage, more uxorio or marriage by habit and repute, is a marriage that results from the parties' agreement to consider themselves married, follo ...

due to a purported relationship spanning between 2008 and 2015, and thus entitled to inherit Poole's Land following his death. However, In July 2023 a

British Columbia Supreme Court The Supreme Court of British Columbia is the superior trial court for the province of British Columbia, Canada. The Court hears civil and criminal law cases as well as appeals from the Provincial Court of British Columbia. There are 90 judicial ...

Judge dismissed Varga's claim.

References

{{authority control Counterculture communities Ecovillages Intentional communities in Canada Populated places established in 1988 Populated places on the British Columbia Coast Populated places in the Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District Populated places disestablished in 2020