Intentional communities in Canada and U.S. -- utopian, reform, single tax, temperance, religious, free love communities and settlements

Tom Monto
Jan 23
28 min read

Updated: 4 days ago

This blog gives information on Intentional settlements in Canada and elsewhere, and also on "Co-operatives -- consumer and worker".

Some of these communities were short lived; some had more lasting influence. Annie Denton Criedge and her husband, Alfred, moved from Canada to the U.S. and wrote books and engaged in social movements (emancipation of U.S. slaves, Proportional Representation, etc.) and Annie died in an utopian community in California.

A direct line can be drawn from utopian communities spawned by Edward Bellamy and his book Looking Backward (such as the Bellamy village in Ontario, which perhaps never got off the ground), to one of the first socialist political parties in Canada - the Nationalist Party of BC.

The same direct connection is seen in the U.S. as presented here:

A form of communism was pursued by religious groups in the 17th century. In the settlements of Plymouth and Jamestown, some land was held in common. The Labadists in Maryland (1684-1722), Johann Kelpius' colony of "The Woman in the Wilderness" (1605-1704) in what is now Philadelphia, the Dunker celibates (1713) at Ephrata in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and a community at Snowhill, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (1820), pursued communism of a sort. As well, Shakers at New Lebanon, New York lived in a communistic way from about 1782 into the 1900s. [[Harmony Society|Harmonites]] were a later variety of American religious communists. The [[Oneida Community]], or the " Perfectionists," established by [[John Humphrey Noyes]], which lasted from 1848 to 1880, is another example of a communistic religious community.<ref>"Communism" in Bliss et al, Encyclopedia of Social Reform (1897), p. 311</ref>

As well, forms of communism and socialism were adhered to in a variety of secular [[List of American utopian communities|utopian communities in American history]]. This includes many that were founded by the [[Fourierism|Fourierist]] and [[List of Owenite communities in the United States|Owenist]] movements. The [[Kaweah Colony|Kaweah]] (California) community and [[Ruskin Colony|Ruskin colony]] (Tennessee) also ascribed to communist principles.<ref>"Communism" in Bliss et al, Encyclopedia of Social Reform (1897), p. 311</ref>

Chronologically overlapping with these communistic social experiments, the earliest American socialist political groupings and parties got their start in the last half of the 19th century. [[Stephen Pearl Andrews|Stephen Pearl Andrews]] and [[Victoria Woodhull]] were habituees of utopian communities and also participated in the communist movement's [[International Workingmen's Association|1st International]].[[Edward Bellamy]] and his book Looking Backward spawned both a wave of communistic Bellamite [[List of American utopian communities|communities]] at various points in the U.S. and also a 1890s-era socialist political movement, the [[Nationalist Clubs]], which provided leadership to the [[People's Party (United States)|People's Party]] and the [[People's Party (United States)|Populist Party]].

The first socialist political party in the United States was the [[Socialist Labor Party of America|Socialist Labor Party]] (SLP). Formed in 1876 it was for many years a viable force in the international socialist movement. By the mid-1890s, the SLP came under the influence of [[Daniel De Leon]] and his radical views led to widespread discontent amongst the members, leading to the 1901 founding of the reformist-oriented [[Socialist Party of America]] (SPA), which included [[Eugene V. Debs|Eugene Debs]] and other former members of the [[People's Party (United States)|People's Party]].

from Wiki: "History of the The Communist Party USA")

(Note: Wiki "Phalanstere" has info on the actual layout of Fourierist communities.)

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CANADA

Wikipedia articles list these intentional communities in Canada that are operating today:

(all have been duplicated below under the respective province listing)

Community Farm of the Brethren, Ontario
Hutterite Christian Communities, existing in Australia, Canada, and the United States, but founded in Frenchman Butte, Saskatchewan
New Oasis for Life Commune (new home in BC, at Escott Bay Resort, situated by Anahim Lake.) "In April, 2009, Lifechanyuan created an intentional community – the Second Home – in China, which is now called the New Oasis for Life....In November 2016, we were forced to disband because of the pressure from government; in September 2017, the community was rebuilt in Canada."
Orthodox Mennonites, existing throughout Canada and the United States but founded in Ontario
Treehouse Village Ecohousing, Bridgewater, Nova Scotia
Whole Village, Alton, Ontario
Yarrow Ecovillage, Chilliwack, BC (see Wiki "Yarrow Ecovillage")

(from Wiki: "Intentional communities")

===============

Utopian colonies in Canada in history

(or if not utopian, then at least intentional settlements)

in order of province:

Ontario, BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Atlantic provinces

(Quebec utopias are still being identified)

ONTARIO

Brights Grove, Ontario 1829-[short-lived]

(a neighbourhood of Sarnia, Lambton County, Ontario, Canada.

Brights Grove is located on the shore of Lake Huron.)

Brights Grove was the site of Canada's first commune.[2] In 1829, Brights Grove was established along the model of Robert Owen's New Lanark, Scotland project by Henry Jones (1776–1852). The colony was named 'Maxwell' and was a short-lived project. However, it has been argued by Canadian socialist historian Ian McKay that "[t]he builders of the short-lived colony named Maxwell that Jones planted near Sarnia may well have been the first people in North America to call themselves 'socialists'."

The Children of Peace Sharon, Ontario (1812–1889)

The Children of Peace (1812–1889) was an Upper Canadian Quaker sect under the leadership of David Willson, known also as 'Davidites', who separated during the War of 1812 from the Yonge Street Monthly Meeting in what is now Newmarket, Ontario, and moved to the Willsons' farm. Their last service was held in the Sharon Temple in 1889.

Between 1825 and 1832, a series of buildings was constructed on the farm, the most notable of which is the Sharon Temple, an architectural symbol of their vision of a society based on the values of peace, equality and social justice, which is now part of an open-air museum that was in 1990 designated as National Historic Site of Canada.

They were a "plain folk", former Quakers with no musical tradition, who went on to create the first silver band in Canada and build the first organ in Ontario.[1] They built an ornate temple to raise money for the poor, and built the province's first shelter for the homeless.[2] By 1851, Sharon Temple was the most prosperous agricultural settlement in the province. They took a lead role in the organization of the province's first co-operative, the Farmers' Storehouse, and opened the province's first credit union.[3]

Through their support of William Lyon Mackenzie, and by ensuring the elections of both "fathers of responsible government", Robert Baldwin and Louis LaFontaine, they played a critical role in the development of democracy in Canada.

in Orange order violence in 1841 a Children of Peace member was struck on head which killed him.

(Orange Order mob violence in 1841 Toronto city election and in the first general election in the United Province of Canada )

Charles Dickens commented on 1841 Toronto Orange violence in American Notes for General Circulation, 1842.

prominent reformer Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine was prevented from candidacy in first election of Parliament of Province of Canada (after unification) in his home district of Terrebonne.

But then Robert Baldwin was elected in both the 4th York seat and to the Hastings seat.

Seeing Lafontaine's problem and seeing the need for more reformers in the Legislative Assembly, he gave up his 4th York seat in Toronto. His father William Baldwin was first contacted to run in 4th York to replace him. But then with Lafontaine barred from the Terrebonne seat, he was pulled in to run in 4th York. The Children of Peace smoothed his way, and he went on to be premier of the United Provinces (or co-premier with Baldwin).

(Baldwin meanwhile, losing a ministerial by-election, moved to run in Rimouski and won a seat in French Canada.)

===

Bellamy Village ON – proposed in 1891

proposed by disciple of Edward Bellamy’s socialist principles

(see Canadian Utopias project online)

===

Dandelion was a rural intentional community near Enterprise, Ontario.

active in the 1970s, disbanded around 1990. (see Wikipedia)

===

Wilberforce Colony was a colony established in the year 1829 by free African American citizens, north of present-day London, Ontario, Canada. It was an effort by African-Americans to create a place where they could live in political freedom.

see Wiki "Wilberforce Colony"

=====

Community Farm of the Brethren, Ontario

(Wiki article, still active in 2020s)

Whole Village, Alton, Ontario

(Wiki article, still active in 2020s)

=============

BRITISH COLUMBIA

Holberg, BC 1907-1914?

said to be named after

Ludvig Holberg, Baron of Holberg (3 December 1684 – 28 January 1754)

-- a writer, essayist, philosopher, historian and playwright born in Bergen, Norway. later moved to Denmark

Author of one novel -- Niels Klim's Underground Travels, originally published in Latin as Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum (1741),

Niels Klim's Underground Travels,-- a satirical science-fiction/fantasy novel.

It describes a utopian society from an outsider's point of view.

often pokes fun at morality, science, sexual equality, religion, governments, philosophy and other cultural and social topics

it is both Utopian and Hollow Earth - it is said to be the "first science fiction novels to use the Hollow Earth concept"

"The book is significant in the history of science fiction, being one of the first science-fiction novels in history along with Lucian's (125–180 AD) A True Story, Johannes Kepler's Somnium (The Dream, 1634), Cyrano de Bergerac's Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon (1656), Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726), and Voltaire's Micromégas (1752). Along with a number of those stories, an excerpt was included in the anthology The Road to Science Fiction, Volume 1: From Gilgamesh to Wells."

(from Wiki "Niels Klim's Underground Travels")

"There is a town named after Holberg on northern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. It was founded by Danish immigrants in 1907"

perhaps it was founded in 1909, not 1907

perhaps it was formerly known as West Arm.

(search in Peel's PP website found no mention of Holberg, BC in prairie newspapers from 1907 to 1914)

[a medievalists' examination of old utopian visions can be found at:

https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2019/05/whose-utopia-is-it-anyway-some-brief.html)

====

Poole's Land, Tofino on Vancouver Island

an eco-village and a countercultural intentional community

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 lifestyle, living in camp-like conditions with an emphasis on sustainability and a community culture that espoused empathy 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 and death of founder Michael Poole, and the COVID-19 pandemic paralyzed operations.

Poole died on June 16, 2020.

Residents of Poole's Land lived in camp-like settings, occupying tents, wooden cabins, treehouses, or tiny homes,[10] many placed on the back of trailers in order to abide by local Tofino housing bylaws.[11]...

There was no on-site plumbing, with the community making use of outhouses and composting toilets for bathroom facilities and using the nearby Pacific Ocean to wash...

(see wiki "Poole's land")

===

Ruskin, BC 1895-1898, 1898-1913(ish)

Ruskin is a rural, naturally-treed community, about 55 km east of Vancouver on the north shore of the Fraser River. It was named around 1900 after the English art critic, essayist, and social thinker John Ruskin.

1895, inspired by John Ruskin’s ideas of social reform via arts & crafts (from "Canadian Utopias project")

Ruskin is one of the historical communities of the municipality of Maple Ridge.

Ruskin Mills: The Canadian Co-operative Society 1895-1898

Members of the Canadian Co-operative Society, formed in Mission, BC, in 1895, gave the name Ruskin Mills to a sawmill and to the settlement they established at the mouth of the Stave River in present-day Ruskin.

Although nothing in the constitution and bylaws of the Society alludes to the formation of an utopian Ruskin socialist colony, some leading members sympathized with and discussed Ruskin's social ideas.

The Canadian Co-operative Society was a success at first. In 1897 the co-operative counted 54 members, most living close to the mill. There they had built homes, barns and a boarding house. Aside from the sawmill and logging operation, the members set up a general store, a smithy (blacksmith), a shoemaker's shop, a dairy and a vegetable farm.

Not less than thirty students—mostly the members' children—attended the school in Ruskin in the spring of 1897.

The year 1898 was the last year of the co-operative in Ruskin. Using a traditional method, logs had been pulled by horses or oxen to Stave River and then floated down to the mill. In 1898 due to a rainless summer, the Stave River dried up and logs could not be moved to the mill.

Lacking money and facing potential bankruptcy, the Society surrendered its assets to E.H. Heaps & Co. who had supplied the machinery for the mill on credit.

Most members moved away. Only a few members stayed and worked at the mill for a year or so.

Heaps & Co.

Heaps & Co. turned the small Ruskin mill into a progressive operation. They expanded and upgraded the mill, and steam and railway logging replaced the previous methods, horse or oxen transport. Heaps built a logging rail line that grew northwest until it reached Dewdney Trunk Road and then was built a short distance along the east side of Kanaka Creek.

Across the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) rail track, on the shore of the Fraser River, was the Heaps office building, the nerve centre of the operation. As well it accommodated the general store and post office, and living quarters for senior staff and their families.[5]

The Heaps mill at Ruskin burned down in the winter of 1904/1905 and was rebuilt, only to burn down again in 1910.

Plans to rebuild the mill failed when the company could not raise further funds. There were plans and promises for a new and even larger mill, but the building boom in Vancouver crashed in 1913. Heaps's Ruskin logging and lumber operation went into receivership.

================

Sointula, Malcolm Island, BC Finnish 1901-1905

The name Sointula means "Place of Harmony" (literally 'the place of chord') in the Finnish language. A group of Finnish settlers founded the village in 1901 after rowing north from Nanaimo. They planned to set up a utopian socialist society known as the Kalevan Kansa, based on cooperative principles.[2] and wrote to visionary Matti Kurikka in Finland to lead the new community. They were looking for a way out of the mines operated by the Dunsmuir family on Vancouver Island.

It was a physically hard life, and a devastating fire in the Sointula community hall in 1903 killed three adults and eight children[3] almost bringing the fledgling community to its knees. Kalervo Oberg, a Finnish-Canadian anthropologist born in 1901, came with his family to Sointula in 1902, and they were caught in the fire of 1903. Two of his sisters died in the fire.

Financial difficulties continued to plague the group. They worked for two years on the unprofitable Capilano Bridge project, and after that the Kalevan Kansa was disbanded as a utopian colony in 1905.[5][6]

But many of the community members remained on the island. Their descendants live there now.

====

Harmony Island, Malcolm Island -- Sointula (Kalevan Kansan Colonization Association)

"the imperfect realization of utopianism in the radical Finnish social experiment at Sointula (Harmony) on Malcolm Island" as described by George Woodcock in BC A Centennial History, p. 206-213

founders of Sointula invited Mati Kurikka to come from Australia, he had founded a utopian colony in Queensland

Kurrika held unusual views of marriage and free love

bad fire in 1903,

Kurikka left in 1903

disastrous bridge-building contract put them farther in hole

Kurikka accused of mismanagement of colony's funds

left-wing of society were dissident to Kurikka's leadership

(from Rasporich, "Utopian Ideals and Community Settlements in Western Canada 1880-1914")

=====

fruitlands of BC encouraged pastoral experiments

Wallachin between Kamloops and Lytton in 1910 (Rasporich, "Utopian Ideals...", p. 362)

BC temperance

Bella Coolla Norwegians

Quatsino Narrows Norwegians (Rasporich, "Utopian Ideals...", p. 367)

New Oasis for Life Commune (new home in BC, at Escott Bay Resort, situated by Anahim Lake.) "In April, 2009, Lifechanyuan created an intentional community – the Second Home – in China, which is now called the New Oasis for Life....In November 2016, we were forced to disband because of the pressure from government; in September 2017, the community was rebuilt in Canada."

Wiki article, still active in 2020s

Yarrow Ecovillage, Chilliwack, BC (see Wiki "Yarrow Ecovillage")

Wiki article, still active in 2020s

==========================

Alberta

===

Religious settlements in Alberta

Mormon settlements in southern Alberta

Dreamers at Medicine Hat in 1907-08 (Rasporich, "Utopian Ideals...", p. 370)

But religious groups were mostly kept out of Canada by immigration officials.

(see Howard Palmer, "Responses to Foreign Immigration, Nativism and Ethnic Toleration 1880-1920" UofA thesis (1971).

see C.A. Dawson Group Settlement - Ethnic Communities in Western Canada (1936)

=================================================

Parry Sound colonists

a colony at Ft. Saskatchewan

===

Barr Colony (Lloydminster) temperance colony 1902

===

French settlement at Whitewood, near Moose Mountain, Assiniboia in 1885

St. Ann Ranch Trading Company and Jeanne d'Arc Ranch

A resident of Whitewood moved on to establish a French ranching company at Trochu, Alberta. He was Comte Paul de Beaudrap

(Rasporich, "Utopian Ideals...", p. 363)

===

Sylvan Lake, 1906-1908

democratic socialist experiment attempted at Sylvan Lake, 1906.

led by Dr. Tanche

1906, established by Adalbert Tanche, inspired by social utopian model of Charles Fourier (from "Canadian Utopias Project" online)

see Canadian Utopias project online

see also:

(Rasporich, "Utopian Ideals...", p. 265)

Coates, Colin M. 2012. Une utopie française en Alberta: le phalanstère du docteur Adalbert Tanche à Sylvan Lake, 1906-1908. Paper presented at colloque “Les immigrants français au Canada à l’époque de la Grande Migration transatlantique (1870-1914).” Éditions du CRINI. Num 3, avril. Accessed 15.05.16. http://www.crini.univ-nantes.fr/35354114/0/fiche___pagelibre/&RH=1332493528973

Father Voisin. 1916. The History of Sylvan Lake Mission 1900-1916. Handwritten account of the Catholic Church at Sylvan Lake. Sylvan Lake and District Archives.

John Tanche fonds. 1972. Reminiscences of the Tanches and other families at Sylvan Lake, by Jean René Henri (John) Tanche. 1972. Glenbow Archives. Reference M1209, NA2531.

Tanche, Jean René Henri (John). 1982. Letter to Mr Dawe, Archivist, Red Deer & District Archives. Red Deer & District Archives.

Tanche, John. 1981. "The French socialist colony." In The Districts’ diary – 95 years of history of the Crossroads, Poplar Ridge, Norma and Durham Districts, 430-434. Red Deer AB: Poplar Ridge Historical Committee.

(excerpted from Canadian Utopias project online)

===

Sturgeon River School of Living, near Onoway

"a (hippie) commune near Onoway, Alberta in the 1970s"

from description of the book Across the Sturgeon by Christine Francis Anacker

(Published by Sturgeon River Publications, Onoway, 2020)

a former Onoway resident recalls going to school with kids from the group but could not recall any info on how many families

Todd Butler was young man in the community.

Eventually, they dropped out and joined four other families to form a commune on 35 hectares near Onoway. He grew up at what was called the Sturgeon River School of Living. "Quite a change from suburban Edmonton, let me tell you," he said.

"I was a hippie brat. Everybody was naked and topless and gardening. You don't want to see too much naked gardening."

Otherwise, life on the Alberta commune was idyllic for the boy, who even at a young age could appreciate the tensions between the Sturgeon River communitarians and the local rednecks.

A carload of young drunks drove out to the commune one day with mayhem on their mind, only to see one of the members, a man bigger than Jerry Garcia and twice as hairy, wrestling with a Volkswagen engine on a pulley. All wound up drinking beer and talking horsepower.

The boy's first 45 was The Monkees' Daydream Believer (even all these years later he correctly remembers the B-side as Goin' Down), while his first album was the Beatles' Rubber Soul.

Such impeccable credentials helped when his father bought him an acoustic guitar at the age of 12. The boy soon formed a band with a brother and three friends.

They called themselves Catalyst, or, sometimes, Cattle List.

followed by the band One Way as in "One Way from Onoway."

...

He was born in Edmonton, the second of four children of a Mormon couple. His father was an English professor at the University of Alberta. The boy first performed by singing in choirs at church. Then the sixties happened. His parents listened to the Beatles, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen, losing their religion as they became immersed in the counterculture.

Todd later had career as comedian, but got back into music producing well-respected records.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/taking-lyrical-liberties-all-part-of-being-a-canadian-loonie/article18240457/

================================

SASKATCHEWAN

Doukhobor settlements in eastern Saskatchewan, at Swan River (see "Tolstoyan colonies" below)

(see Wiki Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood, Canadian Community Doukhobors (1900-1938)

===

Qu'Appelle Valley, SK:

Scottish crofter colony at Benbecula

East London's Colony at Moosomin

ethnic colonies such as Esterhazy, New Sweden and Thingvalla.

New Finland and Thingvalla (Icelandic) were temperance and co-operative settlements.

aristocratic society at Canningon Manor, south of Moosomin

"Harmony Industrial Association" (Hamona) 1895/1898 - 1900

democratic social experiment at Harmony, near Tantallon,

closed up in 1900 after only two years of full operation

===

Temperance colonies in Sask

Temperance colony at Saskatoon 1883- (Rasporich, "Utopian Ideals...", p. 365-

see Bruce Peel Saskatoon Story)

Barr Colony (Lloydminster)

(and likely many more, including those mentioned in Qu'Appelle valley above

Hutterite Christian Communities, existing in Australia, Canada, and the United States, but founded in Frenchman Butte, Saskatchewan

Wiki article, still active in 2020s

=============

Manitoba

======

QUEBEC

La Kanado QC –

rural farming collective for unemployed

(see Canadian Utopias project online)

Gardenvale QC – 1918,

inspired by:

-Ebenezer Howard’s town plans,

-FG Todd’s landscapes

-Antigonish Movement study clubs (from "Canadian Utopias Project" online)

(see Canadian Utopias project online)

=========

Atlantic Provinces

Colony of Avalon NL – 1621

George Calvert attempted to create a permanent fishing settlement that offered individuals freedom of religious choice

(see Canadian Utopias project online)

===

Pennfield NB (a.k.a. Beaver Harbour) – 1783

settled by U.S. Quakers, who signed pledge not to buy, sell, or keep slaves

(see Canadian Utopias project online)

===

St. Ann’s NS – 1819

settlement headed by Norman McLeod to promote rigorous approach to Presbyterianism

(see Canadian Utopias project online)

===

Grand Falls NL – 1905

“garden city” as mill town realized to produce newsprint for London press baron, Alfred Harmsworth

(see Canadian Utopias project online)

===

Compton Community of Belle River & Bangor PE – 1909

millenarian communal kin group

(see Canadian Utopias project online)

===

B. Compton Limited 1900-ish - 1947

In the first decade of the 20th Century, a few closely-related families established a utopian community in Canada’s smallest province. Known officially as B. Compton Limited but described by a journalist in 1935 as "Prince Edward Island’s unique ‘brotherly love’ community," this utopia owed its longevity to the cohesion provided by its communal organization, dense kin ties, and long-held millenarianism – and to a decidedly pragmatic approach to business.

Ruth Brouwer's book All Things in Common demonstrates how "un-utopian" such a community could be while problematizing the contention that the inevitable end of all utopian experiments is a full-blown dystopia. Beginning with a compelling backstory and locating the Compton community in the historiography of North American utopias, the author explores the community’s business endeavours, its religious, familial and transgressive aspects, and its brief period of international fame, before assessing the factors that led to its dissolution in 1947....

(from book promo for

Ruth Brouwer, All Things in Common: A Canadian Family and Its Island Utopia

===

Port Union NL – 1916,

only North American utopian town built by a workers’ union

(see Canadian Utopias project online)

===

Markland NL – 1934

first of eight settlements incorporating communal farming, social and health programs, and Norwegian-style “folk” school

(see Canadian Utopias project online)

===

Tompkinsville NS – 1937

cooperative housing built 1937 in coal-mining town inspired by Antigonish Movement, Mary Arnold, local families’ study club

(see Canadian Utopias Project online)

===

Treehouse Village Ecohousing, Bridgewater, Nova Scotia

(Wiki article, still active in 2020s)

====

General notes:

Canadian intentional communities in general

There is no one Wiki article on this, but several Wiki articles touch on separate Canadian utopian colonies back in history.

see

Rasporich has essay in the Prairie West Historic Readings edited by R. Douglas Francis and Howard Palmer on "Utopian Ideals and Community Settlements in Western Canada 1880-1914", reprinted from Settlement in Western Canada edited by Howard Palmer

"... group settlement ideology combined with a moral projection of a new order was a continuing theme in western Canada"

Robert Stead's novel Dennison Grant featured a carefully-planned co-operative agricultural venture (joint-stock business) that substituted group settlement in villages for the rectangular survey.

A joint -stock corporation is not same as co-op. For one thing in joint-stock corporation a person has as many votes as stocks they own, while in a co-op run according to Rochdale principles, "one person, one vote" rule prevails.

E.A. Partridge's War on Poverty mentioned "co-operative commonwealth" which he portrayed as a militaristic social commonwealth. (p. 373)

Partridge's idea was described by Carl Berger in Visions 2020 (1970) (editor Stephen Carlson)

see also W.A. Mackintosh's Agricultural Co-operation in Western Canada (1924), p. 18-21.

The term "co-operative commonwealth" was publicized in Laurence Gronlund's 1884 book Co-operative Commonwealth, An Exposition of Socialism.

======

Outline look at Canadian utopian settlements in history

as described or at least mentioned in Rasporich, "Utopian Ideals and Community Settlements in Western Canada 1880-1914"

Tolstoyan communities

They attempt to live an ascetic and simple life, preferring to be vegetarian, non-smoking, teetotal and chaste. Tolstoyans are considered Christian pacifists and advocate nonresistance in all circumstances.

Doukhobor colonies in Canada especially on the Prairies and in BC

their immigration to Canada was encouraged by Kropotkin (after his visit to Edmonton in 1896) and by Tolstoy.

When authorities tried to change their traditional lifestyles, they reacted with public nakedness and burning of houses and other structures, as pictured in sensational photos carried by Canadian newspapers of the 1960s and 1970s.

(less-traditional Tolstoyan communities were founded in U.S. (Leclaire, Illinois; Christian commonwealth, Georgia).

Perhaps in Canada too, but I don't know of them.)

=========================

Communities categorized:

Temperance colonies on Prairies

Temperance colony at Saskatoon 1883- (Rasporich, "Utopian Ideals...", p. 365-

see Bruce Peel Saskatoon Story)

Barr Colony (Lloydminster)

(and likely many more, including those mentioned in Qu'Appelle valley above

===

Religious settlements

Mormon settlements in southern Alberta

Doukhobor settlements in eastern Saskatchewan, at Swan River (see "Tolstoyan colonies" below)

(see Wiki Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood, Canadian Community Doukhobors (1900-1938)

Dreamers at Medicine Hat in 1907-08 (Rasporich, "Utopian Ideals...", p. 370)

But religious groups were mostly kept out of Canada by immigration officials.

(see Howard Palmer, "Responses to Foreign Immigration, Nativism and Ethnic Toleration 1880-1920" UofA thesis (1971).

see C.A. Dawson Group Settlement - Ethnic Communities in Western Canada (1936)

================================

from "Canadian Utopias project" online:

(https://canadianutopiasproject.ca/settlements/?doing_wp_cron=1745643190.5996739864349365234375)

Bekevar SK – formed 1900 with core population from the single Hungarian village that it replicated
Bellamy Village ON – proposed 1891 by disciple of Edward Bellamy’s socialist principles
Colony of Avalon NL – 1621.
George Calvert’s effort to create permanent fishing settlement offering individuals freedom of religious choice
Community Farm of the Brethren – 1941.
founded by Hungarian communist-turned-Apostolic Christian, Julius Kubassek
Compton Community of Belle River & Bangor PE – 1909.
millenarian communal kin group
Esterhaz-Kaposvar SK – 1886.
second village in Canada established by Paul O. Esterhazy, special agent of Hungarian immigration
Gardenvale QC – 1918.
inspired by Ebenezer Howard’s town plans, FG Todd’s landscapes, Antigonish Movement study clubs
Grand Falls NL – 1905 “garden city” as mill town realized to produce newsprint for London press baron, Alfred Harmsworth
Hun’s Valley MB – 1885.
first of Paul Esterhazy’s prairie settlements formed with mainly Magyar & Slovak Catholic families from Pennsylvanian mining region
La Kanado QC – rural farming collective for unemployed
Markland NL – 1934.
first of 8 settlements incorporating communal farming, social & health programs, & Norwegian-style “folk” school
Maxwell ON – 1829.
inspired by Robert Owen’s principles of common ownership & collective living
Otthon SK – 1894.
founded by Rev. Janos Kovacs as farming settlement with settlers from Pennsylvanian mining region & Hungary
Pennfield NB (a.k.a. Beaver Harbour) – 1783.
settlement by Quakers from U.S.A., all of whom signed pledge not to buy, sell or keep slaves
Port Union NL – 1916. only North American utopian town built by a workers’ union
Rainbow Valley Colony BC – late 1920s. colony of religious dissenters seeking simple lives
Ruskin BC – 1895. inspired by John Ruskin’s ideas of social reform via arts & crafts
Sacred Heart ON – 1934 Depression relief settlement using principles of barter, cooperation on privately purchased land
St. Ann’s NS – 1819. settlement headed by Norman McLeod to promote rigorous approach to Presbyterianism
Sammon Takojat BC (a.k.a. Webster’s Corners) – 1905. Matti Kurikka’s second effort to combine theosophical and communal values in a settlement
Sharon ON (a.k.a. Children of Peace) – 1812. former Quakers led by David Willson to form unique Christian sect
Shomria Farm ON – 1944. farm inspired by Zionist movement to encourage collective living
Sointula BC – 1901. Finnish settlement guided by Matti Kurikka & AB Makela using socialist-cooperative principles.
[Matti Kurikka’s moved on to found Sammon Takojat BC (a.k.a. Webster’s Corners) in 1905.]
Standfast Bible Student Colony BC – 1923. members living simply & communally while awaiting the end of the world
Sylvan Lake AB – 1906, established by Adalbert Tanche, inspired by social utopian model of Charles Fourier
Tompkinsville NS – cooperative housing built 1937.
located in coal-mining town inspired by Antigonish Movement, Mary Arnold, local families’ study club

================

Utopian Colonies in the U.S.

A staggering number of utopian and socialist settlements or communes have been established in the U.S. since 1820. Many were short lived but others have survived for more than 50 years.

"According to Bestor’s exhaustive list, 96 utopian communities were established in the United States between 1820 and 1860. (see Arthur E. Bestor, Backwoods Utopias: The Sectarian and Owenite Phases of Communitarian Socialism in America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1970), 235-42.

According to Fogarty and Stephan, at least 150 communities were established between 1870 and 1900.

(see Karen H. and G. Edward Stephan, “Religion and the Survival of Utopian Communities,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 12:1 (March, 1973): Appendix, 95-9.

Robert S. Fogarty, All Things New: American Communes and Utopian Movements, 1860-1914 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), appendix, 227-33. "

(from Sarah Copenhaver Matherly, “The Age of Associated Effort”: Communitarian Reform at Topolobampo, Mexico, 1872-1896.)

Motherly went on to say that communitarian ideas spread in the late 1800s...

"by the time the People’s Party emerged officially in 1892, it had actively incorporated several central communitarian ideas into its platform, most notably public ownership of the railroad and telegraph, and fiat currency."4

These populists were also communitarians; indeed, it is difficult to enumerate all of the populist communitarian colonies because there were so many. In 1897 Eugene Debs himself pursued the creation of a western cooperative commonwealth for unemployed workers, though it came to nothing.

Of the communities that lasted more than a few months, some examples are:

-Altruria (California)

-Colorado Cooperative Colony,

-Equality Colony (Washington)

-the Fairhope Industrial Association (Alabama) [see below],

-Freedom Colony (Kansas)

-Home Employment Cooperative Company (Missouri),

-Kaweah Colony (California)

-Oneida community, in New York State went into industry, at the time big in metal animal traps (Oneida traps), later Oneida silverware

(see https://www.trappermag.com/article-index/oneida-traps-from-religious-commune-to-biggest-trap-company-in-the-world)

-Puget Sound Colony (Washington)

-Ruskin Commonwealth (Tennessee).

Participation in these communities can be summed up in the words of one member of the Colorado Cooperative Colony:

“We do not look for any relief on political lines for years to come. I therefore maintain that through co-operative methods, only will any relief come to the masses.” (Matherly, [Topolobompa])

===

U.S. Fourierists -- Associationists of the 1840s and 1850s,

America’s most popular 19th-Century communal movement. [adherents of Fourierism]

From the 1840s to 1860s, Associationists founded dozens of phalanxes around the nation, including the popular Brook Farm community outside of Boston.

(from Garcia, "Healthy Paradise" online)

tried to form an overlying organization:

Brotherhood of the Cooperative Commonwealth

https://debsproject.org/2018/02/17/the-brotherhood-of-the-cooperative-commonwealth-18-03/

inspired Annie and Alfred Cridge who, with her brother William Denton, published the newspaper The Vanguard, published in Dayton, Ohio in the 1870s. It extolled the virtues of agricultural communal living. The Vanguard gave space to “connection spaces” and news columns on “Reform Communities” to inform readers of established communes.

The Cridges were wide-ranging reformers and visionaries. Their endeavours included striving for Proportional Representation.

(see Montopedia blog "Annie Denton Cridge") ..."

https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/pantheon-of-reformers-alfred-cridge-annie-denton-cridge-alfred-jr-and-william-denton

Annie Denton Cridge was author of the groundbreaking feminist utopian novel Man's Rights or how would you like it? Comprising Dreams (1870). It was published in Woodhull's and Claflin's Weekly, a magazine co-founded by Victoria Woodhull.

========

From the 1860s to the 1880s, Americans founded multiple utopian-socialist communities that highlighted the importance of a vegetarian diet and clean living such as Hygieana, Cedar Vale, the Lord’s Farm, Societas Fraternia, Joyful, Israelites, and various Brotherhood of Light and Theosophist communities.

from Ashley Garcia, A HEALTHY PARADISE: ANNIE DENTON CRIDGE’S FEMINIST UTOPIA

https://commonplace.online/article/a-healthy-paradise/

==================================================================

Wikipedia: "List of American Utopian communities"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_utopian_communities

too numerous to name here

Icarians are listed there.

Here is a bit of additional info. on the Icarians.

Icarians was a communistic movement founded in 1847

based on utopian ideas promulgated in M. Cabet's book The Voyage to Icaria

(see Wiki: The Voyage to Icaria)

established colonies at various locations in the U.S. -

Texas -- along the Red River, Texas, Denton County, TX

Illinois -- Nauvoo, Illinois

Iowa -- Adams County, Iowa, (1854-1890) (see "New Icarian Community records in Adams County, Iowa, 1854-1890", world cat.org)

Missouri -- Cheltenham, Missouri

California -- Icaria-Sperenza Commune at Sonoma County and at Cloverdale, CA

with break-away groups at Corning, Iowa (disbanded in 1898).

(see Encyclopedia of Social Reform;

Wikipedia articles: Icarians;

Albert Shaw. Icaria A Chapter in the History of Communism.

This work (page 175-186) recounts a variety of other intentional settlements in the U.S. some assisted by veterans of the Icarias movement, including:

Brook Farm at Boston;

"New Odessa" community at Douglas County, Oregon 1882- (p. 182)

"Mutual Aid Community" at Glen-Allen, Missouri 1882-ish (p. 181)

Albert Shaw. Icaria A Chapter in the History of Communism. available at Hathi trust:

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiuo.ark:/13960/t5r78bp6f&seq=7

see also Brief history of Icaria : constitution, laws and regulations of the Icarian community. English, 1880

worldcat.org lists that and 35 other books and publications by or about Icaria.

see Hine, Robert V. California's utopian colonies. New York: Norton, 1973

National Icarian Heritage Society. A photographic history of Icaria-Speranza: a French utopian experiment at Cloverdale, California. Nauvoo, IL: The Society,1989

=======

not listed on Wikipedia's list:

Fairhope Single Tax colony at Mobile Bay, Alabama [1894-present?]

supported by Joe Fels, of Fels-Naptha Soap company

"The land was held on Single Tax principles, and as far as it was possible for a small community embraced by a larger one not governed by these principles, it was hoped that it might furnish an object lesson." (GGG, May 25, 1910, p. 23)

Joe Fels went on to buy 1300 acres in UK for a labour colony for the unemployed, at Hollesley Bay.

He also purchased 600 acres at Maylands, Essex, of which a large part is "devoted to French gardening and intensive cultivation by small holders."

[Grain Growers Guide article has much discourse on philosophy of utopian communities, human frailty and governmental rigidity.]

(GGG, May 25, 1910, p. 23)

"What is now the city of Fairhope, Baldwin County, was established in 1894 as a model community based on what Ernest Berry Gaston, a young Iowa journalist and Populist Party officer, called "cooperative individualism," a term he introduced to the lexicon of American reform....

[post WWII or in late 1900s] --The Single Tax Corporation no longer had the ability to control land speculation and had long-since run out of the free land that had once been its raison d'être."

from Encyclopedia of Alabama

https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/fairhope/

(no Wikipedia article)

(feminist co-operator writer Marie Howland lived in the Pacific Colony (see Topolobampo below) then lived at Fairhope pre-WWI.)

=========

The North American Phalanx, of Monmouth county, New Jersey

est. in 1843

based on Brisbane's theories

described in Charles Sears's 1886 book The North American Phalanx (hathi trust online)

book's intro was written by Edward Howland, husband of Marie Howland, mentioned above and below.

============

Tolstoyan communities in the U.S.

Ernest Howard Crosby was a notable Tolstoyan in the United States. He was a supporter of the Christian Commonwealth Colony in Columbus, Georgia, which was established in 1896 by a number of Christian socialists. It comprised 932 acres (3.77 sq. km).[11] The residents were influenced by the views of Henry George and Edward Bellamy.

N.O. Nelson, a Tolstoyan, founded the Leclaire co-operative village at Edwardsville, Illinois in 1890. With the economic base of a plumbing supply factory, it prospered. It offered affordable homes, a healthful environment, free education and opportunities for recreation and self-improvement, and pleasant working conditions at the N.O. Nelson Manufacturing Company plant. But Nelson's other co-operative projects (at New Orleans) faltered, and he was forced from the executive of Leclaire in 1918. He died in 1922. The village of Leclaire was annexed by Edwardsville in 1934, ending the socialist experience.

(https://www.historic-leclaire.org/)

The Encyclopedia of Social Reform has articles on Leclaire, Ill. and N.O. Nelson

=============

Mexico

see Montopedia blog "Topolobampo, utopian community in northern Sinaloa, Mexico founded in 1886 by Credit Foncier Company of Sinaloa; supported by Canadian publisher Lowell"

Denmark

Freetown Christiania

(Danish: Fristaden Christiania), also known as Christiania or simply Staden

an intentional community and anarchist commune in the Christianshavn neighbourhood of the Danish capital city of Copenhagen. It began in 1971 as a squatted military base. Its main selling street, Pusher Street, was famous for its open illegal trade of cannabis until 2024.

2024 Pusher Street was shut down in a collaborative effort between police and the majority of the inhabitants with the street being physically dug up.

excerpt from Wiki "Freetown Christiania"

=============================

Utopian literature

As mentioned in passing above, books have been used to express aspirations towards gentler, better way of living.

A separate Montopedia blog gives info on books on utopian themes.

Montopedia

What is, was and could be

Intentional communities in Canada and U.S. -- utopian, reform, single tax, temperance, religious, free love communities and settlements

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