Rachh3006

Hi,
I have recently joined this forum and been answering many of my questions off your guys knowledge but also seem to add more questions to my list. So hoping someone out here might be able to help:-

I think the best thing to do is outline our 'dream' so people can pick out pitfalls we may not know about and and then ask a few of the questions I've got...

So we are 29, married and from UK, an accountant and avionics engineer with a house in the UK, various assets to be able to liquidate but little 'cash' savings. We want to move to bc/ab area (mountains/forest etc) and buy some land to live off grid and open up a enduro bike/mountain bike centre. Happy to work in our respected fields during the beginning to ensure income to get this idea off the ground.

My questions are...
1) did anyone use a solicitor to help put the application in? And was it useful? And rough costs if its not too rude to ask
2) does anyone know the rules/regs of land use in these areas, UK is super restrictive but i know places like alaska are much freer... Is Canada similar to alaska or bound like UK given the parks?
​​3) would the express skilled workers route be our only option? I am assuming being close to 30 the work permit to PR is more risky?
4) also any experience or knowledge of living off grid/subsistence style in Canada

Any other information you guys think of would be of use (good or bad!) would be incredible

Thanks in advance

Rach

christmasoompa

Hi, welcome to BE.

Can't help with any of the off grid stuff, but it's worth doing a search of the forum as somebody definitely started a similar thread in the not too distant past.

With regards to your questions about visas, 1) most people do it themselves, cost will be around £5k but tbh there's very little point unless you have complicated circumstances (i.e. criminal record, medical issues), and 3) there may be other options, such as the BC PNP if you're starting a business, or the Start Up Visa, but you'll need to check and see which you may qualify for. How much will you be investing in the business and what is your current CRS score for EE?

Almost Canadian

How do you define "off grid"? Are you simply talking about being energy independent or are you talking about being food independent too? The former isn't that difficult (although heating your home in the winter may be tricky (are you going to be growing your own fuel too?), the latter will be almost impossible.

CanadaJimmy

If you're looking for off the grid, check out BC's Entrepreneur Regional Pilot PNP program:
https://www.welcomebc.ca/Immigrate-t...Regional-Pilot

You can use this to start a business in a small community to effectively "sponsor" yourself into BC. There are a few other programs in BC that encourage immigrants to rural areas as well, such as the North-East Development region, you can see the list here: https://www.welcomebc.ca/Immigrate-to-B-C

Most immigrants to BC tend to want to head to Vancouver so the BC government offers a lot of incentives to those who want to boost the economies of smaller towns.

dbd33

Very many people live off grid around here. I don't know if any of them are self sufficient but they'll be quite close; they plough using horses or oxen, they go to church by horse and cart, heat with wood, light by candle, make their own clothes fastened only with buttons and straps. .

It's hardware items that are the challenge; few people are in a position to forge or hew wheels for their own cart and if you're willing to accept a lifestyle including manufactured items such as tyres then you need a means to pay for them. I can say by the presence of hitching rails outside shops that, besides hardware, the main attractant for the off grid people is ice cream.

R I C H

I owned several leisure/tourism related businesses in BC over a period of 14 years, so will try and offer some advice relating to your business proposal. My wife and I emigrated on work permits, and without permanent residency there were financial disadvantages to that approach. Government grants for business development are not available to temporary residents, no matter if a PR application is in process, what level of investment you've made or how many staff you employ. Building a house on our business acreage meant that we had to accept a commercial mortgage rather than residential, so interest rates were higher, as were insurance premiums.

Your enduro/mountain bike concept appears flawed to me - to be successfully self-employed you'll need a volume of customers, and reliant on business through the clement weather (Aprilish through Octoberish depending on location). Where are your customers going to come from? If you're rural (for arguments sake, I'll define that as an hour+ from an urban area), why would customers travel that far to ride bikes? In BC, countless mountain bike trails exist in urban and semi-rural environments and at virtually all ski resorts, which obviously offer the convenience of accommodation (hotels to camping), food outlets, bike rental/repair shops etc. Dirt biking (enduro, motocross, trials) opportunities exist on the same scale, in addition to numerous formal tracks for competition and practice. I lived near Kamloops and at Sun Peaks and could ride pedal or powered bikes/quads for 100's of kms without any need to haul a bike to somewhere more rural. Unfortunately, buying yourself a 100 acres or more of land isn't going to fare well in terms of terrain/space/facilities that the major resorts and municipalities already offer - access to off-roading of all types is too easy (and mostly free or inexpensive) for the general public, and if they want amenities or competition environments they're already very well served within short drives of towns and cities.

Also, consider the dust that BC enjoys in the summer and you'll not want to live very close to any enduro facility - maintained tracks are heavily watered (a big consideration if you're off grid and relying on well water) to make them useable, otherwise they quickly turn into dust bowls.

Crown Land in BC is generally accessible to the public for recreational use. Some CL will have restrictions due to ranch grazing rights or for environmental reasons, but broadly speaking there are millions of acres where cycling or powered biking can take place. This presents a major challenge to your proposed business because of the ease of access the general public already have for their recreation.

Take a look at the following examples that BC residents have available, and ask yourself how you'd compete - they're typical of the entire province:

https://www.mountainbikingbc.ca/bike...UaAoaaEALw_wcB

https://www.tourismkamloops.com/thin...caArW0EALw_wcB

Dirt biking in Kamloops, B.C. | RidersWest

Rachh3006

Hi all,

Thanks for all the info and advice on all aspects of my post, it has been so much help! Thrown up a lot of questions but glad they have as that was the reason for posting! I'd much rather try and get answers before getting too far in to one direction.

I will definitely look into the opportunities available for rural living/businesses.

With regards the mx/enduro side, thank you so much for a detailed answer, given us a lot to think about re whether to go ahead, where to look, feasibility etc. Our idea really was for UK (or other non Canadians) all inclusive holidays so maybe more like a guided tour... Glad to hear the opportunities for riding are almost endless here, but certainly something to look a bit more into. Doesn't stop our desire to move to canada, we are nothing must flexible!

Off grid wise, we are probally looking at a mix of self sufficient and modern conveniences where suitable, all about getting a simpler life but by working smarter not necessarily harder!

Rach

HGerchikov

Hi - my experience of the 'simpler' life is that it can get very complicated with alarming speed. Power goes off a lot which means no water as well as all the usual things like light and heat. Its a constant battle keeping various critters from destroying your efforts - from snakes in the duck house to bears in the beehives there is always someone wanting to eat your stuff. There are days when it feels like I have switched the rat race for rat wars - keeping the things out of the house (thus far successful), the duckling shed (also successful but I open it with trepidation every morning) and the garage (epic fail). You got some great advice from RICH, hopefully you can use that to tweak your plans to make it work. Rural living in Canada is an adventure, it is a simpler life in many respects (it's certainly more peaceful) but it is a lot of hard work, and I don't see how any amount of smart can avoid that.

scilly

We never lived year round off grid, but we did have a cabin on 20 acres for 14 years that was in a very remote area of BC................ no electricity, no services, no cell phone reception.

We would spend up to 6-8 weeks a year up there between early May and beginning of October ........... snow fall and frost began in late September/early October, and stopped in April (usually!). The coldest temperature we ever recorded over the winter was -40C (and that was because hat was as low as the thermometer went), early October was usually around -10C overnight and ca 5C during the day. Snow fall was heavy.

Access to the cabin was by kilometres of gravel road, most of which were not well maintained, and many people do not like driving gravel roads just to visit somewhere.

Heating was by a wood stove, and we had a generator used mainly to operate the pump to bring water up from the creek to the tank. Lighting was a Coleman lantern using white gas.

We drew water from the little creek that ran through the property, but it was unsafe to drink, partly because of the mineral content but also because of "beaver fever" caused by Giardia lamblia, an intestinal parasite carried by many animals. We took drinking water in with us every time. There were some people around who lived year-round, and they either boiled all water for 5 minutes or had special filtering systems

We had a septic box, installed by the previous owner, but really needed to install a septic field.

Even though we were 60 kms for the nearest town (ca 5,000 pop.) and 12 kms from the nearest village (ca 12 people), we discovered that everything we wanted to do was under the control of the District Office, ca 200 km away ................ that meant any changes to the cabin costing over $500 had to have a permit, be examined by an Inspector before during and after completion. The person requesting the permit was responsible for all costs of the Inspector coming out to do the examinations ........ and we understood that he almost always charged for having had to come that 200 km.

Developing the septic field would have been covered by an inordinate number of requirements before we could even submit a plan for developing it to the DO ............ the cost was exorbitant!


It would have been possible to survive there under the following conditions .............

Installing solar or wind power
Bringing in the telephone line at a cost of $1,000/km
Installing a septic field
Finding a better water source by digging a well

We had no need for internet service or WiFi, but you would have to provide that ............ and internet in most of rural BC is notoriously slow.


There was a camp on a lake about 100 km east of us (ie more remote still) that went up for sale near the end of our time up there. The asking price was well into the $1 million range in 2013 money. They had about a dozen camps by the lake, some tent or RV pads, several boats, and had operated fairly successfully for many years using 2 or 3 very large generators. I don't know how they got the fuel for the generators, whether it was possible to have it delivered or what.


I would agree with what R I C H said ............... there are ample opportunities in BC and other provinces for residents to find access to any kind of wilderness experience for free.

To attract visitors to the country, you will have to offer more .......... places to sleep, food either prepared or to buy, a means of getting to the place. Have you Googled to see what is on offer already? You might find an over-crowded market, especially near the areas where tourists are likely to go.

There are many Provincial and National parks in BC and Alberta, and development is strictly controlled within those parks ........... you cannot buy acreage within them, and businesses operating within them are strictly controlled, especially within the National Parks

scilly

I would add, after seeing HG's post, that we fought a constant battle against mice and pack rats (also called bushy-tailed wood rats) which loved to get inside the cabin (which was quite large, having 3 bedrooms). Voles also visited. Plus having to be very wary about black bears, grizzlies, cougars, and many deer.

Mosquitoes were a problem all summer long, with the need to have protection most of the time.

dbd33

This is a semi-rural location; there's a paved road and it's ploughed (though we drive on gravel every day). There's no sewer, rubbish collection or water main, power comes on wires strung from poles We may no attempt to be off grid and so always have some sort of motor running; the generator, the chainsaw, the tractor (mowing or snow blowing), the lawn tractor, the well pump, the grey water pump, the strimmer, Country living is ecologically unsound and it's shockingly expensive to acquire all those motors and then to keep them in petrol or diesel

I'm not a struggler with pests. Nest of hornets, rats in the chicken coop roof, cluster flies on the garage walls. I call the pest company and they send someone with sprays and potions. They can't do anything about the deer or the coyotes though, the former are a risk to one's car, the latter to one's pets.

R I C H

Then you'll be competing against the likes of:

https://dirtbikeadventures.ca/motorc...venture-tours/
Backroads Adventures
https://www.mvmadventures.com/
https://dirtandgravel.ca/

Your major capital investment will of course be the bikes, and somewhere to store and maintain them. A bike such as a CRF450L costs $12,000 so half a dozen bikes and a large shed/workshop is going to set you back $100,000+. Liability and general insurance for running an operation such as you're proposing is expensive (I owned an equestrian centre with a similar risk/liability profile). Back in 2010 I paid $4,500pa for $5m liability and business property cover.

Even if you're riding off-road only, since 2015 bikes in BC require registration and proof of insurance (https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/i...s/registration).

Rachh3006

Thanks for highlighting some of the issues we might face, we've got alot to think about going forward.

Quite often i find it best to ask people who will give you the answer honestly and straight forward (no jargon!) so thank you.

Rach

raindropsandroses

I completely agree with HG's excellent post, if you're looking for a simple like and want to go off-grid you are seriously barking up the wrong tree.

People tend to romanticise off-grid living when in reality its hard graft from sun up to sun down, 24/7, 365 days per year. It requires a huge amount of planning and forethought all the time, and things become unnecessarily complicated all too frequently.

I've lived off grid before in an area where it was fairly common and so there was the local knowledge etc, but holy heck is it hard work. Not to mention expensive. Extremely expensive to make your life easier with off-grid technologies, most of which are not suitable or applicable for full time, year round off grid living. Or don't work as they're supposed to.

I think wanting to emigrate, set up a business and live off grid is a recipe for disaster.
All of those are gruelling and difficult, all come with their own problems, and wanting to do all three at the same time or in quick succession? That really is the epitome of biting off more than you can chew.

Another aspect is that if you buy/set up an off-grid property, and hate it, or become ill or disabled and need to live closer to hospitals and facilities, those kinds of properties are not easy to sell.
​​​​Its extremely difficult to get a mortgage for them in Canada, so you're reliant on buyers with the liquid cash.

raindropsandroses

Sorry, that came across as harsher than intended