Spring, in Eastern Newfoundland comes late. The trees are just coming out in leaves, the lawn has had it's first mowing this week. We await the warmer temperatures with anticipation, looking for that first 20C day. As it arrives, so do the bloody blackflies. It's natures joke..."heres some decent weather at last but heres also biting little bastards which means you can't go outside without being slathered in fly spray". Fortunately, here at least, they only last a few weeks & then aren't so bad. Plus its often windy enough to keep them away. But yes, insects in Canada are a thing.

Some numbers for the OP to think about.

I live on a semi-rural property, 10 acres less a corner lopped off sometime in the past for a house. The location was dictated by the need to commute – we had bought 25 acres of bare land at the limit of commutability and, driving to or from it, saw this place offered as a foreclosure. We bid and then had a decrepit house with an impractical garage but nearly 10 acres commutable. We adjusted the house and the garage and then began setting up for the horses which, up to then, had been boarded.

We built a hay barn, that’s a hoop steel structure. It was $10,000 for the steel kit, five or so for the foundation and driveway, we built the end walls from lumber and cordwood (old fence posts pulled out and sliced with a chainsaw). Total $20,000 or so. A pre-fab horse barn was dropped on site, a run-in shed and fencing for two paddocks was $100,000. Fencing two more paddocks will another $20,000. There’s a bulldozer outside now scraping a riding ring for another $30,000. Fencing the arena will be another couple of grand.

In short then, taking a field and converting it to “an equestrian facility” for three horses is going to run about $175,000 with most of the labour being free. That’s only and exactly horse related costs, the house, garage, dog fences and the like were already done and we already had a tractor and implements.

In my view, unless you are well off, starting from nothing is the way to approach keeping horses. Any property with a barn, decent fencing, buried water lines and the like costs at least $1,200,000 around here (typically a fair bit more). Anything cheaper and you have demolition costs on top of the building ones. A house on 10 acres of cleared, non-swamp, land can be had for much less than a million, depending on how run down the house is. If you’re building the barn and putting in the fences then you have a lot of control; all the mistakes are, at least, your own.

Again, in my view, if you can work by internet and the objective is to have a horse property in a scenic location with a view of the sea, then BC isn’t the place as the land cost is too high. Look at NS.

I suggest the OP pops across a provincial border and gets a place in Alberta.

We have 20 acres 15 minutes south of Calgary's city limits. It had a quonset with 4 horse stalls in the rear, with enough concrete flooring at the other end to house a largish tractor, quad, trailer for the quad, 2 lawn tractors as well as all many of tools.

It cost us $650,000 8 1/2 years ago. It also has an arena as can be seen from the photo below. It also has great views of the mountains too, but the only one I can find on my work computer doesn't show them particularly well.

We keep sheep (recently had our first lambs) and we keep chickens and horses too.

Unlike the poster above, we bought a post pounder for our tractor ($5,000) and we have replaced all of the white fencing shown in the first shot below. This year, we need to replace all of the rails on the internal paddocks and, to date, the fencing materials have costs us around $7,000 (about 1.2 kms worth). During the lockdown last year, I worked from home (saving travelling time of around 2 1/4 hours from downtown Calgary) and worked as much as I did in the office, while also doing 3 hours or so fencing each day.

We trade beef for lamb with our neighbours and, last year, we tried meat chickens too (as opposed to just layers). The chickens turned out more expensive than buying them from Costco, but that all of our meat requirements last year.

The further away from the city one goes, the less rural properties are and, if you keep an eye out, you can source good deals. Our property had good land but a shitty house and I have renovated most of the house now, so it looks quite good. The last thing I have to do is the kitchen.

Getting anyone to come to rural properties is a bit of a nightmare so you will have to get used to learning how to do things yourself. For example, I deliberately called electricians in the south of Calgary that could get to our property on highways in less than 20 minutes. They refused to do so, but were happy to travel 50 minutes across the city to service someone in the city (we know as we called them on the same day, stating that we were in different locations).

The paddock at the bottom right of the first photo is the same one in which the lambs can be seen in the third. I have no idea why it looks so bare in the first one!

Best of luck with the search.

Wow, I just popped in to say I am reading this thread. I'm very grateful and touched by the kindness of all of you and the magnificent sharing of information dbd33, Almost Canadian scilly, JSmth321 so many of you. Atlantic XPat - ouch to black flies - hope you have a great Summer.

Thank you again really, very grateful and very kind. Much obliged. We will search around and all the info helps us significantly....cheers.

PS What about Vancouver Island? Is that a possibility? Wonder if anyone has experience with the Island.

One of my daughters got married on a farm there. A farm of horned beasts, yaks, bison, something like that. I was working at the time with a guy from Nepal who advised me on riding them but it turned out that no riding was required.

Lots of British people like Vancouver Island. I wish them well.

I think almost as expensive as in the Lower Mainland, though there are lots of small farms, organic places etc.

You have to figure in the extra expensive aspects of living on the Island ...............

no direct flights to the UK only to the mainland, the US west coast (mainly Seattle) and sometimes to Hawaii in season, ferry or plane from the Island to the Lower Mainland, medical services especially specialists limited to only a few centres ............ Victoria and Nanaimo mainly .......... lots of gravel roads (even over to Tofino and Ucluelet)

We've had many friends on the Island over the years, visited often .............. it is of course a very different life from the Mainland. "Island time" is no joke!


You know, you really should look at driving around BC when it becomes possible ............ we have been to almost every part of BC except over to Bella Coola in the many years we've lived here, and most of it was done in the first 15 years or so. That's the only way in which you will see areas that might be interesting and ones that you definitely would not visit again!

Posting on here and getting our personal information can give you ideas, but don't for heaven's sake jump into buying anything sight unseen or even after just a short visit.

We bought in a remote place, but we had driven within a few miles many times and knew exactly what we might be getting into.

Thank you both and sage advice, scilly on the travelling around part. You're absolutely right! If we can't figure this one out, we'll also look at other countries. Cheers again - really good points all round so helps us a lot!

My brother in law is in Terrace, Northern BC. Him and his girlfriend bought a place with 20 acres, not far out of town for $350k IIRC. He said that if they went 50kms out of town they could have got 100 acres or more for the same price!
As ever, the closer you are to civilization, the more it all costs.

Interesting. I suspect I will have to travel around the province per scilly's advice. It's the internet things that is a requirement but Starlink might be able to service more remote parts (to a degree).

Note on the healthcare services that gets brought about when Vancouver Island is mentioned, its really not any different than the mainland of BC where the bulk of healthcare and specialists are in Vancouver region, even in Squamish which is not exactly isolated your going to North Vancouver or Vancouver for most of your non-GP healthcare needs.

So I really wouldn't let that deter you from the island, because if your living outside of the Vancouver area on the mainland, you face the same issues with specialized healthcare.

Even in Chilliwack specialists care can be spotty, often requiring a trip to Abbotsford, or Surrey for specialists.

The only outside connection we could have had from our cabin between 1997 and 2014 was either a satellite cell phone or a radio link. At first we were actually only about 15 km for the nearest public telephone, at the nearest private resort. That closed down about 2005, and we were then about 30 km away for the next one

That was it ................ apart from standing outside the farm gate and try to hitch a ride from the infrequent dirver of a logging truck, or who lived on the small First Nations reserve by the lake about 30 km further in.

Looking back, it's no wonder our daughter got more and more worried about us

Thanks Jsmth321

scilly - wow that's hardcore