Far Out! book tells story of 1960s back-to-the-land movement in Maritimes

In the 1960s and '70s, young people from the United States and around the Maritimes arrived in Nova Scotia, trying to escape the draft or just looking for a simple back-to-the-land lifestyle. 

Chris Murphy, who lived in Saint John in the late '60s and early '70s, briefly took part in the movement, looking for a simpler way of life, but says that it wasn't for him. 

Murphy only lived off the land for about a month, but his brother Peter is still living that way today. 

"I didn't last very long. I didn't have the stuff to be a good back-to-the-lander," Murphy said.

In 2020, the brothers began interviewing and recording the history of back-to-the-landers who were later featured in Murphy's new book, Far Out!: The Untold Story of the '60s-Inspired "Back-to-the-Land" Migration that Changed Nova Scotia. 

Over the course of five years, starting in 2017, the brothers "travelled some of the most remote backwoods roads throughout the province, meeting and videotaping many adventurous back-to-the-landers and their unique and inspiring stories," said Peter Murphy.  

Dennis & Lori

One of the brothers' projects is a 30-minute documentary called Dennis & Lori - Back to the Landers. It is primarily a recording of Dennis and Lori telling the story of their back-to-the-land journey. Peter did the camera work and Chris did the interviewing. 

Chris Murphy first met Dennis and Lori in the 1970s when he visited them at their home — a tent "virtually on the edge of the North American continent." The couple were hippie musicians living off the land in rural Cape Breton. 

In the documentary, Dennis said not many people stayed through the winter because "living here year-round has its challenges." 

Dennis recalled a time, in the middle of winter, when he was out cutting wood for six hours, wearing cowboy boots. He also said he remembers falling down in the woods and crying because he and Lori were so unaccustomed to the life they were living. 

"But you smarten up pretty fast," he said, laughing. "You get Ski-Doo boots." 

The couple didn't have jobs but also didn't need them.

"You could live out here for $15 a week. We did for the first couple of years," Dennis said, "and we played music at the ski lodge for $50 on weekends, so we were not only able to pay the rent but we bought groceries and filled up the barn with chickens and goats." 

Although Dennis and Lori lived in a tent in the beginning, they eventually built a winterized lodge. 

The Beginning

Chris Murphy, who is currently on a book tour, said he first encountered "take back the landers" when they started arriving in his hometown, Antigonish, in the late '60s and early '70s. 

"All of a sudden, overnight, these Volkswagen vans were arriving and people from all over North America were coming to our little kind of one-horse town and looking to move there and live there," Murphy said.

Costas Halavrezos, former host of CBC's Maritime Noon, is a friend of Murphy and is currently taking part in the book tour. He said people were also doing the same thing all over New Brunswick at the time. 

"There were people out around Hampton, Markhamville, up near Sussex," Halavrezos said. "I remember visiting friends over Point de Bute outside of Sackville. So yes, it was going on all over."

The ones who stayed probably were in the minority- Chris Murphy

Murphy said a lot of back-to-the-landers "were pretty naive when they first came." The group was mostly made up of well-educated, middle-class city kids, he said, who "didn't really have a clue what they were getting themselves into."

When they arrived and found out how hard it was to live off the land, many "realized it just wasn't their thing, as they said in the day," he said. 

"You needed commitment, you needed a bit of discipline, you needed a work ethic. And the ones who stayed probably were in the minority and they're the people we focused on," Murphy said, laying out the focus of his book.

Celebrating the movement

Murphy said Far Out! is a celebration of the back-to-the-land movement because he believes the impact of the movement has been underappreciated.

"They had a different way of doing things.". 

He said people won't just hear from him at the book launches.

"One of the highlights of the event," he said, is that his brother Peter will show part of his documentary, which he called "a compelling portrait of the people who are in the book."