He first came to Prince Edward Island in 1977. A teacher at an alternative school in his native Winnipeg, he was attracted to Prince Edward Island's flourishing alternative energy scene.
They met while attending Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and married in 1969. Originally from Detroit and Moline, Illinois, the couple moved to PEI in 1970 after Gerald landed a one year teaching job in Kensington.
She first came to Prince Edward Island in 1971. A native of Pennsylvania, she spent two weeks with her Boston co-workers camping in a field in Gaspereaux.
Having met and married in New Brunswick, they moved to the Island in 1975 in order to ply their trades, Malcolm as a potter and Christine a weaver and spinner.
She was born and raised in Alberta, the daughter of a church minister. She became a hippie and headed with her boyfriend to Toronto, where she spent time hanging around Rochdale College.
Cef is a native of Dundalk, Ireland. In 1971, he helped friends move to PEI, and the following year returned with his wife for good.
He grew up in St. Catherines, Ontario. After spending some time studying at York University he grew weary of the polluted nature of city life.
Laurel left Toronto in 1972 to spend time with her sister and brother-in-law, who were operating a PEI-based puppet theater troupe. What was initially to be a brief visit became a full-time residency.
They were teaching in Quebec's Cégep system when they first visited Prince Edward Island in 1972. The following year they purchased land on the Wigmore Road, and in the summer of 1975 they moved there full-time.
He was teaching philosophy at the University of Vermont when he and his wife visited PEI during his Christmas vacation in 1972. Enchanted by the Island's beauty, the couple moved to the community of Milo the following year.
Rousseau was a member of the University of New Brunswick football team when he first visited Prince Edward Island in 1967. Six years later the Dorval, Quebec native moved to Hopefield with two college friends.
The couple arrived on Prince Edward Island in 1975. The couple, together since 1969 when Rick, a native of New York City, met Carla while visiting Montreal, lived on an old farm in Hopefield.
Steve grew tired of being an airlines employee in Toronto and moved to the Island in 1971. He worked a variety of jobs over the next decade, including operating a health food store in Montague, before starting a home-based bakery on the Lewes.
Wendy and husband Dennis lived in Westport, Connecticut, before buying a Volkswagen van, and heading for Oregon in 1972. They never made it.
Marion taught high school in North York, Ontario. In 1978 she opted to relocate to the Island. While taking courses on woodlot and chainsaw maintenance she met Tony Reddin, an Islander, who offered to help her with the project.
Pinsent and his family began their back-to-the-land experience in a British Columbia commune before eventually settling in South Granville, PEI, where they lived off the grid and maintained a large organic market garden.