Friday, December 9, 2016

Why A Homestead Is A Highly Interesting Lifestyle Option

By Virginia Stewart


The history of the American nation is often about people starting off by cultivating a piece of land belonging to the public domain. This means that it has no official owner save the state or government under the general rules of sovereignty. Actually, the state may not have even started to map it out and has no other plans or uses for it.

It can be said, therefore, that it is free for anyone who wants to build a home or farm there. This is basically how homesteading works, when a family or a group starts out with subsistence farming and hoping that the they are later rewarded. Alaska homestead is no longer the beneficiary of government homestead acts that made it legal for many people.

Homesteading used to be for young families, but there are so many other alternatives to making a living nowadays that the practice has virtually been off the radar for many years. Officially, the practice ended with The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, discontinuing the free distribution of government owned land. However, this does not include tracts that are on the public domain.

So trying out the practice in Alaska is still very much viable, depending on passion as well as patience and determination to see the project through. But mostly only a few people really go for this kind of experience. Most areas of Alaska are vast tracts of snowbound wilderness, much of it in the public domain.

The adventure is something that should be memorable for the right kind of people. But for the most part, other things interest the young nowadays, and renaissance for homesteading has already come and gone during the counterculture years, when the concept of going back to the land and growing your own food was a sought after fundamental of life.

However, there are still a number who will be up to the practice. Meantime, the areas on public domain are still very interesting to live in and have been virtually untouched by government or even private enterprise. When you think about it, standing in the middle of Alaska can lead you to good places to put stakes in any direction.

It is that simple, but not really so simple. Because the state has a climate that is so forbidding, only a few old timers, natives and the more adventurous types lead more or less ideal lifestyles here. Survival of the fittest is a concept that is not out of place in the situation being discussed.

For those who think they can make it on the state, a few essential items are needed. Basically the simplest implements on the list for cooking utensils, building and cutting tools, and tools for subsistence agriculture. There is no electricity since no lines go into the interior, and for lighting, people do with kerosene lamps.

The best things to have for the adventure is imagination and creativity, as with all challenging endeavors. With these, the right persons will be able to create viable alternative lifestyles. It is not an easy thing to do, but with a bit of luck, it is one of the most spiritually and mentally rewarding accomplishments any healthy and normal young person can have.




About the Author:



0 comments:

Post a Comment