About

Since 2012 The Common Unity Project (TCUP) has been going through various phases of developing an earth based, off-grid, intentional community on 160 acres located among the majestic mountains and rivers on unceeded Gitxsan Territory in Hazelton, BC. Since the seed was planted in 2012, TCUP has had it’s ups and downs. We started off as an income sharing community with all the money that members earned off site or on site went into one pot. As members came and went and the interests of people changed we decided in 2021 that it was no longer feasible to continue like this. Everyone has their own economy now and operates more independent from one another which makes TCUP now more of a land share than a community. We still share food which is what still creates a community feel.

Our old Vision and Mission:

Our vision was to create a working example of earth based, cooperative living in hopes to create space for individual and collective transformation.

Our mission is to serve as an example and actively promote lifestyles and technologies that are truly sustainable, and to make these sustainable technologies accessible to all persons regardless of their income or social position.

Some of our values are open communication, self-sufficiency, cooperation and the willingness to resolve conflict.

We are 100% off-grid, we do not have running water, we catch rainwater and haul drinking water, we have compost toilets, and limited shower and internet access.

Our goal was to establish working functional examples of a truly rewarding, naturally integrated lifestyle. We wish to move away from a society that promotes an everyone-for-themselves individualistic mentality, and create a new one that works for all of us and all life. Where the needs of one are the concern of all. Where we live as a family and interdependently empower each other to redefine the very nature of what’s possible.

In Conclusion

As we got older, couples formed and Kids were born which lead to the change of interests, priorities and to a degree our values.

It was an idealistic way of living and thinking, which is hard to do in our society. The balance between group and individual is a difficult one to find. It requires a group of people with not only similar values but also similar interests that are supported by every member. And of course a degree of sacrifice of ones own personal wants for the groups. Our personal interests (especially recreational) differed more and more from each other with time and no one wanted to pay for others interests that weren’t overlapping. This lead to the decision to stop income sharing. Now everyone has their own job off the land. We were never able to find a business idea that everyone wanted to do and worked that would potentially have kept us more together.