Tiny homes, big dreams: How an Ontario family found freedom in the forests of N.B.
CBC
Six months ago, Tasha Robitaille and Cory Belcourt left their Ontario home, bought 40 acres of heavily forested land on New Brunswick's Kingston Peninsula and turned their lives upside-down.
And somehow, Robitaille says, nothing has ever felt more right.
For some time, Robitaille and Belcourt had been feeling the pull of nature. They both had steady jobs, Belcourt as a plant manager and Robitaille as a business owner and doula, but they longed to spend more time outdoors.
The births of their two daughters deepened that longing.
Then the pandemic hit, with its lockdowns and isolating restrictions, and suddenly, Robitaille said, they just knew it was time.
"Things were just getting really difficult, I was home with both girls ... and Cory was working a lot of hours. The pandemic definitely got to us so we needed to make a big change, to feel like our family was healthier and closer together."
They had a specific lifestyle in mind. They wanted to live simply, sustainably, on a sprawling plot of land and in a close-knit community.
"New Brunswick just kept popping up as an answer to all of these things," Robitaille said.
They found a 40-acre plot of forested land on the Kingston Peninsula, near Kingston Corner and backing onto Mount Misery, and immediately knew they'd found what they were looking for.
"We made some big decisions really fast," Robitaille said. "We sold and bought a house within a span of a week, and arrived just in time to plant our garden."
They bought chickens and ducks, they hiked the trails that snaked through their property, they picked apples, they had bonfires and barbecues and spent their days outdoors with their daughters, two-year-old Nova and four-year-old Rockie.
It was like a dream, Robitaille said.
But the dream was just beginning.
For years, Robitaille and Belcourt had talked about building a sustainable guest house on their property.
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