Having both lived, and gardened in northern bush country in Alberta, and NWT and Nunavut, now in Ontario..

If you have bears, which I have heard you talk about, you have climate ready fruiting bushes, in which case if they can grow, you can grow the same, but researching what Sask has produced, they have things that are down to 2, I know because I have seen it on their sale lists.

In NWT, we would Shovel off the snow, and use plastic hoop to warm the soil and it was not uncommon to have snow and large drift over most of the yard with sheltered stripes of garden in the same yard that was growing like mad.. The amount of wild harvest available in the Yellowknife area, up and down by three hours was awesome, you just had to learn a new set of skills on how to find it, and you had to harvest and preserve like mad..

Iqaluit, NU was very interesting, the first thing I was offered when we moved to town was worms, and everyone I know had multiply worm bins in their apartments or houses, so that we could compost anything and everything into making of compost-soil and even there in that very very short season, where most of the time, you don't get a day or two above 10, we still have berry harvests, and I worked with a group to get the greenhouse up and running.

But lets go back to the permaculture.. you are thinking too.. Well, I am unsure how to say it.. Canadian.. I guess.. There are so many other places in the world that have the same climate but grow like mad.. Take a look at what the same folks in Russia would produce and you can as well.. This year I am growing a potato that is only 50 days from start to finish, its been breed to be done in Alaska.

This year I am adding in a number of things that come from other countries that where breed for low winter temps, poor soils but each and everyone of them is edible.. A good example is Good King Henry, they say Zone: 3-9 but on the permaculture Canada groups, its growing in 2..

It can be eaten as shoots in the spring, it can be eaten as a green, and its seeds can be cooked as a grain or dried and ground as a flower and its been found in all kinds of sites dating backwards upwards of 6000 years ago but most folks have never even heard of it..

I think to a point that is the difference in the mind set of a someone that does permaculture.. you say.. we don't have much soil etc etc.. I say.. take the ax to the seedlings out around that tree stump so it gets more light, ideally I would have started to effect the rot process earlier but lets throw in a handful of rotted soil, then some leaves and then a handful of dirt and plant it..

That is where it gets hard for folks to it as gardening.. because there is no row, there is no place to put up the fences, create a network of what to anyone else would look like bushpile, add in leaves, and a handful of starter and plant it out into short season veggies, I have had little pie pumpkins growing up in tree's, or bean plants growing up spuces, this year I am growing mouse melons, a itty bity cucumber plant from mexico but it is done mainly in the mountains and so grows quite well in my area and it will be grown up trees as well..

Others see weeds or wild, I see food everywhere..

and I have to second the Alberta thing, There can be killer frosts into the first part of June in Calgary and it happens far to often.

Well I can see that I must learn alot more about gardening to even try to contradict your logic. If you can grow stuff up in the Territories, I'm sure that we can too. It's the forest garden idea I liked alot. I did record all the mushrooms and stuff that grow wild, but the concept of planting them in some orderly fashion for daily harvest is really appealing. What we find here though is that what we like, so do many of the local critters. So doing a garden in town would be far different than having a garden in the bush. Still, i will have to research this someday as it is a very attractive concept. I just have to get a few hundred other things done first... 😆

Knuckle, one thing to keep in the back of your mind , and anyone else reading this thread that does not garden, is that in a SHTF
your food storage will need replenishing. So use this time to learn and figure out what you can grow in your climate and soil, and even
what you can grow in large plant pots . You can grow tomatoes , beans , and cucumbers in pots with the use of wire cages. There are
lots more things you can grow in pots too. They will require more water in pots however. So you need a supply of water. But you can
drag the pots around the yard to move into shelter or move into the garage at season end to finish maturing etc. Or move adjacent to
wall of house to protect from frost to finish maturing. I have been growing tomatoes in pots forever and get bumper crops.
You can cover the wire cages with see through plastic to create an early season green house so that you can plant earlier, which would extend
the growing season by starting earlier. You can also grow right in the garden using the wire cages and then also and covering them with plastic early in the season .
You can even grow potatoes in large pots. For pots you can use all sorts of things, walmart often have cheap large pots,
or you can use 5 gallon pails but I find those require watering more often , even rectangular rubbermade totes with drainage holes drilled in bottom,
you need large pots . You must really start THIS YEAR , " NOW " and try and grow something, in the garden or pots , and each year
add more items to your testing trials until you find something you can grow. Think food value and varieties that have a shorter harvest season.
Don't forget a raised bed can be made to have plastic covers on top and make mini greenhouse of the whole raised bed , so that you can start earlier
and remove the plastic in hotter weather.

LOL, I feel the same way too Goldie. I am renovating my house to likely sell it first and then I think I will add a garden at the shop. But have to see which sells first. I'm too busy trying to get rid of paying taxes for 2 places. Even thought of building a garden on the roof of the shop(40'x60' steel building) to keep the critters away. Has that been done? It would have to be elevated or removable for the snow to slide off. I also want to mount solar panels on the roof which would require at least 30" elevation too. Most likely I'll do the garden on the ground but I need to import soil first as it is all mud base there too.

I have friends that grow tomatoes in 5 gallon pails so they can bring them in if need be. A dog keeps back most animals but leaving them out at night makes them bait for the wolves. We've had a wolverine in this area for years too but have never managed to see it myself. I want to try the potatoes in a bucket trick too. Is that a good idea?

yes growing [potatoes] in buckets works good . you don't need alot of soil to "start", just a little put the potatoes with eyes in the
the pot spaced around, and cover with soil. as they grow you add more soil right in the pot to mound. Youtube has alot of videos

OOOPS I said tomatoes and that word should be potatoes

It has been awhile since reading this thread and so I reread it from start to finish. It is obvious that the thread became quite focused on gardening and this too might be as it should be. It most likely became obvious that this is an area that I should let others work on that are knowledgeable on.

What I usually do is try to promote folks to share that are not used to doing so by nature. And yet there are many who don't need this promoting as they already share their knowledge so well. I then try to remind folks to keep it simple so the rest of us can follow along as we are reading their every word in attempt to procure enough confidence to feel it's time to start moving.

I know I got distracted with the Psychology thread and Ukraine thread, as this better suites my natural interests at heart. Yet I wish others would continue or branch off with other threads along the subject topics presented here. This subject covers much of the essence that many of us likely come to this forum for. We'd like to know how to prepare a "perfect retreat" in these troubling times.

We each have knowledge that likely fits into one of the many niches that would pertain to those specific subject topics. Can you imagine how useful such acquired knowledge would be if on such a wide variety of topics during times when the internet is no longer available? I know, your now asking who would print all this data anyways? I've shown that there are still options regarding storage and will even better explain how to do so later, but we need to get this thread reawakened to acquire folk's knowledge first.

I am going to do some editing of that which has been presented so far. This means that I will paste much into MS Word and start eliminating unnecessary data to reduce all to it's minimum form. Then it has to be organized into a readable format with Titles and Subtitles for quicker access. Extracting the knowledge from comments like those made by Mrs Prep make this task easy as it is already in such a format anyways. When it is done, I will try to figure out how to republish the file for others to view here. Now folks would be able to get to the meat without wasting too much time....

I hope others will try to re-ignite this thread(or start others with this premiss) as it's potential alone could be immense on a forum such as this.

Now my mind always goes to tourist camps mainly because I've been around so many. It seems that a small community could take advantage of such as they are already established in remote areas. Many have their own generators, septic fields and wells. They usually have 6-10 cabins, furnished, with 2-3 bedrooms and 6-10 people each. A camp owner could make agreements and arrangements during a crisis for many whom he trusted to exist in as a retreat during a SHTF scenario. It's this selection that would make or break a community as I see it. Yet bad times tend to throw folks together and have you sort out the crap as you go.

Pre-arrangements with such camp owners could likely be had if one could find common ground to make such arrangements. You'd have to find owners who don't have friends or family they prefer first. You'd have to do alot of talking as how could any such agreement be worth it's weight in bad times? There's always that trust issue slapping each in the face....

( I don't fear too much folks just come running and take what isn't theirs as most owners here spend too much time in the bush to play possum with. In a bad situation, bush folks could make your life hell while their hiding comfy in the woods.)

Population would grow exponentially everywhere in the country, but the forest doesn't replenish as quickly as a farmland would. I'm also sure that many who are from higher populated areas would suffer from cabin fever quickly as we have enough who are bi-polar here already. 😳 Long winters are not what many are used to or understand. Many folks hear the term "snow belt" but don't realize the implications which go with it. Add in a heavily forested area that doesn't melt and lakes that don't thaw until May and you might get a better picture. Mosquito's are the next thing that will drive urbanites nuts as it does the tourists. 😕

Yup, I don't fear the majority of city dwellers would opt for this region too quickly, just the smart ones would who have no other options. But the presence of welcome mats would be few as country folk would be holding their doors open for returning family first as elsewhere. It always seems to me that city folk had best have something worthy to offer such as trade skills to entice them country folk into making an exception or two.