Hans Krichels is a shadow of his farmer self.
That’s a joke the former back-to-the-lander likes to tell about departing his 75-acre Bucksport homestead. After a divorce left him alone there, he moved into town, then to Ellsworth and back to Bucksport’s downtown 15 years ago.
His joke is followed by another line: “But it’s the same self.”
Krichels was one of the many young people who came to Maine in the 1960s and 70s seeking a different, better way of life by pursuing agricultural self-reliance. They would change Maine’s culture and social fabric through the following years to an extent that still attracts new generations of younger farmers and homesteaders to the state.
Even the most dedicated homesteaders inevitably come up against the limits of their physical or mental abilities, be it from old age, isolation, family needs, sickness, poverty or burnout. When those changes lead them to leave their rural lives for more urban environments, the transition can take away an identity that defined them.
But most who change their lifestyles, particularly as the first wave of back-to-the-landers are passing retirement age, have kept their values with them — and often find ways to keep using their skills.
The Bangor Daily News spoke with four such homesteaders who made the change after decades of living off the land.
Lynn Hower Allen, Rockland
Lynn Hower Allen took to country life “like a frog in the water” when she moved to Maine in her 20s. She soon met her future husband Charlie Allen, and by 1975 they were living on an old farm property in Union.
They tended a large garden, built a passive solar house and split their own firewood. It was an idyllic childhood for their two sons, who grew up playing outside and helping the neighbors hay. The Allens had jobs off the farm and didn’t see themselves as back-to-the-landers — but they did want to live close to the land.
However, after almost 40 years, they moved to the edge of downtown Rockland. Charlie Allen had developed Parkinson’s disease and was no longer able to keep up with the physical labor it took to maintain their farm, and their sons encouraged them to leave for a lower-maintenance life in a walkable area.
Charlie Allen died in 2019; his wife remains active, making her own bread and yogurt and growing vegetables on the new “urban homestead” she created in the yard.
That growing space and the 15 acres of woods behind the house helped her with the transition. So did the fact that her sense of self wasn’t tied up in the work she did on the farm.
It’s hard for people to reckon with the idea that they’ll ever lose their agency or physical ability, Allen said, especially for men who may be used to hauling wood, using power tools and taking charge. That reality is also a challenge she sees for members of her Parkinson’s support group.
“I think that’s always a hard thing for people to grasp,” she said. “We are going to fall apart, and it really pays to have some preparation.”
Several of her aging homesteader friends have also moved to town. While it may not be their ideal living situation, it’s a proactive step and a tradeoff for peace of mind, she said.
In Allen’s case, it also helped that the old farm was purchased by a young family homesteading and raising their own children — which was much easier to accept than it becoming a lawn, she said.
“It doesn’t have to be miserable,” she said of the transition. “I love it here.”
Hans Krichels, Bucksport
A bona fide back-to-the-lander, Krichels left academia for outback Bucksport in 1971. His wife at the time was drawn in by the writings of Helen and Scott Nearing and the Whole Earth catalog, and he was disillusioned with the current “parent culture.”
Krichels was surprised to find a community of likeminded recent arrivals — and saw many of them leave far before old age became a consideration.
“A lot of people were hit with a need to make a better living than they could selling leftover cucumbers,” he said.
Others moved to send their kids to different schools, had skills that propelled them into careers off the homestead or simply outgrew it. Many made the move to Maine as couples and left their homesteads when relationships broke up.
That was partially the case for Krichels, whose marriage ended after nearly a dozen years on the land where they built a house, raised two daughters and kept a herd of dairy goats. Krichels continued to live there alone for several years before heading into town.
“It really came down to a choice about whether I really wanted to live as a hermit,” he said.
He worked a range of jobs, from teaching to reporting to painting signs to carving hobby horses. Throughout, he’s continued to garden, heat with wood and use his building skills. His values have also stayed consistent, he said.
The early back-to-the-lander days were like an incubator period for young people who wanted to “get behind the buttons” pushed to control daily life, or were otherwise dissatisfied with the status quo, according to Krichels.
“All the people…are all doing the same kind of stuff, even now,” he said. “It’s not as though they suddenly gave it up and went back and lived with Mommy and Daddy or went and bought a ‘ranch burger,’ as my architect friends called them, in suburbia.”
He rebuilt and expanded his current Bucksport home himself and still heats it with wood split in the yard of the one-acre lot where he gardens and birdwatches; it would be hard to live in town without that space, he said.
Urban life ties him more to that “parent culture,” but it also puts him closer to the cultural events and neighborly connections he’s always valued. Even in the homestead days, he started a theater group and said he wanted to bring conversations to a level beyond the finer points of goat pen construction.
“I can’t think of somebody, or even imagine somebody, who would regret or repent their homesteading years,” he said.
It was a rich time in his life — so rich, he’s written a book about it and has many more stories to tell — and a movement that helped shape Maine. Even those that left still keep the values, he said.
“The underlying impulses and inclinations haven’t changed,” he said. “The reality has changed.”
Bill Sturrock and Mary-Michael Billings, Orrington
For 30 years, Bill Sturrock and Mary-Michael Billings could be found at home in Orrington in the mornings and evenings, caring for sheep, chickens, goats, occasional turkeys, a vegetable garden and flowers.
Now, they live and work on Bucksport’s Main Street.
“My vision of myself certainly is not the person who goes out with the ax and splits the trees and pulls it home on the tractor,” Sturrock said. “That was a great hat to wear for many decades. I am now able to expand and wear a different hat and sit in a cafe and have a conversation with friends, and address different challenges other than the old oak tree.”
By day, he was a physician and Billings an educator. While they don’t consider themselves back-to-the-landers either, they enjoyed living close to the land and being more self-reliant.
Like other newcomers, they sharpened their homesteading skills through relationships with neighboring old-timers; their kids participated in 4-H, and the family belonged to the Orrington Grange, a chapter of an agriculture-focused fraternal organization.
Sturrock’s mother was an early devotee of the Nearings. Sturrock grew up with chickens and gardens because of his mother’s interest, and found a way of life he wanted.
But the couple knew the rigors of homesteading would be challenging as they approached their 70s, and planned to move to a walkable downtown: Bucksport. They opened a cafe there after retirement, The Crumpet, but the move was accelerated by a fire that burned down their farmhouse.
“It’s an entire change in your focus and your attention when you make that transition,” Sturrock said.
It was a difficult decision but a necessary one, Sturrock and Billings said. A younger couple was originally set to buy the farm but that fell through after the fire.
While the move was mostly prompted by age, the couple also saw a decline in Orrington’s agricultural community. Others like them left and older families scattered; the Grange disbanded for a lack of younger members. Then there were the more challenging growing conditions and an increase in tick populations, which led to Billings getting Lyme disease.
The couple is happy in Bucksport, where they’re able to walk most places, are more socially connected and still tend a small garden behind The Crumpet.
Some of their homesteading friends are also cutting back what they do but keep the same values and stay active in supporting local agriculture.
The change wasn’t as challenging for Billings, she said; homesteading was her husband’s biggest project. His choices and identity had been shaped by the homestead for decades, he said, and the satisfaction that comes from self-reliance is hard for anyone to give up after they’ve experienced it.
But, like Allen, he believes an identity isn’t totally determined by what someone eats or how they live. It’s also helped the couple to have the ability and resources to start new projects and learn new things in their later years.
“You’re more than just the sum of your daily chores, and your identity can be more flexible and your life can take different forms as time passes,” he said. “And you should not try to prevent that growth. If you see it as a positive change rather than a loss, then I think you will have much to gain.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
