Yellowknife's water squatters won't be tied down
Residents relish freedom of floating houses
Trish Audette
The Edmonton Journal
Monday, October 13, 2008
Tony Foliot dips his coffee cup into the water of Yellowknife Bay, then takes a sip as he steers his motorboat, eyes on the multi-coloured houses floating at the foot of Jolliffe Island.
The water is his highway, his yard and his home.
He points out his own house -- two storeys, blue with yellow trim -- gently bobbing just a few metres from Yellowknife's Old Town.
"I built it a little bit at a time, like Johnny Cash," Foliot says.
He calls himself a second-generation "water squatter," part of a community that has staked out pieces of the bay for the last three decades.
Most of the 30 houses on the bay are built on barges kept afloat on empty fuel tanks welded together. Chains anchor the homes in place, and since they don't touch shore, the squatters don't pay property taxes because they don't own land.
"The water itself isn't municipal property, so we can't charge them," says Remi Gervais, a supervisor with the City of Yellowknife. "They're not on city land, so they can't be assessed the way the other properties are."
There is no regulation that says you can't live on the water, Foliot says.
Court proceedings in the late '90s proved that, when the city tried to establish what level of government has jurisdiction over the community.
"We're required under the territorial law to provide services to our neighbours if it's available," says Mayor Gordon Von Tighem.
That means the houseboaters receive emergency services and their children can go to school.
But they're on their own when it comes to sewage, for example.
"In general, they (have) a unique lifestyle and (the houseboats) are used in a lot of the promotional brochures," Von Tighem says. "They're a very self-sufficient group."
The mayor notes Jolliffe Island was home to some of Yellowknife's first houses. The territorial capital has long been known for its frontier-style living, starting with tent camps for gold miners that were eventually replaced by cabins and houses.
In the summer, most houseboaters paddle across Yellowknife Bay to get to the city. In the winter, they walk or drive across the ice. Autumn and spring are rough -- some stay with friends on the mainland, others manage to paddle around, through and over thin, slushy ice.
Foliot's house, which he started building in the early '90s, is set apart from the others at Jolliffe (including that of his wife). His greenhouse floats alongside, and flags for the City of Yellowknife and the French colony of St. Pierre and Miquelon flap on tall posts at the corners of his barge.
Originally from Dollard, a Montreal suburb, Foliot moved to Yellowknife in the late '80s. In those days, he says, people still built and rented little waterside shacks.
Now, land along Yellowknife Bay is being eaten up by expensive homes with big windows.
"It's not cheap to be on the water," Foliot says -- but it won't cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for the artists and musicians who take up residence, either.
"I owe no money. I can do whatever I want," he says.
When his home became water-worthy in 1993, Foliot estimates it cost $30,000 to put together. Earlier this year, one of the houseboats was sold for $100,000. Another, with three bedrooms and full plumbing -- including composting toilets -- is estimated at $150,000.
"It is a pretty tight little community," Foliot says. "There are all these twentysomethings that like being in the water, off the grid."
The freedom of living off the grid has its drawbacks, however.
Most people collect their own waste in biodegradable bags they later drive to a nearby lagoon for disposal.
People keep generators for electricity and Foliot, for example, does not have a fridge. He keeps everything in a cooler box on the shadowy side of his house.
The father of two says the positives outweigh the negatives. Growing up in Quebec in the '60s and '70s, he watched the forest that was once his backyard get paved over for suburbia.
His yard can't be paved this time.
"You wouldn't want to be tied up to the land, " Foliot says. "There's something to be said about having no neighbours."
taudette@thejournal.canwest.como
© The Edmonton Journal 2008
