bout 70 miles northeast of Vancouver is one of Canada’s most beautiful tourist regions. Visitors come to enjoy fishing, skiing or the splendid mountain scenery. Over 20 years ago, Christi Bone, a successful businesswoman, came here and founded Paradise Ridge, a cabin park. She said, “I want to live somewhere everybody knows everybody else and all your problems are shared.” Paradise Ridge is now home to 25 families. Each family owns their own small cabin. But they share the ownership of the park and the common facilities. This is a really living community and residents aren’t allowed to use their cabin as a holiday home. The heart of the Paradise Ridge community is a large house. Shared meals take place 3 times a week and once a month there’s a meeting when important decisions are made. Families can sell their homes if they want to leave, but the whole community must vote on new families before they are allowed to join. “Keeping the community together is hard work,” says Christi. “Everybody has to take responsibility for the day to day running of the community, but it seems there is no shortage of the families who want to join. There are 75 on the waiting list.”