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Les Archives de Radio-Canada

Home · Society · Youth · Hippie Society: The Youth Rebellion

Topic spans: 1964 - 2006

Hippie Society: The Youth Rebellion

Flowers and free love. Antiwar marches and acid tests. In the mid to late 1960s, youth across North America and Europe began to "turn on, tune in and drop out." Fed up with the establishment — parents, schools, police — they went looking for a new way of life. To Toronto's Yorkville and Vancouver's Kitsilano district they came, preaching peace, love and non-conformity.

icone_tv
14 television clips
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8 radio clips

Out of the city and into the commune

Broadcast Date: Oct. 18, 1971

For the most idealistic hippies, the true flower children, the end of hippiedom means moving out of the city centres to small communal farms. Almost 300 leave Yorkville to set up communes in places like Ontario's Perth County and Killaloe. They leave because of the hassle of it all — the running fight with city hall, pressure from the police, and harassment from Yorkville's less savoury denizens. In this CBC Radio clip, three hippies describe their attraction to communal life.

Out of the city and into the commune

• On Anne and Ricky's commune, members would get up at dawn to work in the gardens, take care of the chickens and perform other chores. All members learned how to knit, cook and work leather.
• Unable to live on garden produce alone, commune members made and sold crafts in nearby communities. Common projects included jewelry making, carving, pottery and candle making.

• Commune members in Anne and Ricky's neighbourhood gathered together every solstice for a large party. The communes co-operated by ride-sharing, barn-raising, book-lending and knowledge-pooling. Anne's speciality was bees.
• The hippies on this CBC Radio program would not allow the location of their commune to be revealed for fear of an influx of visitors.

• Large hippie colonies also appeared in New Buffalo, N.M.; Big Sur, Calif.; Bancroft, Ont.; the Sechelt area of British Columbia; and Topanga, Calif., where Charles Manson was based.
• The Ontario hippie band "Perth County Conspiracy (Does Not Exist)" was commune-based. The name refers to the fact that Perth County was a prime pot-growing area. Lead singer Cedric Smith went on to star as Alec King on CBC Television's Road to Avonlea.

Out of the city and into the commune

Medium: Radio

Program: Schools and Youth

Broadcast Date: Oct. 18, 1971

Guest(s): Anne , Greg , Ricky


Host: John Kastner
Reporter: Lilly Barnes

Duration: 4:42

Last updated:
Aug. 14, 2003


End of list




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