Next Up

Annie’s formative years were spent with her family on a small farm in Nova Scotia, raised on home-grown produce, honey, blueberries, maple syrup, good books and with great neighbours. With the help of her father she built a semi-subterranean octagonal cabin, loosely based on the winter houses of the Salish people of interior British Columbia. Her initial urge to turn her back on the world and live the life of a hermit in her cabin changed, ironically, after her rich experience of life as a monastic at a Buddhist abbey in northern Cape Breton. This experience, of living in a supportive, respectful community of committed and like-minded people, lead her to seek out an intentional (or cohousing) community in Calgary (Prairie Sky Cohousing www.prairiesky.ab.ca), where she was honoured to live for the past 4 and a half years. Her volunteer efforts both at home and abroad with Habitat for Humanity in Honduras, the Calgary Women’s Resource Centre, The Mustard Seed, and Calgary Harvest have strengthened her belief in the power of community to create positive change in the world, and her desire to be part of that change. This one-time hermit loves to travel and learn about new places and perspectives, loves to stay home and support local food, music and community, cook for crowds, garden, hike, and make things with her own hands. Currently Annie works as a piano technician privately as well as for a local keyboard instrument museum, Cantos Music Foundation, teaches adapted piano lessons to students with special needs at a music therapy clinic, and provides musical accompaniment for the local Unitarian Church.