Others just bought land from a neighbour, and paid them over a few years. And of course, even into the early 80s, there were still places in Canada where you could go, stake (fence) and work land in for 5 years, and it was then yours.
> saved, bought land, and slowly built their house.
That's what I'm trying to do now. It seems like there is opposition of some kind every step of the way. For example, it isn't uncommon to have a time limit on your building permit. So you can't just slowly build. And you can easily end up buying land that you're not allowed to build on at all. And I'm not just talking about zoning.
But bear in mind, even building codes were entirely missing, or very lax, especially in rural areas, 70 years ago.