HALDIMAND—If you’re a bit unfamiliar with an imperial confederacy, you’re not alone. Haldimand not only has its first micronation, but one that is exploring enlightened government – and it’s being run by teenagers.
Micronations are self-proclaimed sovereign states that are not legally recognized by the larger nation they reside within.
These would-be fiefdoms are diverse in form and function, with some simply assuming pomp and ceremony while others are created to be autonomous countries. Some have been created out of political protest, and others as a social experiment.
Candrea is a local political entity that’s claiming national sovereignty and designed to act as a micronational union, said its elected king, 17-year-old Kaleb Thomas.
Formed on June 21, 2021 out of the Byng area, Candrea is now composed of 3,000 members and 36 nations across the globe. Thomas asserted there are thousands of micronations around the world.
“We were kind of just bored due to the pandemic, just playing video games to create a Minecraft server, and to be honest, that’s where it came from,” he explained. “And then we decided to expand it, getting more people involved, some more friends joined in, and then we learned about micronations, so we wanted to try it out because we’d thought it would be fun.”
The name Candrea comes from Thomas’ own experiences and love of paleontology, merging his home nation of Canada with the name Pangea, when today’s continents were all connected in a single mass during the Paleozoic era.
“It kind of worked out well, because the Huron-Iroquois meaning for Canada is village, and then with Pangea its (ancient) Greek translation, Candrea really comes out as a united community,” said Thomas. “What we really want to do is we want to implement a society more based around education, and achievability of leisure and happiness.”
The group has been experimenting with forms of government, landing on imperial confederacy.
“It’s just like a large confederacy of different micronations,” explained Thomas. “We took imperial aspects … and we looked at the Dutch Republic because they were kind of like their own confederacy, and we took different ideas from different types of governments, and formed what we thought would be the best version.”
Their law of ideas is based on the Age of Enlightenment, a philosophical and intellectual movement from the 1700s and 1800s.
“We took the law of ideals from that,” he said. “More independent, more centred around an educated society.”
Thomas and his friends have also broken down the bureaucratic details: “So we’re a monarchy, but we’re elected,” said Thomas. “The system is broken down into county, municipality, district, provincial, and regional, and other micronations help govern it all.
“We also have a decision called Constitutioner, where they basically take the opinions of minority constitutes, and represent them in government.”
Like every other nation in the world, conflict arose early both with other nations and from within the ranks.
“(Kaleb’s) brother tried to form a revolution, but it didn’t end well,” said the king’s second-in-command, Lord President John Jones. “The conflict took place on Minecraft.”
Thomas interjected, “We really haven’t had any conflict since, because we were on Minecraft, and now we’re not.”
The economy is also an important factor, with Candrea in charge of a significant kingdom coffer. Between members, there is about $53,000 available to spend so far, with $190,000 in additional funds that Thomas said is a “work in progress.”
“We’ve just recently combined our financial system with other micronations, and been using that to fund everything,” he said, noting the Candrean Society of Research will be one destination for those funds.
They’ve started the Grand River Company, whereby they trade for a variety of resources with other micronations, or gather and collect their own to turn into products and sell. They made $1,500 in one month alone.
Thomas, his father, and his brother, who is also a member of Candrea, built a 500 square foot building with the plan to move it to the ideal location in the kingdom. While the group is still sussing out exactly where headquarters should be relocated, it will be somewhere in the forest on the 5,000-acre property of 11-year-old Luke Martin. His mother, Julie Caughell, said that she started cutting the lawn further back to give them space, but they’d spend entire days comping the forest.
“They go out there for hours, come back and give each other tick checks, eat lunch, and head out again,” she said. “It’s been a healthy way of spending time. They’re not doing drugs or illegal things – they’re exploring, they’re exercising healthy activities.”
Not everyone in the family was familiar with the micronational ambitions of these young friends.
“I didn’t even know this was going on,” laughed Ron Martin, Luke’s father. “I’m a trucker and out a lot, but only learned about this today.”
“We told them about it, but then they didn’t really understand, so we just did it,” answered Luke, with a big grin.
Regardless of its location, Candrea’s king hopes to inspire people.
“One of our main goals is to encourage people to use their more logical side of the brain; it’s more about the pursuit of education and knowledge and more logical thinking,” he said. “And to really care to like government and seek more responsible representative government. That’s something to me. And then just about people are able to achieve what they want to achieve, like equality, more equity.
“Every person should be able to achieve what they want.”
