Challenge and change were on the minds of Laura-Jane Koers and Cameron Lerch for much of 2007.

They had successful careers and a condo in Victoria, B.C., and were within easy visiting distance of family and friends.

But in December of that year, they broke out of their predictable comfort zone, quit their jobs, sold their home and much of what they owned and headed east.

They slept in their truck as they crossed the country to Prince Edward Island in the dead of winter and settled into an old uninsulated house on a 25-hectare property they call Whimfield Farm.

"People were saying, 'You're crazy. What are you doing? You're going to DIE out there!"' laughs Koers, whose previous experience with cold temperatures was a balmy -4 C in Victoria.

However, the couple's introduction to minus-double-digit temperatures, their experiences of renovating their home and exploring their new community have made for some fascinating and fun entries in Koers' popular blog, Whimfield: Modern Pre-Industrial Living.

In it, she relates the humour of melting snow for water and finding a bowl of frozen soup in the ice-cold kitchen. She also details things such as the excitement of tearing her house apart and rebuilding it, the joy of adventures in lobster fishing and other interesting avenues of Island life.

Her ongoing diarylike dialogue has drawn close to 60,000 virtual visitors annually from Canada, the United States, India, Australia, Germany, South Africa, Norway, France, Argentina and the U.K.

"It's so important to be heard or to have people share what they think or feel about what I wrote," says Koers, whose love of blogging began in her university days.

Until late 2007, the couple was entrenched in an upwardly mobile urban lifestyle. Koers worked for the municipal government just outside of Victoria. Lerch was a software developer.

But the day-to-day drudgery weighed heavy on him.

"I just got frustrated and felt that I wanted to try something new. So I just decided to do it."

It was not so cut-and-dried for Koers.

"I took a little bit of convincing, but I know the passion and the hard work that (he has) so I was like, 'OK, let's try it."'

Fortunately, they had bought their condo before prices skyrocketed and got out when the selling price was good.

They took off almost as soon as their condo sold in mid-December, travelling eastward in their truck, which doubled as their sleeping quarters for more than a month.

"It was so exciting," Koers says. "We had money in the bank. We had everything that was important to us in terms of material things. We had no schedule."

Their final destination was up in the air, but they had in mind a potential home-to-be on the Whim Road, just outside Montague, P.E.I., that they had noticed on a real estate website.

"This house kind of drew us here. We weren't committed to buying it, but the goal was let's start in P.E.I. and take a look," says Koers, whose first look at the house was blinded by sheer rapture.

"I did love it, but then once we got in here the reality set in."

When they moved into the house in February the temperatures were hitting close to -20 C.

Lerch was horrifically sick at the time. They tried to keep warm with just an old barrel-style stove.

After a week, they headed to a motel for a month. Once he recovered, they slept at the hotel at night and worked all day at the house.

Koers was posting to her blog as often as three times a week but that has slowed a bit as house renovations have petered off and their career workload has increased.

She has Brightflock, a web marketing and web project management business. Lerch has a web application development company called Kibo Software.

"I'm writing about different things now. It has been such an adventure coming here with the house and now we're doing our own businesses," Koers says.

The couple has received loads of letters and e-mails, framed art, a camera and upward of 1,900 blog comments.

"We've been exposed to many stories of people who want to move to P.E.I. or the Maritimes from all across Canada and the U.S.A. Whimfield has been a hub for people interested in moving east," Koers says.

"It's so much about just living; I call it a life dream. If you have some dream, try it. Of course be smart about it and do your research, but try something. And you can always go back to what you were doing before."