Officially, the Society for Creative Anachronism is a Medieval 're-enactment' society which tries to recreate the more pleasant aspects of medieval life while pretending not to notice the less pleasant aspects. In practice, it's a sort of amalgam of historian/antiquarian, 'back-to-the-land'/survivalist, neo-pagan, and FRPG player interests. Many (if not most) members fall into all four catagories plus a few more.
Your local SCA group is generally a great place to find advice on things like survival crafts (soap making, hand weaving, small-scale animal husbandry, sustainable/organic farming) and to get in touch with all or most of the 'alternative' communities in your area.