Twenty years ago, Kyle MacDonald set out on an ambitious mission to acquire a house – not with money, but with a red paperclip. Starting with that small piece of stationery, the 25-year-old traded up, always getting a bigger or better item in return, before he eventually landed himself a property in Kipling, Saskatchewan, Canada – just 14 trades later.

Click or scroll through to read Kyle’s extraordinary journey…

On 12 July 2005 Kyle posted a picture of a red paperclip on his blog and in the barter section of Craigslist. He asked if anybody wanted to make a trade for something bigger or better. He set out his plan in a note at the bottom of his advertisement: “PS I’m going to make a continuous chain of ‘up trades’ until I get a house. Or an Island. Or a house on an island. You get the idea.”

Once the post was up all Kyle had to do was wait a couple of days before his trading plan began…

Two women, Rhawnie and Corinna, liked Kyle’s plan – and his paperclip – and were willing to trade for a fish-shaped pen. Kyle travelled to meet them, as was always the arrangement with his trades, and carried out the first swap.

He learned they were vegans, and wrote in his blog that as such, they probably “wanted very little to do with a fish”. Rhawnie had found the pen while camping, so it held some sentimental value, but she was happy to swap it for something new. And so the first trade was complete.

Kyle advertised his new pen online and somebody called Annie replied, offering Kyle a doorknob just 10 minutes after the ad was posted. It wasn’t any old doorknob, but hand-crafted and carved with an odd-looking face.

That didn’t deter Kyle though, and he went ahead with the swap. He briefly used the doorknob on a cupboard door while he waited for interested parties to get in touch about his next swap.

A man called Shawn then invited Kyle down to his for burgers – and a camp stove in exchange for his new, E.T-esque doorknob. Shawn put his accessory to good use as he needed something to fix the knob of his stove-top espresso maker.

“We’re improving each other’s lives, albeit on a small scale,” Kyle said, talking about the swap in a TED Talk he gave in November 2015.

A US marine then replied to the stove ad, saying that he’d been looking for that exact make and model and he’d be willing to swap it for an extra generator he had lying around. Kyle described this swap as “a dream come true”.

“Finally my teenage dreams of being able to create power were realised,” he said in 2015.

But unfortunately for him, a generator wasn’t at the top of everybody else’s shopping lists. It made him realise that what was valuable to him wasn’t necessarily all that valuable to other people.

But despite a delay of a couple of weeks, another trading opportunity then cropped up and his mission continued, featuring something that could be powered by his new generator...

But what Kyle received in return for his Honda generator wasn’t a conventional item – it was a neon Budweiser sign, an empty keg and an IOU for a keg's worth of beer. This is where Kyle had to get creative to continue the chain, so rebranded his assortment of items as ‘an instant party’.

He described this swap as "a landmark trade" because while the 'instant party' might not be as valuable as a generator as a sum of its parts, the process of putting it together was a lot of fun. Kyle also opted to spray the keg red for good measure. 

The party was snapped up by a famous radio host Michel Barrette and in return he gave up his “worst snowmobile”. Even though it was his worst, Kyle said the vehicle was actually “pretty nice”, and it definitely fit the bill of trading up for bigger and better items. Trading in the midst of winter also helped, as the seasonality bumped up the value.

Barrette had originally planned to give the snowmobile away to a friend, but thought the instant party would be much more amusing. Kyle’s swapping antics were also starting to hit the news, and broadcasters such as CBC and CNN brought along their cameras to capture the trade.

As Kyle’s mission was starting to garner a lot of attention, he was able to secure better swaps. In a TV interview, he said he’d travel anywhere in the world to complete his swaps – except Yahk in British Columbia.

The next day, snowmobile magazine SnoRiders got in touch with Kyle to offer him a pretty exciting trade: they’d take his second-hand snowmobile (and the free advertising they’d get from being featured in the paperclip challenge) in exchange for a two-person trip to the Canadian Rockies – Yahk, to be exact. Kyle swallowed his pride and wrote a letter to the people of Yahk, and accepted the swap.

In keeping with the task at hand, Kyle didn’t use the trip himself, he instead traded it for a van. In one of his press interviews around his Yahk swap Kyle had been wearing a T-shirt featuring the name of work uniform company Cintas.

A man called Bruno at Cintas saw that as an opportunity and offered to take the trip in exchange for a van featuring the company’s name. Kyle’s advert for the van included the fact that delivery was included, and that he would happily drive it anywhere in North America "for the right offer".

Kyle had also started to think his mission could actually benefit others, and managed to swap his vehicle for a recording contract in order to give somebody the opportunity to sing professionally.

The musician he swapped with took the van as a means of driving his band around. And it turned out the recording contract was even more popular than expected. Kyle was offered a huge number of items, including the soul of a soul singer and a music artist’s pinky finger, but he decided to go with an exciting opportuity in Phoenix, Arizona...

A woman called Jody got in contact with Kyle and offered him a year's rent at half of her duplex property in downtown Phoenix as part of the trade, including furnishings if necessary.

Kyle didn’t have to go far to find somebody willing to snap up 12 months of free real estate – Jody’s neighbour heard about the deal and swooped in with an offer of her own. Jody meanwhile, was able to get her singing career underway with her new recording contract.

Next door neighbour Leslie offered Kyle an afternoon with her boss, which at first didn’t seem all that appealing – until he learned that she worked at the famous sports bar and restaurant Alice Cooperstown, making her boss none other than rocker Alice Cooper.

Alice Cooper’s tour manager then got in touch with Kyle and invited him to spend some time with the singer, who was gigging in North Dakota at the time. 

It led to him being on stage with the musician, jointly holding up an enormous red paperclip in homage to how Kyle had started his journey. He did ask Kyle to make a promise – that he wouldn’t trade the afternoon with him for a similar experience with the Rolling Stones or KISS. 

An amateur photographer messaged Kyle and asked if he’d be interested in any of his KISS memorabilia. He had a whole host of guitars, posters and photos, but it was a branded snow globe that caught Kyle’s eye.

The motorised glitter globe, similar to this one which was listed on eBay in May 2025, was a bit of a controversial choice...

Kyle had an avid following online, but some of his followers were less than encouraging about this particular swap. One man called it “the worst trade [he’d ] ever heard of” while someone else said it was “the dumbest decision [they’d] ever seen anyone make”.

But Kyle knew what he was doing, and already had another big trade lined up…

Two months before the snow globe trade, actor Corbin Bernsen had got in touch with Kyle. His offer was another priceless opportunity – a paid, speaking, credited role in his upcoming movie Donna on Demand. It also happened to be the case that Bernsen loved to collect one novelty item – snow globes. 

With more than 6,500 snow globes, he was thought to own the world’s largest collection at the time. Kyle offered the actor the KISS model and he replied with: “Not only do I want it, I need it.” Kyle got a tour of his collection when he went to seal the deal. He then received a phone call that would complete his incredible plan to turn a paperclip into a house… 

The economic development officer of the town of Kipling in Saskatchewan, Canada called Kyle to offer him a house owned by the local authorities in exchange for the film role.

He did have advertising for the town in mind, and had hoped Kyle would host a huge housewarming party that would put the town of fewer than 1,000 people on the map. It involved a talent show called 'Kipling Idol' where people could audition for the movie role and in exchange Kyle would finally get a property.

And the excitement didn’t end once Kyle got his house. The jumbo housewarming did happen, and had more than 3,500 attendees. The auditions were a big success and Corbin Bernsen awarded the movie role to Nolan Hubbard, who was working a minimum wage job at the time.

The following year, he featured in another film by Corbin Bernsen, Rust, with the paperclip challenge having launched his Hollywood career. 

Kyle and his girlfriend Dominique moved into their new home, 503 Main Street in Kipling. They spent several years there in what Kyle described as an experience similar to being in the Truman Show, with him having turned into a celebrity in his new town.

Kipling authorities also added an extra sweetener of an enormous red paperclip, which won Kyle a Guinness World Record for.

But the town's appreciation for Kyle didn't stop there. He was crowned mayor for one day, received so-called Kipling cash to be spent at any local business and given a key to the town, and there was even a commemorative day where everybody in the town would wear a red paperclip.

Kyle received more and more questions about the house and that’s when he realised that it wasn’t really about the property, but more the experiences he’d had along the way. So he listed the property online for one final trade.

The offers rolled in and the people of Kipling wanted to turn the house into a living museum.

But Kyle decided that his final trade would be to swap the house for nothing at all. He gave the house back to the town council, and it has since been made into a café and tourist attraction.

In his book, One Red Paperclip: The Story of How One Man Changed His Life One Swap at a Time, Kyle talks about what he’d gained from the process: “Over the year of trading I met hundreds of awesome people, made many new friends and tried out new things.”

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