When I was a teenager I really liked the SNES game "Harvest Moon." It was a lot of fun to feel like I was carving out a homestead. I was wondering if there are any PC games that share that theme of pioneering or carving a life out of the wild?

Something like what the Oregon trail games would be like if they started when you got to Oregon and not when you set out on the trail.

I must admit that i don't know about oregon trail, but you might want to give dwarf fortress a go. If you are interested, i could walk you through it or point you to some good guides (not that they are hidden, the game wiki is awesome). Also with some modding, you can make an adventurer and build your home and craft stuff out of animals, trees, rocks, metal etc.

It would definitely fit your theme, since you can "settle" anywhere in the world, including but not limited to: generic wilderness/woods, deserts, tundra, mountains, hills, a riverbed/waterfall, small volcanic island in the middle of the ocean, etc.

The upcoming Stardew Valley is similar to Harvest Moon (and it should be on GOG when it releases).
http://stardewvalley.net/about/

Robinson's Requiem ?

Try Dwarf Fortress. It's an incredibly complex game and its free. Download the Lazy Newb Pack for different graphic sets if traditional ASCII doesn't do it for you.

EDIT: Ninja'd :D

I was thinking of something more small scale. Not an empire or a city, just a person (or small group) carving out a little piece of civilization for themselves.

How about The Lost Tribe ? It's the game that inspired King of Dragon Pass.

Well, not to be too much of an annoyance, but i must insist that you consider dwarf fortress. In the normal, unmodded, game you start out with 8 people to beging with, and you will get more migrants with time (but you can also alter the maximum number of people allowed in the fortress, which is 200), OR, if you use a superb mod, you can do it all yourself with a single adventurer (and as an added bonus, you can do some fun things like bashing invaders to death with your masterfully crafted cabinet, etc)

Us old folks will get this and for some reason it sounds kind of cool, "Grizzly Adams the RPG". Totally serious on that; I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

I really do need to give the game a try. I have tried it in the past but got overwhelm and a little intimidated by it. I just need to wait for a weekend that I do not have anything going on and just dive in and figure it out :) I loved that game! I use to play it years ago. Do you know if it works on windows 7?
Me too! Cool!

Works for me :) Check PM for a link.

Oh, that piqued my interest. I'm going to have to watch that further.

I'm not sure if it counts but I enjoyed what little I've played of Pioneer: http://eigen.pri.ee/pioneers/

You're more of a hunting/camping group rather than settling down with a farm but you still need to set up a camp, hunt and with the right professions I think you can do some farming too. I kind of got stuck with it but I thought it was cool.

Minecraft? and all the derivatives.

Terraria & Don't Starve.