Canada, help me get lost in daydreams..

If I was to think about moving the family to Canada, where would we want to go?  Only a pipe dream really but always nice to think about it.

Requirements would be

• Rural but not remote friendly small town
• Decent schools
• Good quality outdoor scene, not just big country adventuring but, more importantly, local accessible biking, hiking etc
• Sporty culture, lots of kids clubs and opportunities
• Within 1.5 hours of decent sized town / city with a bit of culture
• Continental type weather of decent summers and nice cold winters
• Able to fly back to UK relatively easily
• Area with nice housing, low crime, decent parks and community

A boy can always dream……

Cranbrook BC.

Nelson BC

Parksville or Qualicum Beach, BC

if snow is important then perhaps Canmore, AB

Fernie – BC (although you’d have to cope with the weekend crowd coming from Calgary including me).

Your 1.5 hours from a decent sized town is pretty tricky in Canada to be honest. Distances are big.

I’m just in Vancouver now. Last night I met with a friend of mine whose emigrated and has been living in Squamish and working on the North Shore for 7 years.

She pretty much confirmed all of your wants but warned of the following negatives in the main regarding employment:

a) annual leave is like the American system  she gets 10 days, and maximum 10days sick leave

b) Health care is private

c) City’s are expensive and like the UK, people are moving ever outward hence property prices are going with them

d) she’d live north on the coastal highway as there’s less chance of urbanisation creeping north at that point.

in the main though there’s no way she’d aver move back and in the limited view of the place I’ve had in the last 48hrs I can see why.  It’s very beautiful, clean and polite here.  I’m sure there are issues but you get a distinct impression of a country doing things the right way.  Before she met us for dinner she was rock climbing at height with knee deep snow around her in the mountains, you could make up her stories!

Fernie – BC (although you’d have to cope with the weekend crowd coming from Calgary including me).

I’ve only been in Winter but I don’t ever remember the weekend crowds being much of anything outside of holidays like new year or family day.  Even then they are about the same as a quiet day in the alps.  I thought the Calgary folks would head to Banff as it’s closer?

10 days holidays is baffling! they don’t work shorter working weeks to compensate? How do they get time to do all the fun stuff and go nice places?

“I thought the Calgary folks would head to Banff as it’s closer”

Less to do in Banff and super busy in the summer. I’ve not been to Banff in years.  I’m part of the weekend crowd so I don’t know how quiet (or otherwise) mid-week Fernie is.

Vacation allowance varies hugely depending on seniority and / or industry.  I now get 25 days (plus bank holidays) but I’ve been working for the same company for over 17 years.  It starts with 2 weeks and then increments with an extra week after each 5 years of service… That’s pretty standard but if you move companies some of them will recognize previous service but some don’t – a point of negotiation.

Definitely head to BC or the west of Alberta if you want ‘real’ Canada. Places like Toronto and Ottawa are nice but aren’t really proper Canada imo. I’ve spent a year in Whistler, four months living in North Vancouver, and my last holiday was based out of Banff with a road trip over to Western BC.

Revelstoke or at a push Fernie or Golden

I liked Smithers or Fort Frazer but unless your into the leisure industry or logging your probably not gonna get much work out there.

Downside I guess is your nearest big city would be Prince George.

We have been thinking of going too,

we have friends in ottawa, i made a point of asking around a dozen people who I personally know that have emigrated from Scotland to canada ‘would you even consider moving back?’

all of them said the same thing, ‘no way’

remember the population density when moving there, england is 395 people per sq km.

Canada is 3.7 people per sq km.

so what they regard as densely populated isn’t the same as what we would call it.

Personally I would avoid Nelson. I have only been a few times and the last time was approaching 10 years ago, but it seemed like a mental-health-crisis-waiting-to-happen, attracting pot-heads from BC and beyond.

Revelstoke is as far from Calgary/Vancouver as you can get if you want to fly internationally.

Maybe somewhere in the Okanagan?

How about Nova Scotia – Halifax, the South Shore, Wolfville? Those would meet most of your criteria and are worth a look. BC seems a bit of an ‘obvious’ suggestion, and more expensive, comparatively.

Just to correct Kryton, healthcare is NOT private. Granted, just like the UK, you have to pay for some items like dental but most worthwhile employers have “extended healthcare” insurance policies which covers most/ a lot of the cost of items which aren’t covered by the provincial healthcare system.

TroutWrestlers concern about pot heads in Nelson can also be dismissed as they are everywhere now! Besides which, it will be legal very soon and is already legal just south of the border in Washington state!

Also, dont read too much into the population density @ 3.7/km as the vast majority of the country is “uninhabitable” and certainly won’t meet any of your criteria. The majority of the population are squeezed up against the US border so that’s where the jobs/infrastructure/schools are.

@Kryton57: Healthcare is private?!? Unless something in the Canadian constitution has changed in the 15 years since I left the country, access to private health care of any sort was illegal in Canada. One had to drive across to the USA if one wanted private care.

As for an answer to the OP, I agree with crispedwheel. Nova Scotia. Many on here are biased toward BC, but BC is in many ways, one of the least culturally-interesting provinces in the country (arguable, I know!). Nova Scotia on the other hand is a wonderous place with breath-taking forests, lakes, and hills, while Halifax is a vibrant and incredibly friendly city, full of good music, food, and beer.

And if such things interest you, there is more Scots Gaelic spoken on Cape Breton Island than in all of Scotland.

Just to contradict Kryton again about holidays…I get 20 plus bank holidays. My girlfriend (a nurse) gets 25 and this will continue to increase with longer service…some of her colleagues get 8 weeks.

It’s true that the legal minimums are abysmal, but unionized workforces generally get better allowances and some employees also work “9 day fortnight’s” so have every other Friday or Monday off. If you are in demand, you can probably negotiate better T&C’s…

Some industries also work long shift rotations so it’s possible to string a significant number of days off fairly easily. I have friends who do this all the time.

Time off was one of my main concerns when I moved over here but I figured I used to have to take a minimum of three weeks holiday to justify the long flights and cost of riding the North Shore mountains, but now I live at the base I can ride them after work….

My colleague here in africa is a nova scotian …. I reallly want to visit, it sounds an epic place

• Continental type weather of decent summers and nice cold winters

Does NS/Halifax meet his criteria? I’ve only ever been to Halifax once and it was cold/dry/snowy but I think I was lucky. Other friends ensured terrible weather when they went in holiday a couple of summers ago…

Nova Scotia has snowy winters that are less cold than winters farther West, BC excepted. And summers can be some of the nicest in Canada, I think. Certainly when I lived there (for a four month period), the summer was fantastic.

I’ve got friends living in Squamish… simply fantastic if you love the outdoors. It’s not known as the outdoor recreation capital of Canada for no reason.

However it’s getting hellishly expensive for stuff like property and food shopping. There’s not much ‘cultural’ going on if you like gigs, theatre, comedy, cinema etc (apart from the occasional ‘local stuff).

That said, would I live there given the chance? Hell yeah.

heres the first reason why, Half Nelson  https://youtu.be/JfaKcnfScmc

To be fair from what im told nova scotia is more like scotland(funny that ?) than defined seasons like what that there bc gets.

This year for example my colleague has 3 weeks where the snow mobile could get out…..

Other years he gets feet of snow for months at a time.

franksinatra

If I was to think about moving the family to Canada, where would we want to go?  Only a pipe dream really but always nice to think about it.

Requirements would be

• Rural but not remote friendly small town
• Decent schools
• Good quality outdoor scene, not just big country adventuring but, more importantly, local accessible biking, hiking etc
• Sporty culture, lots of kids clubs and opportunities
• Within 1.5 hours of decent sized town / city with a bit of culture
• Continental type weather of decent summers and nice cold winters
• Able to fly back to UK relatively easily
• Area with nice housing, low crime, decent parks and community

I’m not going to recommend anywhere specifically but I’d just point out to the OP that while I’m sure your requirements are not impossible they are pretty subjective. When I was there the vast majority of people I met were “sporty”, as in they self identified as a snowboarder/mountain biker/climber / hunter etc without any real prompting and this even applied to the city folk.

A lot of the towns mentioned above seemed to be pretty unpopular with Canadians themselves – “tourist trap” “drug den” “party town” etc were the usual replies when most of the “mtb scene” towns you often hear romanticised in mtb films and magazines were brought up.

Culture is extremely subjective – I would never have considered Edmonton to be a hive of culture (it’s an industrial sprawl) but it has as many plays and shows and entertainment as you’ll find in most UK or European cities and when I was there Motley Crue and Iron Maiden were playing in the shopping mall, and I’m not making that up. Calgary seemed fine to me but is often criticised for being a redneck cattle town full of yokels and hicks. Go figure.

My advice would be to take a long holiday there. Western Alberta and BC are unbelievable. I would go back in a heart beat and could easily have moved there.

I’ll let the OP know shortly: I’m moving there in a few weeks.

From East to West:

Halifax

which is capital of Nova Scotia

Quebec City

which is the capital of Quebec

Toronto

which is the capital of Ontario

Winnipeg

which is the capital of Manitoba

Edmonton

which is the capital of Alberta

Vancouver

which is NOT the capital of British Columbia (but considered by some as one of the nicest cities in the world)

Hope that helps with the day dreams!

You want small town Canada try here .  Struggling since their mill burnt down mind but look at the surroundings !

360 degrees of peaks surrounding you .(i wish i had better photos but i just took one from my breakfast coffee stop)

Campsite owned by a couple from Kintore Aberdeenshire – which was an interesting conversation about moving – he was a helicopter pilot which is how they came to be in Mcbride

Read the local news paper when i was there  – Front page news Mcbride boy Cory Wallace crowned 24 hr world champ.

Sorry chaps – don’t shoot the messenger, I wonder why she thinks that about healthcare?  Maybe I misunderstood her

To further add, I went for a Rib trip yesterday around Horseshoe bay, pretty much Saxon riders penultimate picture with snow capped mountains in the background. My god, it’s an emotional view indeed!  Got lucky and managed to sit and watch a Humpback playing in the bay.

I’d say the Healthcare is part way between UK and USA (but more UK than USA). It’s not quite as state funded as the UK but it is nowhere near as private as the USA. If you’re not on one of the corporate health insurance plans mentioned by Mark I’d imagine it could get expensive fast on occasion. (I’m luckily on one of those plans and I’m also fortunate that I’ve not really tested the system beyond A+E for mtb accidents).

Canadian (BC) health care is pretty close to the NHS really, aside from prescription drugs and non medical treatemnt.

As a family of 4 we pay 150/mo for access to possibly better than UK health care at a treatment level. If I get hurt or sick, BCmed takes care of me.

What they don’t cover however is prescription drugs, opticians or dentists, physiotherapy etc.

Doctor’s visits, surgery, hospital time etc is all covered though and that 150/mo is probably less than NI.

Drugs are expensive but most full time jobs come with extended health plans (benefits) where you get medication coverage, physio/massage/cyro etc. My only experience of full time work with benefits gave me a package that covered the majority of those non included costs and gave me a 1500/year allowance for physio/massage, glasses allowance etc. I have friends who have unlimited treatment benefits who are at the physio/rmt weekly.

Destination wise, interior BC is cold and dry in the winter (plenty of fluffy light snow), hot and dry in the summer. Lots of small resorts dotted about and international flight access via Kelowna Airport.

Vancouver/squamish/coast/island have epic summers but extremely wet fall winter spring.. (wet snow sucks to clear off your driveway) temperate coastal rain forest and all that and here in squanish, expect SADS to kick in by feb/March while waiting for the trails to be good to go.

We’ve looked at places other than squamish, but there’s nowhere else like this for quality of recreation, proximity to major city and international airport and the ocean.

The island brings the ferry, the BC interior looses the ocean. Squamish is expensive now so could certainly be a ‘barrier to entry’

Older mining towns remain cheap (relatively, for now) but you loose the access to infrastructure that the tourism corridor provides.

As someone who lived and worked there nothing would entice me back to live or even visit.

An absolute shithole (albeit very beautiful in parts) with the most anal people I’ve come across

Its like the US/UK combined but with the worst of all those traits

YMMV 🙂

@plumber: where were you living and working?!?

Canadian (BC) health care is pretty close to the NHS really, aside from prescription drugs and non medical treatment.

That may be the case for residents but in my experience it’s not the case if you are visiting.  I was charged a total of CAD600 (I think) when I had to go the emergency room to get treatment for conjunctivitis when I was there a few years ago.  This was made up of a charge just for walking in, a charge for the doctor (which was actually fairly reasonable at CAD 90), and a prescription charge (I think).  Granted this was ultimately covered by travel insurance, minus the excess, but this sort of treatment would have been covered for free on the NHS (A&E and GP visits are still free for everyone) with the possible exception of a prescription charge.

Granted this was ultimately covered by travel insurance, minus the excess, but this sort of treatment would have been covered for free on the NHS (A&E and GP visits are still free for everyone) with the possible exception of a prescription charge.

not for non-residents they arent.

After a Whistler summer holiday 2 years ago I started looking at property in Squamish with a view to retiring there in 2 or 3 years. At the time we could afford a nice 4 bedroom detached with some land.

We’re a fair bit better off financially at home now, but we’d be down to a 3 bed place in Squamish, the property market has gone nuts.

not for non-residents they aren’t.

A&E and GP are free for everyone according to this

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-on-overseas-visitors-hospital-charging-regulations/summary-of-changes-made-to-the-way-the-nhs-charges-overseas-visitors-for-nhs-hospital-care

Within England, free NHS hospital treatment is provided on the basis of someone being ‘ordinarily resident’. It is not dependent upon nationality, payment of UK taxes, national insurance contributions, being registered with a GP, having an NHS number or owning property in the UK. The changes which came into effect from April affect visitors and former UK residents differently, depending on where they now live.

Treatment in A&E departments and at GP surgeries remains free for all.

I was charged a total of CAD600 (I think) when I had to go the emergency room to get treatment for conjunctivitis

Had you just gone to any walk-in clinic or GP it would’ve been $50-90 plus the medication.

Whistlers emergency department is massively expensive and everthing costs lots, however go up one flight of stairs in that same building and you dodge the ER charge. Great if you’re not an emergency but if you need x-rays, CT etc, It’s still better to be checking in downstairs and letting the ‘accelerated service cost’ be charged to the cc.

Gonefishin, I’m not sure you read that quote right?  The nhs can charge people who are not normally resident in the UK (ie tourists).  I’m not sure they routinely do, as they weren’t set up to do the admin last I heard.  Certainly nobody will be waving a card machine at you – but a tourist could be invoiced afterwards (as you / your insurer can if you were injured in a car accident).