Why Canada?

It seems appropriate here to explain why Canada holds such a pull for me in light of recent plans, though many words will be needed.

Back in the late 70s’ Mum and Dad decided to move on from the Caribbean. They wanted us to settle somewhere with life experiences and career opportunities for us kids other than sailing.

They researched immigrating to New Zealand for a while and talked about sailing across the Pacific to NZ. Then they found out that we would have to pay some incredible amount of money in duty, that they couldn’t possibly afford, in order to stay there having sailed in to the country on ‘Kim’.

So there was a change of plan and we were going to sail up the West coast of the USA to British Columbia.

After further discussions they decided that ‘Kim’ just wasn’t up to the windward slog up that west coast because she was a 1940s’ built wooden yawl, and leaked like a sieve, just managing to cope with the sailing that we were doing in the Caribbean.

So, we sold her, (that is another saga), and the plan was to fly to Florida, buy a motor home, and drive across to the west coast of the USA and up to British Columbia.

A few Sagas later and we did all end up in BC, on Vancouver Island. My parents intentions were to apply for immigrants status from within whilst living in the motor home in a trailer park. I flew up from Florida to meet them in December, and having never encountered snow, arrived to 3’ of it.

I remember the crisp, cold mornings and trudging through heaps of snow. I remember going by bus to Camosun College where I took evening classes in Book-keeping and typing through the winter months, (a lot of good that did me, I am a two finger typist now and have never worked as a book-keeper). I remember the hot summer and travelling from provincial park to logging campsite all the way up to Campbell River and across to the west coast. I remember the ‘free’ sites on the lakeside at Strathcona, in the days when we would be the only campers there.

We all loved Canada, what we’d seen of it, and couldn’t imagine having to leave. We adapted to the change in climate from the heat of the Caribbean to the cooler summer and freezing winter.

I got a Canadian boyfriend and soon went off to mainland BC and up to his hometown, Prince George with him to visit family. Then he got a job at the pulp and paper mill in the coastal town of Powell River so we lived there for a while.

I wasn’t allowed to work in Canada, due to the family status as visitors, so I took a voluntary job at a local hospital, helping to care for a 17 yr old girl in a vegetative state. I used to feed her and tend to her needs for a few hours a day. Her parents didn’t visit her.

My boyfriend and I got engaged. I was so happy I was sure it was love

In October 1980 I persuaded Dad to take me back to the UK with him to help him sort out and decorate the house that they owned in Streatham, London, with sitting tenants occupying the flats, that were paying rents that were frozen in 1971.

My last and only visit to England since leaving at the age of 5 was for 9 months in 1971, and I was desperately curious to see the country that we were from through the eyes of a 17 yr old. I dreamt of seeing Big Ben and the river Thames, and red post and telephone boxes, and red double-decker buses, (though I did see a few in Victoria used as tourist buses), places that I only seen on postcards and in books. I wanted to spend time with Dad, because I had let him down badly (in yet another saga), and wanted to make it up to him by proving myself to him in some way. I also wanted to spend time with my grandmother, and other relatives and family friends, and to generally experience the place of my birth. I didn’t doubt that my life would be spent living and working in British Columbia, and that this was just a few months visit, combined with helping Dad with the decoration of the flats in preparation for selling prior to returning to Canada..

Within a month of returning to England I realised that I wasn’t in love with my boyfriend and rang him to break the news that I couldn’t marry him because I didn’t love him and that if I married him then it would be more because I would then be accepted into Canada without doubt. I couldn’t do that to him or myself.

He was devastated.

Dad then dropped a bombshell by explaining to me that I was now old enough to find my own way in life, that I was making decisions on my own now and taking charge of my own life, as a result, although he would pay for me to return to Canada, he could no longer support me within the family.

I could only work legally in England so I had to find a job before Dad returned to Canada after the sale of the flats in the house.

I stayed in England, got the job (that I still do now), and flew out for my first return visit to Vancouver Island for 6 weeks in 1984. We spent the summer exploring and revisiting campsites and visiting my brother Graham at Stathcona Park where he was a volunteer teaching kids how to kayak and sail.

Then Mum and Dad had to leave Canada because their status expired. Graham was okay because he was a volunteer, by this time he was teaching white-water rafting to kids in Ottawa but Pete left too. He went cruising in the Med and eventually settled in England for a few years, though he too, longed to return to Canada.

Mum and Dad decided to buy another boat and cruise the Med again, revisiting the countries last explored between ‘68-’70.

For 10 years I spent my holidays visiting them on the boat wherever they happened to be, Majorca and various parts of Greece and Turkey. We had fantastic holidays spent cruising and anchoring in out of the way places that the flotillas didn’t get to.

During these years Graham stayed in Canada and eventually was successful in gaining permanent residence under his own steam. It suited the way that he wanted to live and he couldn't imagine settling anywhere else.

Then I met Gadgetman, and after a final trip out to visit my parents, by this time in Malta and preparing to sell the boat before returning to England to ‘retire’ from sailing, we had Gadgeteen.

He was 20 months old when we first visited Canada as a family. We couldn’t really afford it but my brothers chipped in so that we could attend their weddings, which they had planned within a day of each other so that we could all be there to see them both married and meet all the families and friends.

My parents had flown out from England too, and had bought a car and tent-trailer to stay in and to use on future planned extended visits. After they left we used it to travel around and stay in, driving up to see the plot of land that Graham had bought in Black Creek, half way up the Island near Campbell River and Comox/Courtney, and drove across to the rugged spectacular west coast. Back then there were no crowds of campers pre-booking all the campsites like now. Back then we could easily camp and stroll along parts of Long Beach with huge pacific rollers sweeping the beach and surfers out playing with the breaking waves. We camped on logging sites accessed by long stretches of gravel roads used by the huge logging trucks as seen on an earlier posting here.

We spent time in Victoria too, and did the touristy stuff, though I never feel like a tourist there. I feel as if I am returning to the country that I ‘belong’ in, the lifestyle suits my spirit, even though I am not Canadian. I don’t feel that anywhere else and feel an intense sense of loss when we leave at the end of any of our 6 week visits as a family. Yes I’d miss my brothers and family, but it goes much deeper than that. There is only one country that I have wanted to live in more than anywhere else in the world, lots of places that I would visit, but Canada is it for me.

Gman fell in love with the island but said that he couldn’t think of moving away from his parents before they died.

That was that then.

We didn’t qualify to emigrate then anyway.

We have been out twice since, when Gadgeteen was 6 and Gadgetgirlie was 14 months old, then again last year.

I cried solidly for the hours return flight to Vancouver, and easily for 3 weeks afterwards following our last visit.

I so wished things could be different and that we could be living our lives there. I cried at the impossibility of my dreams and eventually just got on with reality here, looking forward to the day that I retired and could spend more time there.

So if we get through the application stage and are called for an interview, how do I explain why we want to leave our secure lives here in the suburbs of London to live in a rural area on Vancouver Island?

We would like to live in the community that my brother lives in, who no doubt, would help us to integrate, and to be around to see my nieces grow up.

We are accepted as common law partners and don’t have to be married to apply.

We would be able to buy a house with at least an acre of land for cash, so no pressure of a mortgage stretching into the years ahead.

We would like to have the outdoor opportunities available, the sailing, camping, kayaking, fishing, swimming, skiing, snowboarding and trials bike riding for Max.

The scenery is stunning, and space to live takes on a new meaning.

We would like to change the kind of pressures that we face here, the fast and stressful pace of life and feel that we could do that there.

The people that we met on the island had little of the aggressive and demanding attitude and expectations of life that so many have here. They care, and are generous with their demonstration of how they care. Of course I not referring to the many friends that we have here, I’m talking about people that we see around us, the ‘what’s in it for me’ type’, and the loutish behaviour that seems to dominate the news. I’m sure that a move to a city anywhere would be similar to living here as far as pressures of life are concerned but we know that the daily grind of work and life can be compensated for by life outside of work and I personally, would really like to make an opportunity happen so that our kids can come to know a different kind of living before this is all they know.

Gadgeteen is excited by the idea of a different life. I can see that it will be a huge adjustment for him. He is now getting used to having the freedom to go out on his own. He hangs around with his mates with their mobile phones in parks, chatting, texting other mates and sharing cigarettes and goodness knows what. Maybe they even kick a ball around or go into Kingston to hang around. I desperately want to change his expectations of how he uses his free time.
When we were staying in Macaulay Road he cycled down to the Oyster River on his own with some local lads and they spent the day swimming and playing there. Pete took him downriver for 3 hours on a double airbed, they drifted along and negotiated small rapids and bonded. Max has always wanted to go snowboarding and skiing but the cost for us to go somewhere is just too much here. There, Mount Washington is a 45 minute drive away from Macaulay Road.

Gadgetgirlie is thrilled by the idea of being near her cousins, the twins, who are only a year and a half older than her. She adapted really well to life there and was off playing by Grahams stream, (river in winter), and in the woods on the land. She loved the river and beach combing along Miracle Beach, 20 minutes away.

Both kids are confident communicators and will make friends easily, as our trips to France have shown. School buses travel the length of the road collecting and delivering the kids along the way. Schools and colleges are 45 minutes away.

Gadgetman has a lot of very practical skills that would suit the lifestyle there and enjoys working with his hands. He also has an extensive collection of tools and equipment that would benefit our lifestyle and would be an asset to the local community because of his willingness to help others. He is office bound most of the time now, in a job that the company moved him to involuntarily, so is seriously fed up with his long daily grind and longing for a change.

Both Campbell River, (pop -32,000), and Comox, (pop – 20,000), are reasonable sized towns with jobs on offer that we could do. My sister-in-law works for an employment centre that focuses on retraining opportunities for the middle and north of the island so we could get an insider view of opportunities suitable for us.

So there is my ‘Why Canada?’ for now, if you get this far down the posting. A lengthy one this time, but it also helps me to think things through.