October 12, 2018

Relocating To British Columbia

Very big news at JoS HQ: Laura and I are moving to Port Hardy, a remote town at the northern tip of Vancouver Island, off Canada's west coast. Laura accepted a job as a librarian this afternoon.

We should know on Monday when she starts the new job. The next few weeks will be taken up with arranging movers and packing - with Red Sox baseball at night - and driving across the country (aka "Driving Mr. Diego").

Port Hardy is a very small town. .... (How small is it?) .... During a recent job interview, I learned that the town boasts a grand total of zero traffic lights. Four-way stop signs are apparently sufficient at all busy intersections.

We visited VI in last April, exploring possible places to resettle. We traveled as far north as Qualicum Beach, a little bit beyond Nanaimo, but that's not even halfway up the island. When we applied in 2003 to move to the Toronto area, we had yet to scout out the area, but we did visit before we moved. In this case, we had never heard of Port Hardy until Laura applied for the job last month and have seen only pictures of a few streets - as well as the house we are (currently!) renting - on Google Maps. We may be a bit crazy ...


7 comments:

Jim said...

Just looked it up--Port Hardy is 50.7 degrees N., while Iceland is at 64.9. You'll be fine. Congrats and hope the interweb works.

tim said...

Very exciting! Good for you guys, it’s beautiful out there and much more progressive than here!

allan said...

much more progressive than here

Seats in current BC Parliament:
Liberal: 43 (Opposition)
NDP: 41 (In Power)
Green: 3 (Confidence and Supply)
Independent: 1

See anything missing? THERE ARE NO CONSERVATIVES!! NOT EVEN ONE!! When I first saw that, it seemed like a mistake. But in some VI ridings, the Cons got so few votes they are not even listed in the results (or maybe were not on the ballot at all!). 4 of the 6 VI ridings are NDP (including ours), with 1 Green and 1 Liberal.

% of votes in 2017 BC Legislative election:
Liberal: 40.36
NDP: 40.28
Green: 16.84
Independent: 1.06
Conservatives: 0.53
Libertarian: 0.40
Christian Heritage: 0.17

Jere said...

Holy crap!!!! I really liked Anacortes when I visited Seattle. A whole different (awesome) world out there. Enjoy.

Nathan said...

This British Columbian Sox fanatic welcomes you to the province! (Granted, we'll live on opposite ends of BC, since I live in the East Kootenays.)

Word to the wise: BC Liberals are very conservative, even if they go by another name. That said, there's almost no chance of voting in a "Ford" type around here.

Jere said...

And then your island makes the front page of reddit!

allan said...

East Kootenays

We will be driving right past you! Laura is very upset that we will likely not have time to stop at Banff. She has wanted to go for years.