ABD79

Oh my husband and I already discussed it yesterday and said actually what we have here is pretty good. I think it's always easier to look elsewhere and think you could have a better life but sometimes you need to appreciate what you actually have. The issue originally was that his transfer would be coupled with a promotion, so he'd make significantly more money. We're not money oriented as people but we do understand that it can buy you a lot of freedom - a bigger house when you're a family of 5 so living in a bigger place just relieves a bit of stress sometimes. Freedom to travel more. We'd consider a private school for the little ones (so long as it was a caring private school not solely focuses on ratings), and freedom from worries associated with money. There are some massively amazing benefits from moving to either Brisbane or Calgary - both have incredible scenery and outdoor life advantages (even though as said, we are outdoorsie here but I think a change in the types of outdoor experiences such as Brisbane or Calgary would offer sometimes pushes you to get out and take advantage even more). Again, the promotion would be an advantage and a larger house with more space. It will be something I think we'll look at in a couple of years. But it takes asking questions and debating and chatting with people from those places to often make you see points you're not thinking about and to learn new things which all affect your decision. We're not moving as a twenty something couple - we'd be moving as a nearly 40 couple with 3 children to think of. So it's not something I take lightly. I don't think it's as simple as saying we're better off here or we'd be better moving...especially not on just what's been said in this forum. It goes much deeper than that and it needs to. It's a life changing event and one which we would also be actively changing the lives of three children and how their life path will develop from our choices. So it takes a lot of time and thought. And I grateful of all the help I've had on here. It's been a real education and has given me a feeling of huge contentment these past two days with what we do have here. Whether I'll feel that way in a few months or a year's time is another thing I can say that I think we'll always want to take up the offer of a relocation but it needs to be when we're ready. As I think you said, (or someone else but on this thread), life is short. And it is. Don't know if I want us to be contained our whole life in one place. The flip side being we need to take care of our children and ensure its right for them. Life is never straight forward it seems

raindropsandroses

Indeed, life is never straightforwards, but calm seas do not make good sailors

I hated the UK and I left as soon as I possibly could, and I have never once regretted my choice even when things were far from pleasant in the countries I was in. On the other hand, if I was as happy as you seem to be where I was, I certainly wouldn't be uprooting.

I love Canada, its home, and whilst I may move around within Canada, this is where I want to stay for good.

I wish you luck whatever you choose

ABD79

Ah thank you Yes I think we've both bad two extreme opposite experiences in the UK Perhaps if I was you it would have been easy to leave...and if you were me you'd probably understand why it's a difficult decision to leave You never know what the future might bring though...maybe in two or three years you'll see a post on here from me and I'll be living in Canada or Australia

Bucks_Family

OK, I've followed this thread with interest, and now Stinky and AC have bowed out, I think I'll add my tuppence worth..

Background:
Family of 4, moved to Alberta in 2013 when the kids were 5 and 18 months.
We'd never been to Canada before we visited to activate our PR.
Were lucky in that we had consultancy jobs in the UK that we could continue with here in Canada, remotely, as soon as we arrived.
Rented a basement apartment in Cochrane for the first month (can recommend The Thornes, if they're still on BE!), house-hunted for the first two weeks of that month, put an offer in on a house in Airdrie, and moved into that house at the end of that the first month.
Daughter is in French Immersion here, now in Grade 4, and has lockdown drills at her school, as well as tornado drills. She's not phased in the slightest by them. No gates at her school, no lock on the main door, but all other external doors are locked.
Son will start in kindergarten in September at the same school, also in FI.

We love it here.

Fair enough we work from home and so don't have to commute, but we know people that do commute to downtown from Airdrie, and it can take anything from 30 minutes to an hour and a half depending on whether there is a crash on the highway, which is pretty much every day. As other posters have said, you're in more danger when you're in your car here than from guns or animals, but that's the same in the UK.
The cars are just bigger here, generally, and it seems to be just accepted that you will be in an accident at some point, it's not if but when.

Do we feel safe here? Absolutely. Is it crime-free? Absolutely not. But here in Airdrie any gun-related crime would be big, big news. Crime here is more opportunistic, people do have their cars stolen from their driveway on winter mornings while they're left to warm up. I've also heard of situations where a car is broken into so they perpetrator can use the garage door opener. They get into the garage, find the inside door to the house is unlocked, and burgle the house, while you're sleeping upstairs. It happens, not to us or anyone we know personally, but it's home invasion all the same, just not likely with guns.

We have friends here - Canadian and British - who own guns, both rifles and handguns, and I've been to the range with one of them to fire the handguns. Both those families have small children, under 10.
We also have friends who don't own guns.
We have an air rifle that I'll be using to teach my kids gun safety. Daughter can use it already, with my supervision of course. Son won't touch it for a few more years yet.

There is a lot to do that's free, the countryside of course, west to the mountains, east to the Badlands. The USA is 4 hours drive away, though more like 6 if you want to get beyond Glacier NP and find a large city.
We've yet to encounter any dangerous wildlife, though of course it's there. From the car we've seen plenty of coyotes, and a few moose (which can be as dangerous as cougars and bears). I glimpsed a wolf in Banff.

Plenty of free skating in winter, if that's your thing.

Then there's plenty to do that will empty your pockets, but worth it. We're skiers, one of the reasons we came here was to ski a lot, and we do - most weekends from late November to late April. Our kids are in ski racing, daughter has done it for three years now, son has just finished his first season. They also both skate - figure skating rather than hockey. Daughter does that three times a week.

We like to camp - North American-style, of course - we've a travel trailer and a motorhome. Spiders haven't been a problem.

I think you'll struggle to find the property you want at the price you want in the location you want.

Your fear of spiders probably rules Brisbane out.
But equally, I don't think you're ready to move to Canada either, you seem to have a good thing going on where you are in the UK, but to me your earlier comment that "you just want to make sure that where you're considering moving to isn't going to subject them to significant dangers that they otherwise wouldn't have been exposed to." tells me that moving isn't the right thing at the moment. Bringing them to Calgary might expose you and them to life-threatening dangers that you don't face where you are now. There are more guns here, there are bears, moose and cougars, rattlesnakes (not seen one yet either), there are very remote places where if you trip and hurt yourself while hiking, you might or might not be found.
All those things are risks but they can be mitigated by common sense and preparation. The gun thing? You can't protect yourself from the nutter who opens fire in a shopping mall. I suppose you could, by locking yourself in your home, but then what's the point in coming here?

Maybe revisit this when your kids are older and you have more confidence in them being able to be responsible for themselves. Then you might have to deal with the "we don't want to leave our mates in the UK" problem. We moved when our kids were young and hadn't made close friendships.

Or, accept there are risks, prepare for them, and come over now, and relax and enjoy yourselves. Whatever you're worrying about, it might happen.
Or, it might not.

Good luck!
Chris

JonboyE

Too subtle. May I suggest a

JonboyE

Regarding the wildlife, last weekend we were sitting in the yard of our place on the coast. A black bear and her cub wandered up the drive and into the yard. The dog barked. The female looked at us, did an ursine version of a shrug, and ambled off into the bush. Her cub gamboled after her.

R I C H

Alaska teen killed by bear after texting mum during race - BBC News

A "large black bear" has killed a 16-year-old boy who was participating in a popular trail running race in Alaska on Sunday, police say.
The boy, who officials have not yet identified, texted his family to say he was being chased by a bear while descending the extremely steep terrain.


I've lived in Australia and Canada, rurally and in urban environments. I've encountered creatures that have the ability to kill (snakes, spiders, jelly fish, sharks and bears) but never really felt under threat or in danger for my life. Exercise common sense and recommended precautions, and the risks to health are very low.

ABD79

Hello,
Ah thank you, that was a great response. Yes I do agree with staying put for now - although that does, like you said, raise the issue of former friendships later on. Our little boy is only in year 1 at the moment and only has one real friend, his best friend, he'd miss at his school. For some reason I just never thought Canada would have the same obsession with guns as America does. Maybe for hunting, but when it comes to hand guns I just thought, (because laws are tighter there than the US), that perhaps there wouldn't be such a draw to them.
Between Calgary and Brisane, I have to say if it wasn't for my fear of spiders then Brisbane would more than likely be the choice. That's not to say that Calgary doesn't look wonderful. Just between the guns and the fact that warm weather does make me feel more healthy and happy, I think Brisbane would win. But the flip side of that of course is that a lot of the year in Australia it's too hot to go out and do anything!
And guns...well, like you said, some nutter could open fire in a shopping centre and that does worry me. I expect the more you go though the more you wouldn't think about it. I've been to malls in Texas when we lived there, quite often, only to read recently of shootings that happened there. One was a fire chief out to dinner with his ex-wife and another man in a busy shopping mall and decided to pull out a gun, shoot the man in the head, (in front of a girl out for a meal with her mum and dad for her 13th birthday), and then he dragged his ex wife out of the restaurant and shot her before shooting himself. It's situations like that, that although targeted and not random, do scare me. Busy place, extremely easy for a rogue flying bullet to hit an innocent bistander. Then again, might never see anything like that in Calgary or even meet anyone who has! Like you said
Anyway, thank you again. I really enjoy reading posts like yours. Gives me lots of food for thought Anything else you think of please fling my way! The thought of not relocating is certainly something I don't want to consider and probably never will. It's just finding the right place and the right time. Thank you again

ABD79

Thank you Not met anyone who's lived in both before! Feel free to share your thoughts on both countries! As you can see, the spider thing freaks me out...a lot My husband and I were chatting about 30 minutes ago about the spiders in Australia and I was trying to show him some and he was saying, "nope, I'm good! I don't want to see them!" And as I was trying to convince him I saw something move on the wall behind me, (a slider with a body about 1mm and legs that couldn't be much longer, and you should have seen me move! Literally screamed and ran across the room hitting myself in case anything was on me...which made my husband panic that something was on him and he started yelling and jumping around too! He just simply said after, "yeah, we can't live in Australia." It annoys me so much that something as stupid as spiders (not calling them stupid personally...just in case any are reading this and might want to come and find me)...could stop is moving out to Australia, if that's where we decided. It's ridiculous! Yet it's just how it is. Unless it's a pet hamster or the like, I just don't want anything uninvited crawling around in our home
Bears in Canada I can live with, likewise Cougars, - I'd probably just have us go on organised tours so we still got to see things. Sharks in Australia and box jellyfish, well, I can do with not swimming in the sea. That's fine if we had a pool. And I guess if there's loads of people around you you could still go in and just be vigilant!

ABD79

For some reason bears sorry me much less than spiders I think bears are beautiful. Wouldn't want to come face to face with one out in the wilderness "just in case" I have to say but I'd certainly love to watch them from a viewing point or something Or even from my house is fine so long as they don't break the door down

CanadianSpruce

At least there are no rats here in Alberta!

caretaker

No Liberals West of Winnipeg, No Rats in Alberta

Dorothy

Ok, serious answer here....

I am actually Canadian and now live in Australia. I have lived in 4 provinces in my 43 years in Canada, both very remote (village in northern Ontario with <150 people), rural , suburban and city. And yes, I have lived in Alberta. My experiences of both are as follows:

When my ex and I lived in Lions Bay BC we had cougar alerts in the village quite frequently. What that meant was that cougars (AKA mountain lions) had been spotted in town and to keep your cats in. We had bears try to get into the storage shed where we kept the bins once, but that was my fault for putting raw meat in it and leaving it for days to rot. Bears like that. In BC we never actually came across a bear and we used to hike abd camp in the mountains quite a bit.

I lived in Canmore Alberta before it was a tourist town. Once when a bunch of us were hiking we were at the top of a cliff and saw a bear a fair way away down at the bottom of the cliff. When hiking we used common sense and made sure to carry bear spray and when I walked to work through the bush I carried a tin can with pebbles in it so I rattled when I walked. I'm not sure if it works but I was told that by making noise I wouldn't startle the wildlife. Who knows? Either way it worked.

My sister lived in Calgary for a number of years while the military closed down CFB Calgary. She's now in another rather remote Alberta town and loves it. No sign of bears or any other dodgy animals.

I moved to Australia in 2006 with my now ex husband and our 2 children. In the past 11 years I have seen exactly 1 snake. Unfortunately it was lying dead across the road where I'm guessing it was run over while trying to cross to the nature reserve by the beach. As a matter of fact, the last snake I aaw was in New Brunswick last year! My partner and I were walking in the woods and he startled a little garter snake sunning itself.

As for spiders, I have seen 1 huntsman, 10+ years ago. In Adelaide. Outside. And the only reason I saw it was my ex called me to come have a look. We recently bought a house that had sat empty for a year so there were some spiders inside but I got a few bug bombs from Bunnings (B&Q) and a few days later swept up a few bodies. No problem. Oh, there was a few white tails in our rental house, but again they were either rehomed outside by my partner who doesn't believe in killing them or sprayed by me. They do not go hunting for unsuspecting humans to bite or beds and cars to hide in. Another sister lives in Brisbane and had lived in Far North Queensland before that. She has not had a problem with spiders since moving to Brisbane 20 years ago. FNQ yes there were snakes and creepy crawlies but not so much in suburbia.

As for guns, the only time I ever had any experience with a gun was when I lived in Southern Ontario. And that was about 30 years ago when a bunch of us traveled to Buffalo NY. Sitting at lunch we were witnesses to a shooting. But that was not even in Canada.

Honestly, you sound like you are obsessing about this. 20 million people live in Australia. We are not routinely eaten by sharks or killed by snakes or spiders. 30 million live in Canada. They're not routinely eaten by bears or shot by gun toting rednecks. Your bigger concern should be like others have said; paedophiles, drugs, day to day low level B&E type crime, teenage pregnancy, etc.

And one last thing. Your posts are very difficult to read for me. Paragraphs go a long way to making things easier to read. Pedantic, I know. However I am a major pedant. (Among other things )

Shard

Dorothy, somehow I didn't realise that you moved to Australia from Canada? You have probably explained it a million times on these boards, but how do you like it? And how do you find in terms of the kids, are they growing up in a similar way, but just in a warmer climate? I tend to think of Australia as a "warm Canada" but I know that may well be a huge over-simplification.

ABD79

Well, your reply was extremely helpful...but I have to say while I was feeling really grateful, towards the end I did feel I needed to comment on a couple of things which I wouldn't usually, as I prefer just to keep things to the question at hand but with regards to my writing, perhaps I'd worry more if I was writing an essay which was to be graded, but in a forum, I wouldn't really think about having to do paragraphs or commenting on people who haven't. Sorry.
And I'm not obsessing. I've said it before. I have three children to think about. I'm happy to have constructive comments that are in relation to the question, but I don't think saying I am obsessing or paranoid (as someone else said), is a fair and constructive comment. My children are my world. I'm not here to please other people and to not ask the questions I need to in case I come across as looking a particular way or in case people get fed up with my questions. Anyone can feel free not to reply But I feel it's my duty with something like this to really explore everything I need to know about a potential life changing move. The last thing I would want is to move and I, or anyone in my family, not be happy. I have found more information out here from my "obsessive" questions than I could have ever found by just looking at pictures and statistics. It's vital that I cover every corner and ensure that we are 100% happy with whatever decision we make. I don't mean any of this in a mean way. I am actually quite a laid back person and not obsessive about anything. Obviously my demeanour is coming across differently in here but I can only say it so many times...I have three young children. I want to make sure that we are 100% sure about a move and I'm genuinely interested in any information I can find out so there will be lots of questions, and some might even be similar just worded differently! But it is important for me to do so in order to have peace of mind in whatever decision we make. I hope you understand. Thank you for all the information on Canada and Australia, it really was appreciated.