Heading out to BC or Alberta in 2009 but not sure which province to go to.
Only been to BC on holidays and never had the opportunity to visit Alberta.
We don't have the money to visit again before we leave.

Are there any particular issues about either provinces I should be aware of?
What concerns me about Alberta is the 4/5 months of snow a year and it looks isolated.
BC looks great for activities and things to do but concerned about cost of living and crime.

Sorry to be so vague but these are my major concerns at the moment.
Are there any other major differences that you think is worth considering?

Please put me right if I am wrong and any thoughts or comments would be
greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Puh-lease! BC has a population of 4 million in the combined space of France and Germany. Don't you think it's possible to be isolated in those circumstances?

It sounds to me as if you are comparing Vancouver with the whole province of Alberta.

Don't get me wrong. I want to move from Alberta to coastal BC. Look at the comment in my profile, and you'll see where my sentiments lie.

But you need to be a bit more precise in the way in which you express yourself.

When it comes to crime, don't kid yourself. Certain parts of Calgary are doing a very nice job of catching up with certain parts of Vancouver.

In both places, you are unlikely to be the victim of violent crime unless you hang around well known, unsavory spots at night.

But, in both places, property crime is on the increase. Even in my suburban neighbourhood, which until recently had felt very secure, my nextdoor neighbour had her windshield smashed in while her car was parked outside the local garage / service station overnight. The garage is located in the same little shopping plaza as a pub. Evidently some drunks emerged from the pub that night and smashed the windshields of about ten cars that were parked outside the garage.

In Vancouver it is common for cameras, memory sticks, etc., to be stolen from unlocked cars in the parking lots of popular tourist attractions.

In the summer of 2006, I was absolutely shocked when, on separate occasions, two friends of mine had car windows smashed and goods stolen in isolated spots in the Rocky Mountains, in Banff National Park, Alberta. That really shook me, because in the 30 years that I'd lived here, I'd considered the Canadian Rockies to be super safe (well there always had been natural hazards, like bears, but I had never considered my fellow humans to be a threat in the mountains).

Alberta has lots of work going on because of the oil boom. If you work in certain fields (especially anything to do with the oil and construction industries), it is easy to find a job. Calgary is between 1.5 hours and 2 hours' drive from Banff. It is realistic to go downhill skiing for the day. Edmonton is between 3.5 hours and 4 hours' drive from Jasper, so downhill skiing is more of a weekend proposition. Alberta has lower taxes than BC. For example, Alberta has no provincial sales tax, and it also does not impose a land transfer tax on the sale of a house.

But property prices have risen dramatically in Alberta, and this province no longer is the bargain that it was when I joined this forum two and a half years ago.

BC has a greater variety of climatic and scenic zones than Alberta has. BC has everything from temperate rainforests and oceans to mountains and alpine climates. It has a large metropolitan area in the form of Vancouver and the adjacent municipalities, it has small and medium sized communities, and it has wilderness spaces.

The construction industry in Vancouver is booming because of the 2010 Winter Olympics. The construction industry in some other parts of the province, e.g., Kamloops and the Okanagan Valley, seems to be doing well too.

Alberta tends to be very conservative, both politically and socially. But some pockets of it have grown a little more progressive in the last few years.

BC has a very wide range of attitudes, from tree-hugging vegans to rednecks who can compete with their counterparts in Alberta any day of the week.

This is a gross over-generalization, but BC's tree huggers tend to be concentrated at the coast and in the Kootenays. BC's rednecks can be found all over the interior, but tend to be concentrated further north, in BC's oil drilling region, around Fort St John, etc.

In order for anyone to give you a minimally intelligent response, you need to provide more information. What sort of work do you do? What kind of city or town do you like -- large, medium or small?

If medium-sized towns appeal to you, Kamloops or Kelowna may be of interest. You might want to check out the Access Okanagan forum.

Brits 2 Vancouver is a good forum for Vancouver and Vancouver Island.

If you want to search previous threads for info about Canadian cities, I recommend that you search for satellite towns. For Edmonton, search for S p r u c e G r o v e, S t o n y P l a i n and S t A l b e r t. For Calgary, search for O k o t o k s and C o c h r a n e. In Alberta, you also may be interested in R e d D e e r and L e t h b r i d g e. In the Vancouver area, I recommend that you search for M a p l e R i d g e, B u r n a b y, S u r r e y, and R i c h m o n d.

The reason for searching for satellite towns is that those searches will bring up threads that were started by people who genuinely were interested in moving to the relevant cities, not people who were mentioning those cities in passing. The reason I have typed the names of the satellite towns the way I have was to avoid "contaminating" search results any further. For example, my post does not contain any real information about O k o t o k s, so I don't want a person who really wants to know about that town to find this thread if they search for that town's name.

We live in AB, and we had your dilemma 3 yrs ago

If we'd have picked a province based purely on looks, then BC would have won. I find the scenery generally nicer than AB.

But AB won........mainly due to job opportunities for my husband (oil and gas related), lower cost of living (this again has altered from 3 yrs ago), and accessibility to the Rockies ()

AB may not be as pretty as BC and the grass goes brown in winter, but we make up for it with sunny skies and great winter activities.
As for the weather............well it is very changeable. Its almost November and its still mild this yr. We were out washing our cars without coats on yesterday, it was glorious. Yet last yr we had been knee deep in snow for at least 2 weeks. !!! You take it as it comes.

It is very hard to make such a decision without visiting somewhere. Living in a country as opposed to visiting and thinking it would be a nice place to live is way different. Either choice may suit you, maybe best to rent somewhere when you arrive, then travel around a bit to help you decide.

We visited 4 times before making the move. Lived in Calgary first, loved the wide open spaces and sunshine in the winter. Had a tough time with the extreme variation in weather though.

Now in BC, with the mountains around us, love it. Still enjoy it when I go to AB on business though.

Initially work was our primary factor so long as it was AB or BC. After a while we decided where we would prefer to live, that would fit in with our business and that is where we are now.

A huge thanks for your replies.

Apologies for my vagueness. I have done lot of research through books,
websites and magazines but the majority of the information is description and
comments on life but not personal opinion favouring one way or the other.

I will not have the experience of living in either province and I was simply hoping to hear opinions on what is positive or negative living in each province.

I tend to read about these issues which have been raised but it doesn't have
the same impact coming from someone who feels strongly one way or the other. For example, the comments on crime.

Again, a big thank you for the time spent on your comments and advice, it was much appreciated.

Alberta has No Sales Tax, you could live in Kelowna and Alberta is a few hours drive away.

Albertans retire to B.C for the weather.

B.C , laid back, Albertans, not so much, and it is impossible to define an Albertan other than the one who arrived just before you did?

You read about the temperatures in Alberta and think it must be tough but obviously have no concept of what it really is like to live with.

Is living with those temperatures a major problem?

I know it can't be easy sometimes but should it be considered as a major reason
not to live there?

I hope this does not sound like a stupid question but I have no idea of how it must
affect everyday life. Having all the snow initially must be great but I'm sure that feeling disappears. Or does it?

What temperatures are to reading about?

It varies slightly but most books say in Calgary for example it is about an average of -8 between January and April. Does that sound about right?

That's sounds pretty cold but does it feel that bad?

I don't know if that figure is correct but I can tell you that -8C over here is bliss compared to the horribly damp, penetrating cold of a +4 or 5 degree UK Winter's day...Infact I much prefer our crisp, dry, -25C days here to suffering through another NW England Winter

Climate Normals 1971-2000 for Calgary Note the daily maximums and minimums rather than the daily averages.

You can check daily temperatures both high and low plus precipitation with the link below.
Actual daily weather information for January 2007 note the months and years can be changed by changing same in the boxes at the top of the table.

The Chinooks can affect how the daily averages are computed, but watching those prairie Winds blow that snow across those flat lands, it gets damn cold, not as cold as Saskatchewan, but still cold.

Fortunate are those who make it through a winter with their wind shield intact.

But that has nothing at all to do with the cold.

More to do with the size of the damned gravel they use on the streets and highways. :curse::curse:

Yesterday we hit a high of two, I went out and was warm in just a jumper with a t-shirt underneath. My daughter walked the dog in just a t-shirt (and got shouted at for being so silly).

Today a coat has been needed so far - the wind has a definate chill.

Would you go out walking on a windy day with the rain slashing down?
If the answer is no then the same can be said for walking when it -21 (If you answered yes then your just nuts).

There were maybe a dozen days last year (and we had a long winter last year) where it was unbearable to be outside. Blue sunny skies and a crisp winter day wins hands down over short grey days without any sign of the yellow ball in the sky IMO.

Red Deer is 1.5 hours north of Calgary and doesn't benefit as much from the Chinooks - but saying that we also don't suffer the awful biting winds of Lethbridge. In fact it's odd if it's windy.

As for BC, it's nice to visit for holidays, but for me Alberta is home. However if the perfect campground was to be available for purchase in 10 years in BC, off we'd go!

Piff my dear Lethbridge doesn't suffer from awful biting winds they get the benefit of full blown chinooks.