baudelaire

Hi all,
I'm a UK citizen planning a move with my Canadian fiance. We're going to wait until we're married next year before doing my PR application, but you have to state in your application what province you are heading to and i'm undecided!

It will be either MN or SK as one of the main reasons for the move is so we can afford to get a large hobby farm, and also i love the prairies.

Saskatoon is out as that's where he lived before and doesn't want to go back, so from what i can tell, our options for a city base while we get established are pretty much Regina or Winnipeg?

I've tried googling it and it seems the general opinion is that they're both as bad as each other (!) but i'd really appreciate some uk expat views on the cities please and/or suggestions for other larger towns we could look into :-)
Employment availability is crucial, but so is access to affordable acreage housing as i will hopefully be shipping my horses over.

I'm from a very rough area in North Kent/South London so crime figures don't worry me - it cant be any worse than where we are now, lol.

Thanks in advance for any input

scilly

it might help if we knew what sort of employment you would be looking for

baudelaire

Hi, thanks for the reply.
My partner works in social care so we figure he can do that pretty much anywhere.
Im an academic/environmental planner but although i would love to continue in this field, ive done all sorts of work including civil service jobs and wouldnt be adverse to going back to that if i had to 😊

Yorkiechef

Civil service jobs are the Rolls Royce of jobs here, great pensions and benefits, secure employment, well paid. Most Canadians would swap their current post for a civil servant post.......they don't come available that often and there is great competition for the posts.

scilly

........ and don't they have to be either PRs or Canadian citizens?

Plus being bilingual if Federal civil servants.

Yorkiechef

CORRECT!

baudelaire

Thats useful to know, thanks - theyre ten a penny here atm!
If we move i will already be a PR (spouse sponsorship) :-)

christmasoompa

Just thought I'd say hi and welcome and also.......

This is only for stats gathering purposes, you're not beholden to it. So if you change your mind in the next two years or so before you do actually move, then don't worry about it at all.

HTH, best of luck with it all.

baudelaire

Hi christmasoompa
That's VERY useful to know, thank you!
At the moment i'm leaning towards Winnipeg

dbd33

Horsekeeping on the Prairies would be too much for me. Bring blankets, hoods, heated buckets, a hammer for when the bucket heater fails and a hair dryer for when the frost free hydrant isn't.

Consider that, unless you can afford an indoor, keeping horses at home means that the spring will be spent getting them fit again. You might want to consider boarding the horses at a place with an arena over the winter months. Or not, depending on why you have them.

baudelaire

i was looking at some photos the other day of some pastures in winter and you could just about make out the tops of the fences under the snow!
indoor arena is definitely the way forward!

Almost Canadian

Due you not use horse waterers in Ontario? If so, no need to worry about heated buckets or frost free hydrants, accepting that the heating elements can sometimes break. They always seem to do so when its -30, rather than when its -10.

Surely, outside of BC, most areas of Canada require horses to be blanketed over the winter, unless one doesn't wish to ride them and allow them to grow a coat?

I agree that access to an indoor arena in the winter is the way forward.

dbd33

Automated waterers do exist but aren't widely used, the criticism I’ve most often seen is that, when using waterers, one cannot know how much the horse is drinking. There’s still a need for some watering system at turn-out, buckets or troughs or similar, perhaps with the floating heaters horses fish out or the fixed ones that require the whole unit be replaced when they break.

Sure, blankets are used even by those of us who are happy to have hairy horses. I’d say that two thirds of horses I see around are in blankets. Still, I think SK and MB would mean more blankets, heavier blankets and colder hands if you’ve been foolish enough to get ones with buckles.

Note that we’re on a horse compatible property but the horses are boarded; at a place with an indoor.

Almost Canadian

I have never realised that one should know how much one's horse is drinking. Leading a horse to water and all that.

We have sufficient waterers that, no matter which area our horses are in, they always have access to water. The exception to this is inside. We have 4 horse stalls in our Quonset but no waterers inside. If they are ever inside (very rare as clearly the horses are much better off outside) they have heated buckets. Upon thinking about this, the only time they are inside is during the farrier's rounds.

We are thinking about moving. The daughter that was the main rider has just gone to Uni and the other one doesn't ride half as much as she used to. As you are aware, living outside of a city has its issues and, while they can be offset with the lack of neighbours and the ability to store all manner of things, I would like to be able to obtain tradespeople and have items delivered without having to jump through hoops.

Watch this space.

scilly

We have often taken the train across Canada during December and January ............ I have to say that we see lots of cows, bison and buffalo out in the fields on every trip. BUT I cannot say that I have ever seen horses outside in SK and MB, even with blankets on. I have seen horses outside or close to open-sided shelters from the train in BC, AB, southern ON, and across to NS

-35C or -40C and below is pretty darn cold!