We are looking at many places, Sherwood Park being back on the list after some really positive threads but can someone tell me anything about Beaumont? It looks nice enough and would be convenient to where hubby will be working but it's also a billingual town - will this make a difference to us if we're not too good at French (but game to try the pidgin French we do have) and is it a nice community??

Thanks
Ki

Hi there,
We lived in Beaumont when we first came to Canada 16 yrs ago, we lived there for 4 years and our girls went to school there. It was a pretty small town then. It has grown an awful lot in the last 3-5 years, but it is still a nice little community. You will get along just fine even if you don't speak French.
It has lots of new shops, food shops, video rental shops, liquor shops etc.
At the moment we live just 10 mins south of Beaumont, so still go there to shop etc. Another poster recently moved to Beaumont but I am not sure that he has posted since he arrived here.
Good Luck with your move.

Thanks westchilt - sounds like a nice place. I do try and speak the language whererever I go but since I only got C in my GCSE French it isn't brilliant...LOL

Hello, Mrs Ralstne here today.
I think we may be the people Westchilt is referring to having just moved to Beaumont ourselves. This is my first post back on BE since arriving here three weeks ago as I've only just managed to get myself connected! We had put a deposit down on our house here last year and so managed to move straight in with only one night in a hotel. Not having had to rent a place has really helped us feel like we are at home from the word go. So far I love it here in Beaumont and couldn't have chosen a better spot if we tried. It has a really nice feel to it, having the pretty church as a central focal point gives the town a real centre and even though I'm sure Beaumont will continue to grow for some years yet it'll always have that centre point and won't in my opinion feel like many of the other sprawaling developments on the outskirts of the city. I also love the fact that the town is surounded by feilds and farmland, if I drive for two minutes I'm in the country side, I can be a the lake in 10 or 15 minutes or I can be in downtown Edmonton in 30 minutes. I went out the other day to take some pictures of the big olds barns that are dotted around here and with the amazing prairie sunsets they came out beautifully.Here's one barn literally two minutes down the road and a photo of 50th Street looking up to the church.

Hi there Mrs Ralstne,
Welcome to Beaumont
Great to hear that you are settling in well and enjoying living in Beaumont. I have grown to love the countryside, I wasn't so keen when we first moved here it just felt so open, but now we love it and can't get enough of it The sunsets are amazing, we just love to sky watch. Oh great pictures by the way.
Have fun...
Westchilt

Sounds amazing and looks wonderful. Thank-you for coming back and giving the info and glad you're back online - I couldn't bear to be withoutmy computer for too long LOL

We have our eye on a property there - if we can sell here pretty quickly we will look into buying it (it's such a nice property) but otherwise we'll be looking to rent for a short while so, being really cheeky, if you happen to se anywhere for rent please give me the nod if you get a chance.

And as it is a billingual town I will also say merci beaucoup

Hi again

Nice to see you made it and that you have settled in nicely

Keep us posted

Good to hear you are both settling in Sophie and lovely pics!!
I would echo all the positives about Beaumont. Its a very nice town. We possibly would have bought there if we'd have found a house that was right for us.
Heres my observations about Beaumont and surrounding area.
It has a good spattering of shops and services etc, but you would have to travel a small way to find a swimming pool (Millwoods is the closest) and the fashion clothes stores etc (Which is something i was a little worried about doing during the winter months)

Beaumont retains its small town feel and feels separate from the rest of the city. I really hope it doesn't get swallowed up.
As for schools. We went to one school that was French Immersion, but you can opt to put your child in the immersion classes, it is not essential.

You are conveniently close enough to the international airport too, without being bothered by airport noise like Leduc.

Nisku (a big ugly industrial area) is a few miles down the road, but you wouldn't have to pass through it unless you were heading to the airport or Calgary trail/Leduc direction.

Everywhere has its positives and negatives. But it really is a very pretty little place and you should definately take a visit to check it out for yourself

Thanks R2D2 - will definately be checking it out, along with Sherwood again and we're hoping to choose one or the other. Not too worried about clothes as between us we have enough to clothe a small army (albeit half of them may look a little odd in my clothes unless they're girls LOL) but we do like the idea of small town living and would just travel for the rest.

We have no children at present so it's only us to worry about but it's good to know about the other bits and pieces for future ref

If you like modern housing, Beaumont has a fab estate called Coloniale Estates with many houses backing on to the adjacent golf course.
I wanted to live on there (with a golf course view) but unfortunatley they were just out of our price range. Dum de Dum !!!!!

There's a French community - in Alberta?? Good Lord. I guess you learn something new every day.

Not really relevant to Beaumont, but in addition to French immersion, the Edmonton school board offers programs in 6 (I think) languages, whereby your child can spend 50% of their classroom time in English and 50% in the other language. I know Mandarin, German and Ukrainian are some of the languages offered. It sounds like an incredible school system.

Oh well I suspect it might be out of our price range too but thanks for the tip - i'll see if I can find any details on it. Hubby would love it, roll out oif bed straight onto the course... LOL

Hello, Mr Ralstne here LOL, I have just noticed that Mrs Ralstne has been on here talking about Beaumont, For anyone thinking of buying here, have a look at this little website.

http://www.placechaleureuse.com/ This is where we live.

It is a great little town and out of the way. But the good thing is that you are only out of the way by 5 minutes. I would rather travel the five minutes and get country living. I love it here!

Yes you can learn something new about Alberta each day.

The following is quoted from Atlas de la francophonie Alberta

The franco-Albertan community comprised 55,290 people with French as their mother tongue in 1996. These francophones represent 2 percent of the total population of the province.

Franco-Albertans are found in all areas of the province. They are most populous around Calgary and Edmonton, attracted by the job opportunities and the varied services of an urban setting. More than half of franco-Albertans live in these cities and their surrounding areas: south of Edmonton, in the town of Beaumont, and to the north, in the towns of Saint Albert, Morinville and Legal. In Edmonton itself, the Bonnie Doon neighbourhood, home to many francophone institutions, claims the title of the French Quarter.

Significant concentrations of francophones are found in Rivière la Paix, Bonnyville, Saint Paul, Plamondon and Lac La Biche. These northeastern and northwestern regions of the province have the highest percentage of francophones: more than 5 percent in the census division, and more than 15 percent in several localities. Francophones are a majority in the Falher region, in the town of Falher itself, in the villages of Donnelly, Saint Isidore, and Girouxville, and in the municipal district of Smokey River.

Cheers
Steve

ROFLMAO!!! I'm sorry, but it looks like Toytown! Which is your house? Is that you mowing the lawn???

Are your neighbours named Noddy and Big-ears?