Hi All

Im hoping you can help out on a MASSIVE DILEMMA that im having.

Im a 30 year old, single Male from the UK, with my IEC (year working holiday visa) and planning on leaving to Canada in the next couple of weeks but cant made my mind up between Calgary or Ottawa.

I spent most of last year in Toronto playing Rugby and had a GREAT time. I loved the City and i loved the people, so my next city is gonna have a tough act to follow. But this time, i thought it would be nice to go to a new city and see what its like.

Now im going to play rugby but Il also need to get a job in this city and the thing that puts me of Ottawa is the fact i might need to improve on my basic Verbal and Written French. Im also a looking for a city with friendly people, and good nightlife??

Heres my 2 reasonings behind the Citys.

Ottawa - I know NOTHING about it as iv never been and know nobody from there.
PROS. Close to Montreal (and Toronto). Chance to practice my French. Can play rugby there.
CONS. Will my lack of French hinder job opportunities?? Iv heard Ottawa is a bit boring?? Is there much to do there (nightlife??)?? What are the people like??

Calgary - Been to Stampede and have a friend there.
PROS. Can play Rugby there. Seems like plenty of Jobs. Seems like a pretty lively young city. Lots to do around Calgary.
CONS. Is expensive. Its kinda in the middle of nowhere. Whats it like to live outside Stampede??

Id really appreciate it if people could fill me in. Im really racking (whats left) of my brain and its driving me crazy.

Thanks for your responses.

Dan

Which one is correct?

Calgary completely changes around the time of the Stampede and the place is full of tourists. If your only experience of it is during a Stampede, you may be surprised with how quiet it is in comparison the rest of the year.

Ottawa is in the middle of nowhere as well, unless Brockton has become a lot more fascinating since the last time I was there. Although I suppose Montréal is a more interesting place to visit than Edmonton.

It is definitely prettier though.

Ottawa is an expensive place to live too and Ontario has higher taxes and if you live in Hull, Québec has higher taxes still.

Tough call really, depends if you want to live in the east or the west, they're both similar sized cities.

I had a friend once who was from Ottawa and she said that the nightlife was better there than here, but I guess the way to look at is that it is definitely easier to get booze in Hull than it is in Calgary and whatever the nightlife is in Ottawa, Montréal is better than anything out west for nightlife, period.

You can get some work done and the whole place doesn't stink of pancake vomit. A lot of people locally dread Stampede, all the traffic interruptions, the C-train is rammed, etc.

Choose Ottawa. You like Toronto and are closer to it and Montreal (as you point out). If Ottawa is too slow or lacking in jobs you can more easily make a move down to Toronto. Not sure about French being a point in favour or against: first, it's québécois which is more difficult for non-fluent French speakers to grasp, second, the bilingualism in Ottawa and Montreal means you may not progress as you would like.

Choose Calgary because if you play rugby you'll love the emphasis on the western themed lifestyle there.

What is the connection?

Go somewhere in the middle of both of them like Winnipeg then you wont have to worry which is better. They play rugby in Winnipeg as well. And if you think Calgary is in the middle of nowhere then I don't know how you would describe Winnipeg?

Ottawa is hardly in the middle of nowhere. Montreal and Toronto are readily accessible. We often make day trips to Montreal.

Ottawa and Calgary have approximately the same size of population, although Ottawa, admittedly, covers a much greater area.

Average household incomes are higher in Ottawa than in Calgary. House prices are lower. The cost of living is lower. National Defence's PLD allowance for Ottawa is $0/month. That for Calgary is $711/month (Toronto is double that).

Taxes are probably higher in Ottawa than in Calgary. They are even higher in Gatineau (not Hull, please), unless you have kids, and property is cheaper than it is in Ottawa.

Is Gatineau part of Ottawa? What's the difference in the two areas/cities (generally)? And where is Ottineau (or is that both places)?

ill be in the UK Stampede week so a bit of good news there

Look at a map.

Ottawa is the bit on the south side of the river (and in Ontario). Gatineau is all the stuff on the north shore (and it's in Quebec). They are distinct cities but so closely linked that both form part of the National Capital Region. The two are usually combined in census data.

Gatineau, BTW, is an amalgamated city and stretches for about 30 miles. It incorporates what used to be the municipalities of Aylmer, Hill, Gatineau, Buckingham and Masson. Although the whole lot is now called Gatineau, people still tend to refer to the individual sectors. Hull is the best-known because it's the bit you go into from Ottawa.

I made up the name Ottineau.

The two cities are very different. Gatineau has little or no nice architecture and not much in the way of nightlife. It doesn't really matter. We live in the far north of Gatineau. We can be in downtown Ottawa in 15 minutes.

Many people who live in Gatineau work in Ottawa. My wife does and so do most of our neighbours. You will hear a lot of French in Ottawa's central core.

It doesn't seem to work the other way round. Ottawans tend not to cross the river unless they work in one of the government departments here or are shopping (or booze hunting on a public holiday). The main commercial areas in Gatineau are closer to downtown Ottawa than those in Ottawa itself. Language is not an issue. Most of the stores have signs in both languages and their staff tend to be bilingual.

This region seems to be the border of English and French. The western sector of Gatineau (Aylmer) has a lot of anglos and things get more anglo the further west you go. Ottawa gets more franco the further east you go and you quite soon get into communities, such as Hawkesbury, that are mainly franco.

I'm not sure if I answered your question or not.

Exactly what I wanted to know, merci. I googled Ottineau a little while back and couldn't find it - now I know why! I suppose in the past I would have been guilty of thinking of Gatineau as Hull...as in Ottawa/Hull.

You wouldn't be the first one. It's only fairly recently that highway signs started to refer to Gatineau instead of Hull.

If Quebec ever does split from Canada, my guess is that it would be without Gatineau.

We're around the same age and waiting for PR to move to Ottawa. The French requirement is less of an issue for private sector. Within Ottawa the East End (Orleans) is where French speakers tend to live while the West (Kanata) is more English speaking. Having said that, we are going to Kanata, my partner is French Canadian and I've met neighbours already who are French Canadian. I have never had issues on my many trips with not speaking French but I do realise if I want to get a govt job I will need to up my game with the language. Most people speak perfect English anyway. Out of about 20 relatives only one kid doesn't speak English.

Ottawa is nice, people are nice, it has a great downtown area with bars and restaurants. It generally feels very middle class. It has good bus network but no subway.

I've made a day trip to Great Falls from Calgary and I've made a day trip to Ottawa from Toronto and I barely saw Ottawa because even though that is less of a distance, the traffic on the 401 is the problem.

When the nearest next major city is over 100 miles away that is an isolated city. Not as isolated as Calgary certainly, though.

And I meant Brockville not Brockton!

Anyway I find this conversation about rugby mildly amusing as I go past the Calgary Rugby Club on occasion and it is usually frozen solid.

I looked up the weather stats, Ottawa has more complete days with temperatures below freezing, because of the greater snow cover, but in every other respect it is warmer, warmer temps, warmer average temps, less total days with temperatures below freezing. Calgary has a winter that is on average 18 days longer. Ottawa gets around 2.3m of snow every year and Calgary gets around 1.3m of snow every year

Or put another way, it's a lot colder in Calgary but at least we don't have to shovel it...

But there's probably a lot more days in Ottawa where you can play an outdoor sport because it doesn't get as cold overall.

Difficult to generalize because Ottawa has more of a difference between top and bottom imo. In Calgary everyone is much closer to the median house. Ottawa has been developed as a city for a lot longer. I.e. a cheap house in Calgary is likely going to be better than a cheap house in Ottawa but an expensive house in Ottawa is probably going to be better than an expensive house in Calgary.