Castlegar
 

Hi everyone! :)

First of all, an apology! Most of my threads seem to be along the lines of "What's this place like?", and this one is unfortunately not going to be a lot different!

My wife found the Castlegar website the other day, and she really seems keen on the idea of moving there. It certainly looks like a nice enough place to live, and the site gives a lot of good info.

Just got a few questions about the place really, if anyone currently lives there it would be really great if you could cast your eye over them.

1. What is the employment situation like there? My wife has a degree in biology, and I am a computer support technician. We are both willing to have a try at just about anything though (Washing cars, stacking shelves, whatever).

2. How is the town itself? It seems to be fairly modern, with a good amount of amenities, but kind of hard to tell from the official site how it compares to a small british town.

3. How far / easy is it to get to a larger city with malls and wider range of shopping / facilities. Also, where is the nearest international airport? Vancouver? How long is the flight from Vancouver to Castlegar?

4. Internet access (we would like to keep in touch with our friends and relatives in the UK and Sweden, via Skype ideally, plus my wife is an avid online gamer). How fast is it? Any plans for cable / DSL if its not available at the moment?

5. Think that's it for now!

Thanks for reading! :)

Cheers

Ian

Re: Castlegar
 

Castlegar has less than 15k closely knit people in it these days, high unemployment, some seasonal fluctuations of course. Takes about an hour to fly direct to Vancouver, two hours if you have to route through Calgary to Vancouver. Both YVR and YYC are international airports and from memory are about the same distance from Castlegar by air. Internet access...ha ha...you may just have two choices, Shaw and Telus. Slow and somewhat slower, but functional. Shopping...erm...what shopping? This is rural BC, you have Marks Work Wearhouse, Wal Mart and Canadian Tire. :unsure: Closest town by road is Grand Forks or Nelson, both of which you would not call a city anywhere else, but Nelson at least is very very pretty.

Re: Castlegar
 

Thanks Dingbat, thats some good info :)

One thing I did find just now... http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-59731398.html mentions quite a few places getting a cable network hookup. Might be handy if it goes through!

Cheers

Ian

Re: Castlegar
 

Castlegar is very ugly--it has no proper high street or downtown core and looks like what I consider a typical American town--sting of fast food places along a busy street. If you are interested in moving to this area, see my post about Rossland BC under the "Trail, what is it like" thread. Trail, Castlegar, Rossland and Fruitvale are all very close. I go to Castlegar for specific reasons (ie, the honda dealership is there where I bought my car) but I wouldn't live there--but you can get more house for your buck than you can in Rossland. However, you have to live in Castlegar to get it! Regardless, I would check out the job situation if I were you. Unless you are an engineer and work for Cominco or its service companies, or the hospital, it will be tough to find decent work (but I stand to be corrected on this--what do I know about the current job market--I am home with a baby!). There are a lot of construction jobs too in this area, however. I don't know if there is much call for people in IT, from what I see and read on this website.

Airport--closest international is Spokane, Washington. Vancouver is about an hour by plane, with three flights a day from Castlegar.

Internet--are you seriously deciding on a place to live based on the speed of your internet?? I use Telus. It seems fine.

Re: Castlegar
 

Hehe not basing where we want to live on speed of internet no. But there are so many different places we are considering at the moment, its just another way of narrowing it down. Also, I don't want to have the constant bills for calling other countries, so Skype would be handy. :)

I am not overly worried about finding decent work to be honest. Hoping to not really need a mortgage, and not really interested in IT anymore, having done it for ten years I want to get away from it. Its something to fall back on should I need it though. Any work will do really, even working behind a counter at McDonalds (Although that is a last resort) ;)

Cheers

Ian

Re: Castlegar
 

In that case I would seriously consider Nelson. It is much more attractive, has mountains and a lake, more services, more shopping (heck, I drive the 80km to Nelson to shop) and more interesting people--everyone there is from somewhere else and a lot of people are in Nelson to find themselves, so there are good coffee shops in which to contemplate the universe etc. Real estate is still okay and your house might be worth more in a few years, unlike Castlegar. The main limitation to Nelson is the airport--you have to go to Castlegar to get a flight but there is a shuttle bus. An airport is needed but the place is too mountainous for one. Overall, I think one could have a nice life there, and if you want to move on, as I say, you can sell your house at a profit and go.

Re: Castlegar
 

yep- I would give Castlegar a pass. it is not horrible but there are many better places in the area.
Have you looked into Cranbrook? Beautiful area with stunning views, great skiing in Kimberley, lots of hiking, lovely lakes for swimming and many more amenities that either Nelson (Love Neslon though- lots of new agey stuff-veg restauants and the like) .
Cranbrook has a very good airport with lots of flights to Vancouver and Calgary-and it is being upgraded to accomodate overseas flights. Housing prices are reasonable, very friendly people, regional hospital, Calgary is a scenic four hour ride (through the Rockies!) away. etc.
I lived in Kimberley for 10 years and Cranbrook was our main shopping area (30km from Kimberley).
Not sure about the job market but I think it would be much better than Neslon or Castlegar.

Look into it! :)

Oh and 'the strip" as it is called- the main street though the city is ugly (fast food joints etc.) but the downtown is nice. Excellent local theater productions etc. as well.

Re: Castlegar
 

Thanks both of you, will definitely look into both those options. We are hoping to get over there later this year and hire an RV, and do a road trip around all the places we are considering so far.

Should be fun!

Cheers

Ian

Re: Castlegar
 

Assuming the flight isn't cancelled. Castlegar is known as "Cancelgar" by many Air Canada gate agents as it gets fogged in so often.