carcajou

Yes indeed, the stereotype works both ways. I'm sure there are Kamloops and K-W lifers who have their own cartoon stereotypes of Vancouver and Toronto.

The town I live in is far, far smaller than Kamloops and people find syringes and drug paraphenalia in parks and on footpaths. Unfortunately the Meth and Ice crisis in rural towns is very, very real.

carcajou

I should add, BristolUK: I am not saying Kamloops etc are full of "no go zones" or "dens of inequality," but I do think big city residents can come into a small, isolated country town not expecting a drug crisis and high crime rates, and can be shocked that they haven't "escaped that" by leaving a place like Vancouver.

BristolUK

Sure...I didn't mean you, it was the idea of asking folk from smaller places and getting their exaggerated view.

In that other discussion, someone was moving from PEI and it seemed their neighbours expressed similar warnings to those I sometimes see in the paper from those "out of town" where they describe a bigger town in ways that make it sound like Prohibition Chicago or Death Wish New York

carcajou

Yes indeed . . . and in all cases, you are far more likely to die in a car accident in the Bronx than get killed by a mugger there . . . and for our small-town friends in the Maritimes, the same is true about Summerside or Labrador City.

BristolUK

That place has really gone to the dogs.

Danny B

Kamloops is a city and it is definitely not isolated

My definition of an isolated town are in the three northern most provinces/territories.

carcajou

Almost anything can be a "city" if it incorporates. Kamloops has 100,000 people. That's not big.

Where I am, country folk use a pretty simple measure of isolated: Can you day-trip (by car) to the nearest major metro area (which in this case would be Vancouver, not Kelowna) for things like specialist medical services, government services, essential office work? At 3.5 hours - possibly in summer, not in winter. So if you have to overnight in Vancouver, I would say that's close enough to "isolated."

Day-tripping from K-W to Toronto is no problem at all, and K-W is big enough that most specialist services and (useful/effective) government offices would be there, negating the day trip anyways.

Danny B

BC has 51 cities, out of those there are only 7 with 100k+ people. Kamloops comes in at #8.

I'm not trying to argue with you, but I think you are incorrect to call Kamloops isolated when it has an airport, a Hospital and the Trans Canada #1 running right through the middle of it.

dbd33

There are only four commuter trains each way per day so a day trip is fine but you can't go for just the morning without driving or taking a bus one way.

rivingtonpike

I think I'm right in saying our local "city" - Duncan - is the smallest in Canada. Referred to as "The City of Totems". Population it hasn't - 5000 ish. Super cute though ish....

carcajou

Which is of daily use to the average citizen there how? You cited Whitehorse, Yellowknife and Iqaluit as "isolated" - they all have airports and hospitals, and Whitehorse also has a major highway running through it.

Can Kamloops Hospital do all operations and procedures, or do they medivac patients to Vancouver for some of those?

I'm not arguing with you either - and I am not interested in starting a debate over whether Kamloops is "isolated," or whether being the 8th biggest city in British Columbia at 100,000 people qualifies as "metropolitan."

The point is what I have already written - the decision to go from big city to small town involves lots of variables that OP may not have considered, and Kamloops is a different category of small town than K-W. They aren't equivalent small towns. In fact I would not even consider K-W a "small town" due to its proximity to Hamilton (700,000 people, less than an hour away) and the Golden Horseshoe.

As well, if you live in a country town - driving 90 minutes into Toronto (or 45 minutes into Hamilton!) is a whole different story than driving 3.5 hours into Vancouver. With the first, you could leave your house at 7 and, depending on where you are going in Toronto, be there in time for start of business. Then you could have a whole day of meetings or whatever, and at close of business, go out to dinner and then go home and be back by 8 or 8:30. Not possible from Kamloops to Vancouver. You have to stay the night.

R I C H

I work at our Vancouver office regularly- 7.25am flight from Kamloops, 48 minute flight, at the office by 8.30. Home back in Kamloops for 6.30pm. Yesterday's flight was $140. It's perfectly feasible to commute, and many do.

Isolation is relative to your own expectations and what you feel is required from local amenities.

Danny B

Completely agree if driving. I work for a corporation that has its HQ in Kamloops and an office in Vancouver. Flying is the only way to do what you suggested in one day. Paid for by the company of course

JonboyE

I completely agree that you should not rely on people posting on this forum. They are most opinionated about stuff they know nothing about.

Vulcanoid

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Yeah..... I moved out of BC to get something where one of the options was doing it in Kamloops, and I decided I could get it better elsewhere. So, to be clear, I'm braving a potential winter of -40C in preference to Kamloops - I am not the city cheerleader - and I burst out laughing at this line, which you repeated so much.

Kamloops is the 5th largest metro area in BC (4th if you say Abbotsford is still basically Vancouver). It's the largest city on the TransCanada between Vancouver and Calgary (Kelowna, despite being larger, is more isolated). It has just about a hundred thousand people in a city. It's larger than Bath or Durham, and nearly twice the size of Inverness.

I wouldn't call Merritt a 'small isolated country town' (possibly a small isolated city, or a small country city). Small country towns are Valemount, Blue River - and even they have access by rail, air, and divided highway!

You can reasonably complain about Kamloops that it is relatively low income by and large, or that it's a suburban sprawl, or that the city centre lacks upscale shopping. Say that Thompson Rivers doesn't sound like a real University, or that you don't get to call it 'Lake Kamloops' when it's just a slightly low-moving stretch of the river. But if you're going to claim it's a "small isolated country town", all you're showing is that you've never been to at least one of (1) Kamloops, (2) a small isolated country town.