Ugo51

Hi all,

I'm trying to understand a bit better about rural Canada. OK, rural Canada is huge, but I'm now referring to the rural ares within drivable distance from a city (<100miles)

Are small villages common? is there a sort of "size gradient" from the big cities, surrounded by towns, then big villages and finally small villages, or is it possible to find nice, isolated rural communities without the need to travel for hundreds of miles from the big centres?

I would imagine (but it's just a supposition) that in the central provinces is somehow easier to escape to the country, but south Ontario and BC look really crammed

Siouxie

There are no 'villages' as such, there are rural communities which consist of a half dozen stores along the main street through and there are small towns.

If you drive 10 minutes from my house on Hamilton Mountain (SE Ontario) you are in the country.

How rural do you want to be? You can be within a 10 minute drive of a town or small City, or you can be 100 miles away.

If you could define what it is you are looking for (generally), then a more definitive answer could be given but with your question being somewhat general, it's not an easy one to answer!



Maps of Ontario http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/traveller/map/

dbd33

We live in southern Ontario. We're on 10 acres, fairly rural, see view from porch. There are half a dozen houses within walking distance then it's 10 minutes by car to a town of 4,000 people, 20 minutes to a bigger one and half an hour to one of 200,000. Toronto, specifically the St. Lawrence Market, is 90 minutes (on Saturday morning!)

We might go to the town of 4,000 for beer and wings or for chicken food. We'd go to the next one up for hardware and lumber. To the one of 200,000 to consistently find Fullers and Marmite and to Toronto for cheese.

Ugo51

thanks for your answer

aha, you're right, my questions were really general. It's just that I sat down with 1000 questions in my head but it was too difficult to put them down

Well, I'd like to be as rural as I can be without the need to travel for hours and hours.
And I'd like to be able to have a nice piece of land

I guess that primarily I wanted to understand whether small villages (I mean less than 100 souls) do exist.
And if they exist only in Yukon or also in more accesisble areas

I foresee that we will be moving either in GTA or Vancouver, so south ON or BC.


Anyway, just to get accustomed with terms, what do you mean with "villages", and what's the difference with rural community?

BristolUK

There's another thread where someone mentions a place called Picton, Ontario.

Sounds near perfect.

Ugo51

I wish you could see my smile when I saw the picture you attached
ear to ear

anyway that's exactly what I was talking about. Isolated, but with the choice to go for a beer and be back before the weekend is over

dbd33

In Southern Ontario assume you'll $500,000 for the property + $20,000 for the tractor and snow blower and $5,000 for the stand-by generator.

If you want to meet people you'd do well to be some of Protestant, lots of rural activities are church related.

Ugo51

mh, that's quite pricy.

I guess it's the downside of a country with no houses old enough to be sold for renovation...

dbd33

Ha! I'll have more on that later/tomorrow.

ann m

Alberta has lots of "rural" with nothing in between. At this time of year, with yellow rape seed fields and rolling prairies and puffy clouds, the place is stunning. For the other 7 months of the year, it can be colourless, and bleak and the back roadways are often truly crappy.

I live in a town of about 15,000. We are expanding slowly but surely. We have grocery stores, booze, a few restaurants, a small movie house and ice cream.

We are about 20 minutes from the Calgary city limits, 25 minutes from "big" shops and 40-50 minutes from the downtown employment core. If one travels 20 minutes north of us, it is rural. Go a bit further, about 40-50 minutes away from here, it is what I call the back end of beyond. The sheer scale of rural and lack of other two-legged inhabitants is overwhelming for me. Others love it, and I do get that.

I just couldn't get my head around a three to four hour grocery trip, and I like to be near a cinema and take-aways and the dreaded mall.

It takes about four minutes to drive my daughters to their out of school activities - again, I couldn't get my head (or convey the correct amount of dedication) to give to a half hour or one hour drive a few times a week so they could skate or dance or play on a team.

"Rural" living here is quite different from a UK village with a pub, a post office and five miles from the nearest town. Rural here can mean very carefull shopping and planning; growing and cooking from scratch, owning a large pantry and good generator, and owning good vehicles with winter tyres; don't forget the snow blower/tractor/ride on mower - and the hours to give to maintaining the land; poor/slow internet coverage and a happiness in your own company - and a penchant for taking photos of bears and cougars in your back yard, who run off with your pet goat. Like I say, heaven for some.

Siouxie

There are properties out there, but you have to look for them.

Here's a few:

http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetail...dKey=684793598

Durham area

Mount Forest area

You can move the map around to get other property areas.

I've always wanted one of the old brick farmhouses with a wrap around porch, alas my pocket is not deep enough.

MillieF

Those three quotes summarise me to a "t" Ann!

Rural in Canada is an entirely different thing to European Rural!

Aviator

Forget Vancouver and the Fraser Valley then. In Chilliwack, 10 acres with a house around $900k+. Vancouver would make your eyes water. Depending on budget, look around Prince George, Cranbrook, Oliver, Armstrong.

Also would depend if you are retired or need work and what you want to do.

Almost Canadian

We live on 20 acres south of Calgary, about 8 kms east of High River (a town that has been in the news for flooding recently).

We are 15 mins from where we used to live in the City of Calgary (we lived in the south of the City) so we are a short drive from the City.

High River is 5 mins one way (great for purchasing farming equipment, crap for purchasing much else) and 10 mins or so from Okotoks (from my perspective, the same as any of the "shopping" communities in Calgary).

I work in the heart of downtown Calgary and my trip is approximately 1 hour each way (part driving, part train).

I am at work at the moment so I am struggling to find photos to give you a sense of how rural this is but the two shots below are all I have at this time.

bats

There are villages, I live on the edge of a village of 1200. This morning I walked down to the diner for breakfast with some workmates. I called in at the post office and pharmacy, had a look around the gift shop closing down sale. There are a couple of convenience stores, two gas stations, a chinese canadian restaurant, a chippy, a coffee shop, a pizza place, laundromat, hairdressers, gift stores, dollar store, fishing tackle store, home hardware, a beer store, LCBO, the Legion, a supermarket, an arena, baseball diamond, soccer pitch. Various churches, a marina, a public school, oo a chip wagon and a farmers' market. Couple antique and junk stores. I think that's it.

We're 35 mins from a 70,000 peep city, 20 from a 4000 peeps town, 40 mins from Lake Ontario. just under 2 hours from Toronto. 90 mins from a decent curry or Chinese food.

There are smaller places with just a few houses, you can be off the grid if you want. Plenty of places like it, better even.