dbd33

That's some odd version of Mennonites out there. Around here churches have parking for fifty or so coaches and pairs.

PlacidCasual

Is the winter that bad in NS?
I was under the impression that it wasn't as cold as other parts of Canada and that there are still plenty of clear sunny days even when it's very cold?

I'm making the move from Wales in the UK so the hope of some (any!) sunshine is a plus even if it means freezing cold sunny days are plentiful.

If June through to November is nice, it beats the occasionally nice March and September we get here.

That said, this winter has been incredibly good by normal standards, but it's a fluke and we're sure to pay for it soon...

scilly

my niece, a single parent, moved to Abbotsford about 20 years ago, hoping to get her then 10-year old daughter out of the problems in east Vancouver ..............

she thought there was a religious influence in Abby that would be better ..........


what she didn't bank on were the left-over hippies that made up a large part of the non-religious population

she caught daughter smoking pot within a couple of weeks of moving out there.

pot was freely available!


kid really went quite wild ............. had left home by 16, and was couch surfing with friends. The only thing that kept her off the streets was the fact that she liked her comfort.

She HAS turned herself around, and is now a lovely young woman, in all senses of the word



But she smoked pot for a number of years .......... never asked if she progressed to anything else.


I have no idea whether that section of the population is still there .........

........ although pot is now so freely available in Vancouver that it really doesn't matter

........... we have 3 "dispensaries" now in less than 2 blocks in our local shopping area.

In the same block is a new development of million dollar apartments!

I heard the other day that there are at least 60 dispensaries in Vancouver .............. still illegal 'cos Harper hasn't changed the laws, but they all have business licenses

This compares with about OOPs ..... 20 not 210 .......in the rest of the province, and I think something around 20 in the whole of the rest of the country

galaxyandminstrels

Nova Scotia is looking better at the minute!!!

scilly

it's mostly the evangelical churches that have the large car parks and hundreds of cars, as well as some of the "weird" religions ........


but the Mennonites in the Fraser Valley are not the horse and buggy ones. I think they are Reformed. They don't even seem to have the black cars with no chrome.


there are a lot of Dutch Reformed churches .............. the ones that do not believe in vaccination, and have close contacts with the "mother" churches back in Holland. There are always outbreaks of preventable childhood diseases around there.

Luckily, most of them seem to also have their own schools, so there is some protection for the general population.


There are some weird and wonderful religions there .....................

My niece herself got caught up with one of them for a few years. Luckily she got herself out of it.

scilly

The winters in NS can be horrendous ................. they ARE on the Atlantic Coast after all.

My daughter is well ensconced there, she and her husband have good jobs, nice house, etc .............. and they would never be able to afford to move back to BC, as they had once planned on doing

But they "suffer" winter.


It doesn't get as cold as the central provinces of Canada, but winter can be brutal .............. we've been there in blizzards that dumped 4' in less than 24 hours

BUT Dartmouth / Halifax region even clear the sidewalks as soon as possible.

Unlike the UK (and the Banana belt of BC ), people and councils do know how to handle snow ............ streets are cleared quickly. I've seen the bus service keep running even through a snow storm that was dropping about 6" an hour.


But it's the changes that get to my daughter ............... snow, ice, warms up, drops down to -15C, snow, rain, freezing rain, etc etc


Her in-laws are now retired, and very gladly leave NS at the beginning of November and return at the end of March. They have an extremely active social life down in Florida.

People get on with life in that kind of weather ........... it doesn't stop them going out


Also ................ NS is at the northern end of the hurricane route in the summer.

They can get the tail end of several hurricanes every year.

Usually that just means torrential rain and high winds for a day ............ but occasionally a stronger one. Hurricane Juan was a category 2 when it made landfall in NS in 2003

Then just about 6 months later, they had White Juan ............. a hurricane strength nor-easter blizzard in February 2004

I haven't checked to see if the amount of snow dumped in White Juan was beaten by the amount dumped this past winter.


There is a common saying in the Halifax region ................ wait 10 minutes and the weather will change.


If you want sunny and clear and don't mind the cold, then you really should be looking at places like the Okanagan Valley of BC, or even the other provinces in Canada

NS and coastal BC can be very grey, wet and dreary in winter .................


this winter, of course, being unusual in the amount of sun that we have had

Lost Boy

November-April is winter.
May and June the blackflies come out, followed by mosquitoes.
July and August are hot and brutally humid, foggy along the coast. Lots of huge savage horse flies.
September is the only nice month
October is hurricane season with tropical storms


An old mate of mine from BC told me to take a serious look at Nelson, but Wikipedia makes it sound like a dope smoking hippy community. Can anyone give an opinion?

LB

rivingtonpike

I'm afraid that's exactly how we saw Nelson.

scilly

I like Nelson

It is a lovely little town, in a lovely part of the province.

It had a small university for many years, still has a very good college ............. which means there is a little more "culture" than in many such small towns.

They are restoring and using a lot of their historic buildings.

It has a lot going for it.


Most small towns in BC .............. in fact, I'd say most of BC, including Vancouver and Victoria ........... are full of aging hippies


and pot is now freely available everywhere

galaxyandminstrels

rivingtonpike

Don't get me wrong, we liked/like Nelson. We just wouldn't want to live there.

galaxyandminstrels

We have been here almost 5 years now and at first the snow and cold were a novelty now it is wearing very thin!! The kids love the snow when it is powdery but when it freezes and is solid it isn't much fun!

Yes the skies can be blue and the sun can shine and it does look beautiful but when that wind blows and your face is numb it isn't so beautiful! Sitting inside watching the snow fall with a log fire is bliss though!

Summers can be lovely although I don't even remember having a summer last year! Lol! It does get humid and we have lots of bugs, they don't bother me so much but they bite my husband and some of our kids badly and it is not pleasant having swarms of the things following you and biting you so you bleed!! Not to mention the awful June bugs......they don't bite but I wouldn't want to get any stuck in my hair!!

It is also great being only 40 mins from the airport, my parents visit frequently so they can get on a direct flight and 6 hours or so be here and after a 40 minute drive they are with us.

We do have some beautiful beaches too, I love that about NS.


I may have painted a pretty crap picture of NS but don't get me wrong there are lots of good things about NS, it is beautiful (depending on where you live of course) and we are fortunate to have great jobs and a lovely home. I guess it just depends on what you are looking for. What annoys me may not you and vice versa.

rivingtonpike

I think NS is beautiful too. I suppose the cold is just too high a price for us to pay. Some parts of BC are wetter than others. I think Vancouver gets twice the rain we do on my bit of the Island. But then we don't have the same ease of proximity to the USA for example. Or anywhere in fact. The bloody ferry is so expensive.

scilly

the ferry rate is exorbitant!

galaxyandminstrels

Where on the island do you live? We are considering there too but work may be an issue.