love_it_here

The end of the year is fast approaching so always a good time to reflect on choices made etc...
What do you love about your chosen province.?
We live in BC so I shall start off...
1.Climate- 4 proper seasons (we live in the interior, less distinct nearer the ocean). With potential for white Christmas.
2.Beautiful surroundings- the scenery is nothing short of spectacular
3.The great outdoors- so much to do , skiing, hiking, kayaking, mountain biking
4.Huge diversity of wildlife- bears, beavers, moose etc
5.Loads of parks both regional and national with endless camping (mind the bears)
6.Lots of varied terrain, from ocean vistas to massive mountains, from dry desert to lush rainforest.
So come on folks lets hear you rave about your home province !

printer

Hi Love it here

Great idea for a thread. I cannot comment as yet (still in UK) but it will be nice to see some positive feedback on the different provinces.

Tableland

Well I never lived there, but out of the three provinces I have spent time in, Newfoundland wins hands down for friendliness of the people.

Atlantic Xpat

Well of course I'd have to agree with that wouldn't I?

ImLivingTheDream

So they're not racist towards the ginger 'race' then?

Tableland

The Newfies are heavily derived from Irish/Scots background.

So I'd like to see some of these mousefarts make a crack about red heads in a St Johns Bar on Friday night.

Oh boy, would I.

Funny thing is, the big mouths flap hardest on talk boards.

Atlantic Xpat

You are more likely to get beaten up for describing a Newfoundlander as a 'Newfie' than you are for making a crack about red-heads. But only by those sensitive folk looking for a fight.

Also, many Newfoundlanders are derived from, and very proud of, their English heritage. It's every bit as prevalent as the Irish and much more prevalent than the Scots heritage (try Nova Scotia instead.)

In many respects this place feels much closer to Britain and not just in a geographic sense.

dbd33

It all depends on the context. My former sister-in-common-law has an epileptic dog. It's call Newf. She can call it that because she's from down there.

printer

Try saying that when your pi$$ed.

Atlantic Xpat

Yeah, it's ok to use the term 'Newfie' if you are a Newfie. Kinda like the other N word that people of my ethnicity cannot use.

Actually in a swift straw poll of two colleagues outside my office, neither finds the term 'Newfie' particularly offensive unless it's being used in an offensive way, e.g. 'You dumb Newfie' and especially by 'mainlanders' which is everyone who doesn't live on the Rock!

Me, I'm a CFA (Come From Away)

Bleech

Pretty offensive that mate. You'd be the last person I'd expect to hear that from being The protector of the orange race, especially the way you kicked off last time

R2D2

The things we love about Alberta are:

The climate/weather - loads of blue skies, clean air, long lovely summers, proper snowy winters.

The Rocky Mountains.....say no more.

The people - kind, caring, polite and respectful, and just friendly sorts.! People seem happy with their lot here. Contented with life.

Space. Get away from the major cities and driving here is bliss.

Opportunities for leisure activities. Never seen so much on offer to keep people (esp kids) occupied.

I love the change in us. We are more relaxed, not rushing around like blue arsed flies anymore trying to juggle working, the commute and the traffic jams, the kids and school runs in traffic jams. A less stressful lifestyle.

I love shopping here. So easy. Last Christmas I was queued up behind just 2 other trolleys in the supermarket with my last big shop before the day itself, and the Canadians around me were commenting on how busy it was !!!!
Ha, I had to laugh, remembering Morrisons 2 days before Christmas and the queues being right the way down the aisles, at least 10 trolleys long !

Judy in Calgary

My Alberta list:


PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT

Rocky Mountains

The little towns along the Cowboy Trail (Hwy #22), like Bragg Creek, Turner Valley, Black Diamond and Longview.

The "Big Sky" when one drives across the prairies.

Bright yellow canola fields.

Fields with bales of hay dotted around them.

Being only one hard day's drive from the ocean.

Warm Chinook winds that "eat" the snow and give us a break from winter.

No mildew and very little rust (owing to dry climate).

Slow growth of weeds (compared with subtropical places in which I've lived).


PEOPLE

Friendliness of the people.

My older son's teacher who ran an after-school computer club from which my son got so much joy.

The wonderful dads who coached my younger son's ice hockey teams.

Multi-culturalism. The workplaces where I had a contract in 2005, where the multi-national workforce celebrated Chinese New Year, St. Patrick's Day, Diwali, you name it. The visiting Russian engineers with whom my husband worked last year and whom we invited to our home for Thanksgiving 2005. The visiting British engineers with whom my husband is working this year and whom we have invited to our home for Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas 2006. The group of visiting Iranian engineers with whom I worked in 2003.

Some of the interesting cultural mixes one encounters in Alberta. One that springs to mind is the combination of highly education (mainly atheist-humanist) paleontologists at the Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, the born again Christians who perform in the annual nativity play there, and the bikers who have conventions there. Another component of that town's cultural cross section is the population of the Drumheller Penitentiary, but I don't know if they count, since they don't mix with the other residents.

AMENITIES

National, provincial and municipal parks with their wilderness trails, camp grounds and picnic tables.

Plus Fifteens (overhead, glass-covered walkways that connect Calgary's downtown buildings and that make it possible to walk through downtown without a coat and boots).

The indoor Devonian Gardens in downtown Calgary and the Muttart Conservatory in Edmonton.

Beautiful outdoor Christmas lights.

Alberta beef. It involves cruelty to animals and it's laced with evil hormones and antibiotics, but by golly is it ever delicious.

CULTURE

The integrated approach of the school system that encouraged kids to notice the connections amongst literature, science, ethics, etc., and that encouraged all aspects of communication -- listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Place names like Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump and Medicine Hat.

Lack of fashion consciousness amongst the general population. You can be a fashion maven if you want to be, but there is no pressure in that direction. Some people on this forum put that on the minus side of the ledger. I put it on the plus side.

POLITICS

The transparency of the process by which the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta (and hence the new Premier) recently was elected. Any Canadian citizen who had lived in Alberta for six months or more and who had paid the $5 party membership fee was eligible to vote. This is in contrast to the Liberal Party of Canada's leadership convention in which only party delegates could vote.

iaink

Given that Ive seen probably 1% or less of the whole of Ontario its a bit hard to generalise.

Most of what people have written about the other lesser provinces seems to apply to my bit of Ontario...with the exception of the mountains, but for that you can substitute the lakes and beaches I suppose.

Sean Boxer

There's a girl who works in our local gas station, I love her.