dingbat

The airfares have gone down to get out of here....

Tableland

The Irish influence in NFD is incredibly strong and obvious all over the place. It comes through in their accent, and one guy who helped me when I was lost sounded really Irish, though he was a local. When he gave me directions, he was standing in front of an enormous Irish tricolor painted on a wall. The Irish presence in NFD is so strong in fact that they even developed their own branch of Gaelic.

During the 19th century there was an enormous relocation of Scots to NFD and Cape Breton, and Scots gaelic also featured highly in many traditional NFD folk songs. In fact Newfoundland is one of the few places today where Scots gaelic is still spoken.

Such is my new-found (no pun intended) interest in this subject that a quick look at the NFD government website just revealed the fact the NFD "tourism culture and recreation minister" Kevin Aylward said way back in 2001 that The term Newfie is only used perjoratively by some mainland Canadians, much like red heads are only mindlessly abused mainly by some British. They're both very much prejudices based on local issues. No one from NFD that I ever met, including many of my wife's family had aproblem with the term and used it freely themselves.

Of course words do not have intrinsic value, only their meaning as collectively understood has this value, and the value can develop and change over time.

iaink

Does your wife know?....carefull, she might be checking up on what you post Sean


Or does your wife work at the local gas station

Souvenir

I once heard a senior Canadian diplomat, later to become an ambassador, refer to a Newfie sandwich. He was talking about a six-pack. Nice.

The first time I ever telephoned NF - I was still in the UK at the time - I thought for the first few seconds that I'd used the wrong country code.

DKCAN

This was supposed to be a really informative thread for people who are in process of moving to canada... But instead of "useless" information can we please contribute a bit more seriously ??

Regards,

iaink

Its a ludicrous question, provinces are the size of european countries, larger in some cases.

The difference between say Niagara on the Lake and Sudbury and Toronto are huge, but the differences between Small town Ontario and Small town NS, or AB, or SK are probably not nearly so big as you would think. Its one of those "piece of string" questions. The province itself makes little difference, its more local differences that matter.

Besides, all threads have a life of there own...there is no way to control them once you send them out there to the top of the first page.

dbd33

OK. The population here is extremely diverse, by comparison places like the London Borough of Brent seem homogenous; almost no one was born here to two parents who were born here. The few actual Canadians work as politicians or legislators and so one rarely encounters them in ordinary life. There are good road and air links from here to most US cities and many flights to London. Property is cheap.

Judy in Calgary

It couldn't possibly have been intended as a really informative thread or, if it was, I believe the original poster was misguided in the choice of thread title.

What prospective migrants need to be aware of, I believe, are the potential pitfalls. They don't need to be told what people love about their provinces. You can get a sense of the beauty of the Rocky Mountains from a travel brochure.

I patted myself on the back for the discipline I exercised in typing my original response in this thread. I honoured the original poster's thread title and stuck to the positive elements of my province. But I did not for one minute believe I was being useful to prospective migrants. Or at least I was conscious of the fact that I was sharing only one side of the picture.

DKCAN

well, A positive side might not be positive for others.... I didnt like some of the things in some of the provinces that pple have mentioned and loved the others... so, I reckon; Its a good thread where we can come up with good things but also bad things perhaps !! so keep on posting and keep on sharing whats good and bad.... and I agree the title should be

"What do u love & Hate about your province..."

Souvenir

Quite. Quebec is three times the size of France. If I were to walk out my front door and head north, I'd have to cross 17 degrees of latitude before I left the province. That's an awfully, awfully long way. I will never, ever be able to fully explore this place.

iaink

Its still a ludicrous proposition to pretend people are commenting on the province rather than the tiny little corner of it they encounter day to day.

That's unless you want to get into the political / legislative / legal distinctions between provinces, and even then the many local by laws tend to cloud the situation anyway.

Take the very first post. 5 out of 6 of those BC comments are equally applicable to my bit of Ontario, and for #6 you can substitute the land o lakes, the canadian shield, niagara falls, 1000 islands etc etc.

dbd33

But one may say that most of Ontario, indeed most of many provinces and all of the terroritories are not worthy of comment; one square mile of ice and snow is very much like another square mile of ice and snow. We can take the news from Red Lake as standing for all of Canada north of Superior.

iaink

Im sure the people that chose to live in the Tundra would disagree.

But why even go as far as that? The Toronto news we get on CityTV bares absolutely no relationship at all to life a couple of hours east of there. It might as well be about Beirut.

DKCAN

Yes, I agree its hard to portray a clear picture when a country is the that BIG. Anyhow, most of the immigrants move to bigger cities such as Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver etc etc .. or where they have strong community presence.....now, the information from that areas is always usefull. I am sure If I wanna know about Niagara or rocky mountains I have a friend called google.. BUT Personal experiences sometimes tell a lot....little info sometime make a difference.

In Denmark for example ..90 % of the foreigners live in Copenhagen and 99% of new comers are also settling down in Copenhagen and rest in the other bigger cities. I am from West of Denmark where there are hardly any immigrants... so new comers would love to know about Copenhagen and not about my town !! There are a looot of differences between Copenhagen and my town ... Sooooo.

I hope my point is clear enuf :-))

dbd33

I expect the one immigrant in the tundra will be along to comment in due course.