AyrLass

A year ago today I woke up for the first day of my new life in Canada. With one suitcase each, my boyfriend and I travelled to Canada on a Bunac 1 year work visa, with work pre-arranged in Halifax, N.S. We stayed in Toronto for a week, spending time with some of my family before making our way to Nova Scotia.

I wasn’t sad about leaving the UK as a place, I’d made up my mind a long time ago that I wanted to live in Canada. Leaving family was another matter. Saying goodbye’s to the older generations that I may or may not see again was very emotional. I had to convince myself that I would be seeing them in a matter of weeks to be able to subdue the tears and actually leave. It was a moment that I dreaded, and my mother pointed out to me that it wasn’t necessarily the older generations that I would have to worry about not seeing again. Unfortunately her advice rang true after only 2 weeks of arriving in Canada I lost someone I’d known all my life back in the UK. Lack of funds, flight availability and a need to settle in over in Canada meant that I didn’t return home to pay my respects and I found / still find that was my biggest challenge to my first year in Canada.

Arriving in Halifax having spent a week in Toronto and never having set foot in Nova Scotia was both exciting and daunting. On first impression Halifax was smaller than I had imagined it to be. However the friendliness of the people made it feel like home very quickly. We found an apartment to rent downtown which meant we settled in and got familiar with our surroundings quickly.

Meeting up with other British Expats in Nova Scotia and reading advice on this forum helped us choose the PNP skilled worker route, which although held it’s stresses at the time, has been straightforward, relatively quick and proved to be a successful way to gaining permanent residency here. Thank-you to everyone for sharing their experiences – good and bad – and for all the support provided on here, I know it wouldn’t have been quite as stream lined had it not been for finding this forum.

We have had our fair share of visitors this year. It has been fantastic to see people from back home and to be able to share our new life with them. It’s also meant we’ve explored areas of the province that we wouldn’t necessarily have seen yet. This year and in coming years we will be planning our own vacation time since virtually all of my 15 days vacation days have been used to entertain our family and friends, that’s not to say we won’t welcome visitors it’s just it will be more planned and on our terms to ensure we can all enjoy the time we have together and still have a couple of vacation days left over to do our own thing.

One of the ways I have tried to settle has been to limit how much of a comparison I draw between Canada and the life I had in the UK. If I see something new I try to experience it. Rather than grouch about not being able to buy groceries or treats that I grew accustomed to, I try to see it as being all part of my life here and source an alternative. Of course there are things that I miss.

Making friends has been a challenge, as working for the same small company as my other half has limited our social network. I don’t enjoy sports or going to the gym and we don’t as yet have our own transport so are limited to downtown options or easily accessed by public transport. I did find a meetup group online www.meetup.com which has given plenty opportunity to get out and about and meet more like minded souls and I am slowly building a support network here.

Being in Nova Scotia has meant exploring other provinces like Quebec and Ontario has been quickly accessible which has been fantastic for weekend city breaks.

I love the climate over here. ..having 4 distinct seasons with Winter being so cold and snowy and Summer being so comfortably warm….there’s a great balance there.

It’s been a fantastic first year in Nova Scotia. I’ve definitely found where I’d be happy to settle. Here’s to many more years here and another huge thanks to all those who have offered their advice, experiences and support

woodmanbg

I can relate to your feelings about leaving people behind, my mother is 85. Glad to hear you are feeling settled and wish you many more happy years in Canada.

nikki dreaming

Congratulations on your canniversary

Cookie

Happy Canniversary and congratulations on all your achievements this past year.

Here's to many more...............

(and thanks for the link to Dominik on another thread)

Corky

Congratulations.....what a great post. Glad things are going well.

AyrLass

Thank-you for all your messages

bandit

CONGRATULATIONS!!!


Glad to hear you've settled in well, and taken the all embracing route rather than the moany one!

Here's to many more good and happy days!

Bx

kancell

Hi there, congratulations on your first canniversary!

I would be interested to hear more about the visa side of things, as i am considering following a similar route to yourself in either Ontario or Atlantic Canada. I am in engineering and am Hons Deg qualified with 10 years experience, so hope that i would be able to pre-arrange or at least find work quickly. how did you find employers reacted to you being on a temp visa? also was the transition from Bunac to either a TWP or PR visa easy enough? did you find many employers were happy to sponsor you and do all the paperwork required to enable you to apply via PNP? any help, advice or general info would be much appreciated!

AyrLass

Thanks for your best wishes Bandit and Kancell

Kancell, I'd highly recommend Atlantic Canada but I'm biased and I guess in this economy your move would be dictated by where you can find work. You mentioned you have a degree and 10 years experience, I guess your best bet would be to evaluate which provinces recognise your qualifications and where your type of work is available.

Our employer (myself and other half both worked for the same company) were ok with us being on a temp visa, I guess it was a calculated risk for them.

The transition from Bunac to PR visa was very straightforward. The office of immigration in Nova scotia were extrememly helpful. Our application was timely and we didn't need to get a temp work permit in between the Bunac visa and the PR.

Our employer filled out the necessary paperwork for the provinicial nominee program without any problems. I know of someone in BC whose employer recently applied for an LMO to keep them on (as they were only on a TWP) and it's been turned down. I realise this is probably not what you want to hear, but just giving you an honest account of what I've heard.

Everything is unpredictable at the moment so it's hard to offer advice as to where your best bet would be and how employers will react to a TWP.

Hope this is of some help. Good Luck and feel free to message me if you have any other questions.

chumley

lovely post and congratualtions

rufus2000

congrats!!! great post. we're hoping to come over in sept for recce and then for good by march 2010. i'll try and arrange a meet up nearer the time

Helen

AyrLass

Thank-you!

Helen, September is a great month to visit. Should still be nice and warm during the day but cooler in the evenings. Although with being on the Atlantic you never know what the weather is going to do...We had a ice/snow storm yesterday and today the snow has given way to blue skies and glorious sunshine. Perhaps Spring has finally arrived

rufus2000

excellent. can't wait!!!