Today’s update is our final Wednesday’s Weekly Update. When I started writing these I had no idea if we’d ever make it to Canada and each week I had fresh failures to share with you! Now we are here, things are – thank God – no longer changing on a weekly bases. And so the time is right to turn my attention to sharing our big adventures through the blog, rather than our weekly updates.
Today I’m going to wrap up some loose ends (like did I ever get certified to teach in Canada?) and dwell on some mortifying (like being refused boarding) and momentous (like being asked to interview) moments. Peppered with some stunning autumnal shots from our recent walk to the Nechako River in Prince George.
Fails
Due to my unwavering commitment to the British reserve, I can’t possibly begin by boasting about what went well. So let’s begin with a few of the low points!! In at number one is obviously the moment in May when we (well, I) were refused boarding onto a flight to Canada. I had the Exemption Letter given to me by the IRCC (Immigration, Refugees & Citizenship Canada) but was told I did not need to travel to Canada. Not ideal. In fact, all my dealings with the IRCC could be popped in the low point pile. Later in the summer they issued me with another exemption letter, but stated that the final decision regarding my entry into Canada would be with the immigration officer at Vancouver. From our experience of entering as Foreign Workers you would not have the smallest hope of getting in with one of those letters. So what, I can only ask, was the point in issuing me this meaninglessness letter, twice?
As can be felt in the weekly updates, each month I’d slowly get my hopes up that the boarders would open. Around the 15th of the month we’d find out that the boarder closure had been extended and we’d feel ourselves inching nearer to giving up. When we found out on the 16th June that the boarder would be staying closed until the end of July, we had just spent days making the decision not to ‘make a break for it’ but to wait until the boarder opened at the end of June. That month in particular, revealed how wasted our hours of deliberating were and how we had no power in the situation.
Wins
There were plenty of wonderful moments throughout the summer of 2020 but I’m going to ignore the little joys like splashing in puddles with my nieces and concentrate on the story told in the Wednesday’s Weekly Updates.
Way back in update no.1 I mentioned that our best chance of being allowed to enter Canada lay in me finding a job there (click here to see the conditions that were/are in place on foreign workers entering Canada). I’d like too say that I focused all my attention on getting a job as quickly as possible. Some days I did and some days I could not see the point. So, it’s no exaggeration to say that it still feels miraculous that I did get a job, allowing me to enter Canada, 10 weeks after writing that in the first update.
Bally the Greyhound getting special permission to fly here and arriving only four days after we were out of quarantine was almost as much of a win as us getting here. More to the point, we didn’t have to go through with the absurd scheme for getting him here via Toronto which we were considering when I wrote update no.5.
Next
Of course the biggest win has to be that Prince George is beautiful, the house is fantastic and it was definitely all worth it. But it doesn’t end there, this isn’t a Jane Austen novel. Remember the teaching certification I described applying for in update no.3? I’m still waiting for a response regarding the evidence I have sent them. I may be waiting a while and if any piece of evidence is not acceptable the waiting process will begin again when I send a replacement. So as I quipped in update no. 3, I may be a BC certified teacher by 2040! Thankfully, not being a qualified BC teacher doesn’t bar you from beginning work as a TTOC (supply teacher) as I cautioned it might in update no.7, but does mean I’ll be paid at an unqualified teacher rate aka peanuts.
It’s inevitable that like everyone else Covid-19 is still having an impact on our plans. For the same reason I explained in update no.2 Jacob is still unable to do field work. This means that the nature of the research he is carrying out may be quite different from what they had intended. Life in Canada looks set to be far less limited than in Europe this winter, so I’m fully aware that I have nothing to complain about. But I am more than a little sad that our family and friends cannot make plans to come and visit. It may be quite a while before we see anyone and, for me, having visitors and exploring British Columbia together with them was a big part of what drew me to living here.
Thoughts
Writing the Weekly Updates throughout the highs and the lows of the last few months has been immensely cathartic. I hope that my enjoyment of writing them, and the help they have been to me, has been evident to you guys reading them. A big thank you to Babs for contributing such marvelous questions. Also a thank you to you for reading and caring about our journey. It makes me warm inside.
I will of course be keeping you up to date on how I survive the Canadian winter that’s coming for me, but let me know what you would be interested in reading about in future blogs.
Helen x
West Country Wandering 