One year in Canada: ‘9 things I’m excited about seeing and doing in Canada and Prince George’ revisited

Tomorrow marks a whole year since we defied Covid and arrived in Canada after a six month delay. To celebrate, I’m returning to one of my early blogs to find out whether we have seen and done the nine things that I was excited about.

Here is he original post: 9 things I’m excited about seeing and doing in Canada and Prince George

1. Enjoy Prince George’s Outdoor Lifestyle

From the original blog: “This is definitely the number one draw to life in Prince George. The opportunities for outdoor adventures are endless. First on my list is to get a good hike in, but I’m also keen on some of the other summer sports (climbing, kayaking, camping, stand up paddle boarding to name a few) which the city, the surrounding lakes and nearby mountains have to offer“

One year on: There is no doubt that Prince George has fully lived up to its claim to be a great place for outdoorsy people to live. The restrictions on leaving the Northern Health region due to Covid did not bother us too much; because there are so many trails to explore in this area. Some of my favourite adventures near Prince George have included A teapot for a birthday: A spring hike in Bear Country and A hike in a land formed by ice, to a canyon conquered by paddle steamers.

This summer the many lakes near Prince George gave us the opportunity to go swimming, stand up paddle boarding, and kayaking. During the heat wave we met our friends at the Nechako River in the evenings to cool of by swimming in the river or being carried along by the current on a floatie!

2. Learn about First Nation Culture

From the original blog: “Prince George has a strong local band, the Lheidli T’enneh. I’m excited to learn more about the history and culture of the people who have called this area home since long, long before Europeans”

One year on: I have been immensely privileged to have had many opportunities to learn about First Nation culture in my role as a teacher. In fact, as the BC curriculum states that First Nation knowledge and perspectives must be weaved into all subjects, it has been part of my job to learn more and integrate this knowledge into the lessons I have planned.

I have shared some of the things I have learnt in these blogs: A guide to surviving as a British Secondary School Teacher in Canadian Elementary Schools, Part one: First Nation culture in the Canadian classroom and Part two: First Nation culture in the Canadian classroom.

In June I celebrated Indigenous People’s Day, one orange-clad person in a sea of orange, sat on our school field, watching a performance by a Male Traditional Dancer and some Jingle Dancers.

Beautiful First Nation art work outside the school I worked at last year

3. See some Canadian wildlife

From the original blog: “Prince George boasts a healthy population of Black bears as well as other large locals such as Moose. Journeying a little further afield, from the coast you can take a whale watching trip to see both Humpbacks and Orcas”

One year on: We had been here four months when I saw my first moose, or rather, as I described in this post, our car narrowly avoided hitting it! After much anticipation I saw my first Black Bear in May on the drive back from a camping trip. Since then I’ve lost count of the number of Black Bears we have seen including one particularly close encounter with a mother and her cub near our home and a nonchalant male strolling near the downtown.

The wildlife was particularly prolific when we through-hiked the Berg Lake Trail, the highlight of which was sharing a camping spot with two very noisy Porcupines; as well as sharing the trails with Mountain Goats, copious amounts of cheeky Chipmunks and a busy Pika.

We saw our first Grizzly Bears, a mother and a cub, a few weeks ago while picking wild blueberries about an hour outside Prince George. In Jasper National Park we’ve seen Marmots, Caribou, a herd of female Elks and two male Elks rutting in the road!

But perhaps my favourite was the Wolf we saw on the roadside, again about an hour from Prince George. He look exactly how you imagine, grey and black and sleek and wiley, but so much larger than you expect. Nothing could have prepared me for the size of him!

Porcupines we met on the Berg Lake Trail

4. See Mr PG

From the original post: “The symbol of Prince George! An eight meter high roadside attraction and tribute to the local forestry industry, who has stood proudly in Prince George since 1960!“

One year on: I remember the first time I saw Mr PG, we were coming into Prince George on our way from the airport to our house. I got excited and the taxi driver got confused! I think he thought I was being ironic. Evidently a roadside attraction (made in-part from a septic tank!) doesn’t often induce such glee!

But there was no hipster irony in my delight at seeing him after so many months of waiting and uncertainty. Now each time I pass him in everyday life, I’m reminded of the relief and excitement we felt when we first arrived in Prince George.

5. See an Ice Hockey Game

From the original blog: “Is there anything more cliche Canadian than Ice Hockey?! So once the season begins, we are definitely going to see the Prince George Cougars“

One year on: This one remains stubbornly on the Prince George Bucket list. Thanks Covid. Fingers crossed we get to see the Prince George Cougars this season. Although we have had a taster from some of the local kids.

As you may remember from this post about Prince George’s impressive ice skating scene, we were often forced to wait and watch while the ‘rink rats’ – the teenagers who hog the ice to play Hockey (don’t call it Ice Hockey, Canadians laugh at you) – played for hours!

6. See the Northern Lights

From the original post: “As a reward for living through freezing winters, inhabitants of Prince George are sometimes treated to the greatest light show on earth. This one I can’t control and may never tick off, but this photograph was taken just outside Prince George, so there is reason to hope“

One year on: I’m still in utter disbelief about this one. Eight months after arriving in Prince George we were standing on a road, in the dark, watching the elusive, swirling green mist light up the northern sky. You can read all about that magical evening and check out some photos of what we saw here.

7. Enjoy some winter sports

From the original post: “‘Enjoying’ being out in the cold will be the real challenge here. There are so many winter sports to get involved with in Prince George: ice skating, skiing, snow shoeing, ice climbing, snow boarding“

One year on: As I mentioned in the original blog, learning to enjoy winter was the first challenge. This happened, unexpectedly, during my very first time hiking in the snow with a group of adventurous women.

After that day we bought snow shoes and began exploring local trails with them. We discovered that the basketball court near our house is flooded in winter to make a free ice skating rink, the perfect place for a novice in dodgy second hand skates to practice! But, undoubtedly, Jacob’s favourite winter sport was Cross Country Skiing at the Caledonia Nordic Ski Centre just a short drive from our house.

It’s true what they say, a winter sport does help you feel more positive about the cold. But we barely scratched the surface of what BC has to offer last winter. I never thought I’d say this, but, bring on the snow!

8. Hike in the Rocky Mountains

From the original post: “Jasper is three and a half hours away. Banff is seven hours away. These places are the stuff of Canadian legend. These places are on many peoples ultimate bucket list. And now these places are – at least in Canadian terms – near us“

One year on: Our first experience of the Rocky Mountains was through-hiking with our friends James and Courtney on the unbelievably stunning Berg lake Trail. For four days we hiked through forest, past gigantic waterfalls jewel-coloured lakes and glaciers in the shadow of Mount Robson.

We hiked the Skyline Trail, in Jasper National Park, for our wedding anniversary in July; which involved dodging an unseen Grizzly, being bitten to death by bugs and surviving a horrendous storm with lighting cracking above our heads.

All worth it when we got above the tree line onto the alpine meadow with it’s wild flowers and endless mountain peaks in all directions. Finished off with a wash afterwards in the stunning Maligne Lake.

Back in the Rockies we recently drove the famous Icefields Parkway between Jasper and Banff National Parks, stopping for short hikes to see glaciers and waterfalls then spending a day hiking the trail to Lake Helen and summitting Cirque Peak.

The later was a fantastic day hike in a temperate forest, through an alpine meadow to a pristine lake; before a challenging climb which included some scrambling over rock and scree. From the top, where it was snowing, we were rewarded with a 360′ view of the rockies: snowy mountains, glaciers and turquoise lakes all around us.

A photo I took of our friends James and Courtney while we were hiking in the Rockies

9. Have friends and family to stay

From the original post: “I’ve saved the one that is most important to me until last. It’s the one that currently, September 2020, seems most distant. I love the idea of doing the things on this list with our friends and family when they come to visit. If nothing else we have amassed a huge amount of favors to pay back over the last few months! Plus my niece and I have been singing the ‘Great Big Moose’ song together since before we were planning to move here, so I owe here a moose sighting. Fingers crossed the border opens up and makes this possible“

One year on: Just as I cannot believe I have witnessed the Northern Lights since writing the original post, I cannot believe I have not seen my Mum since then. We made the decision to take a work opportunity in Canada back in a different time, in a different world, called 2019; when travel was relatively cheap, very easy and we were all confident that that was not going to change any time soon.

Would we have signed up for coming if we knew it meant going this long without seeing friends and family in the U.K? Probably not. But with the Canadian boarder set to open next month (currently 7th September 2021) to international visitors there is reason to be hopeful that we will have friends and family to stay in the near future.

So there we have it…

…one year in, we have camped with porcupines, been dazled by the Northern Lights and taken a bath in Maligne Lake. We have climbed mountains, water-skied, and learned Dakelh words.

Covid did it’s best to stop us getting here and I won’t pretend it hasn’t made life here harder at times.

I miss my Mum, I’d like a cuddle with my best friend’s baby that I’ve never met and I cannot believe I’m not going to be there to toast my little sister turning thirty next month.

But our landlords, now friends, Georgia and Quinn, who I mention in the later Wednesday’s Weekly Updates, turned out to be every bit as kind and thoughtful and fun as you may have expected from the people prepared the house and food ready for our two week quarantine.

Plus our little Canadian family of friends – you can meet them here – are adventurous and generous and dang good at dressing up (see evidence of this is the gallery below).