From India to Fort St. John: The journey of an international student

Reading about incidents stemming from racism and other racial attacks makes my heart sad.

I lived in Fort St. John for almost six years before moving to a "bigger city.” Working in social services, there are regular conversations around societal inequities, immigrant experiences, racism, etc. Now that I live in a big city, people often ask me, how was it living in Fort St. John?

Here’s how I would describe my experience in one word: Amazing. I miss Fort St. John every day and talk about it every day. My husband can unwillingly testify to it.

So my journey began on April 23, 2015. I was catching my connecting flight from Vancouver to Fort St. John. It was my first time out of India, so I was nervous, scared, anxious, and all the possible wreck of emotions one can feel.

I asked someone at the airport for the directions to Gate C39. They asked me where I was going, and I said Fort St. John. I still clearly recall that person smirking and saying, “Are you sure it's in Canada, I have never heard of it.” My heart sank, but I knew I wasn't going to allow a smirk from this individual to affect my journey to this new adventure.

I landed in Fort St. John around 4 a.m. The plan was to take a cab to Dawson Creek, as my paperwork confirmed my residence at the Dawson Creek campus. In my head, I was calculating how much it would be to take a cab from Fort St. John to Dawson Creek. Fun fact, I was calculating the cost in Indian rupees, so it was lots.

Well, I didn’t have any other option. I had signed myself up for all this, so there was no way out.

As I was walking into the airport, looking around for anything, anyone familiar, all I could see were my two maroon bags rotating on the luggage belt. As I took a big sigh lifting up those ginormous bags, the corner of my eye caught my name, Bhavleen Kaur, written on a piece of paper.

It couldn’t be true, so I looked again, and again and again. There was a staff member from Northern Lights College who came for the airport pick up. I thought I saw an angel for the first time in my life. This wasn’t planned. The plan was to take a cab from Fort St. John to Dawson Creek.

Since that day, I have met the most amazing people of my life. If not all, most of the people I have met in Fort St. John were very welcoming and made me feel at home in my new home.

My first ever job was at Safeway. I still clearly recall my first shift on Mother's Day in 2015. I was on till number one, which was closest to the Deli department. It was busy! But let me tell you, not a single customer rolled their eyes or got impatient with me as I was packing their groceries at the slowest pace in human history.

The icing on the cake: I would take forever to count cash, as it was my first day of touching actual Canadian money. There were even customers who helped me distinguish between five cents and 25 cents, which was a big deal for a 19-year-old from India. They could have easily complained about me, and could have gotten me fired on the very first day of my job.

But that’s what is special about Fort St. John. Everyone comes to lift you up and rescue you from the battle of rattling dimes and nickels.

I recall a morning when I worked at Burger King, my second job. My manager asked me to get hamburger buns from the freezer. I went, looked for a few seconds, couldn't find them, so came back and told the same to my manager. She went back with me to look again and showed me a shelf full of buns.

Innocently, I said, “Well, there is no ham in it. You asked for hamburger buns."

She very politely explained to me, "Bhavleen, hamburger buns do not have ham in it.”

What? How ironic.

This was another example where someone could have belittled me, but this is what is special about Fort St. John folks, they accept your differences.

After I graduated with my social services diploma, I started working at social service organizations. One day in the fall of 2018, I was designated a task to serve supper to our clients as the cook had to go home. I am great at taking initiative, even for things that I have no clue about. I am vegetarian and until that point I had never made a meat dish without supervision.

As I was getting everything ready and about to serve, my client came to me and said, “Your chicken is still kicking.” That was it, so we called it a pizza night, not kicking chicken night. Again, this could have been a very rude and belittling interaction, but my client corrected me in a polite and funny way.

This is the beauty of Fort St. John. People from all walks of life accepted me, taught me so much, corrected me when I was wrong, and made me who I am today.

I can write countless stories about the welcoming stories of this community. To conclude, I would like to thank everyone in Fort St. John who accept people like me with open arms, and help us to build a home away from home.

Bhavleen Kaur is a social worker who now lives in Calgary.

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