When my husband and I decided to move to Prince George from Victoria, we sold our house, quit our jobs, packed our lives away into an enormous U-Haul and sent our stuff and our dog with my parents who came to help us move.
Then we went on a vacation to Las Vegas. It was awesome.
In the ten years that we've been together, we couldn't remember the last time that we had so much fun. After the trip to Vegas, we flew back to Victoria to make the drive to our new home.
Feeling a bit nervous about moving to Prince George, we paid attention to the drive up Highway 97 a bit more than usual. We've done the drive to and from Prince George and the Lower Mainland hundreds of times. But this time was different. We weren't going home to P.G. for a visit. We were moving. For good.
More than once on the drive we said "What are we doing?" With each town and landmark, we were coming closer to a life that was totally unfamiliar. Back in Victoria we left a good life. We had friends and hangouts and jobs and a house. Prince George? We had my family and a few friends. That was it. No jobs, no house, no life. Scared? You bet we were.
We will always remember that drive. It seemed longer than usual and filled with "northernisms" that we hadn't remembered seeing on the last drive. We started playing a game called "Things we would never see in Victoria." Moose? Check. Deer? Check? Dogs taking themselves for a walk along a busy highway? Check. Hundreds of massive trucks, many of them sporting "dualies" (this would have to be explained in Victoria) passed us on the highway and we weren't driving slow.
Outside of Quesnel, there was a store that had barbed wire advertised (for a good price I assume but I have no reference for that) on their marquee. There is a giant billboard for Spruce Capital Feeds heading into Prince George announcing "We got boots!" This lead to the creation of a song called Boots-n-Barbed Wire but I digress....
Once we finally hit town, we were relieved and more than a little nervous about what we had done. We moved in with my parents for what was supposed to be between one to three months (turned out to be more like a year and a half) and set out to find jobs and a new place to live. We expected everything to be sorted out in less than half a year. It took way longer.
We played the Victoria/Prince George compare and contrast game for too long. Instead of embracing the city, we felt uncomfortable and uneasy with the choice that we made and longed to go back to the ocean. Now that we're gainfully employed, have a house and a family of our own, it's been easier to embrace our choice and I don't think that either of us regret moving here. The people are warm and real and less concerned about appearances. People live their lives here rather than worry (as much) about what their neighbours think. Almost anyone you know in Prince George has access to a truck to help you move your stuff out of storage. No one has a truck in Victoria.
You may have the mildest weather in Canada, Victoria. But we've got boots and barbed wire and we're proud of it.
