|
I had a request to make this thread, so here it is! I live in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It's a solid 7 hour or so drive from the US border. It's one of the sunniest cities in Canada. We will usually have snow on the ground between November and April, though it is not unusual for it come earlier than that or stay later. Canada is a country with a small population spread out over a huge area. With only 36.5 million people, all of Canada could fit into the state of California or the Greater Tokyo Area. Please ask me any questions you have about living in Canada or being Canadian! I can only really speak to my experiences living in urban and rural Alberta, so I welcome folks from other parts of the country to chime in as well. To start with, here is a video about How to be a Canadian. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cPX3lEIS4bo
|
#
?
May 14, 2017 19:31
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2024 19:55 |
|
|
You ever been to st. albert?
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2017 21:00
|
|
|
So how many times do you say "eh" in a day, eh?
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2017 22:47
|
|
|
Slim Jim Pickens posted:You ever been to st. albert? Yes! My husband is from Stalbert, as well as some of our friends. Vincent Van Goatse posted:So how many times do you say "eh" in a day, eh? Personally, none.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2017 02:33
|
|
|
Alberta, aka, North Worse Texas
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2017 05:37
|
|
|
How urban and rural are we talking? Have you lived in suburban Edmonton, or only rural and urban? Do you live in the city proper now? What's the worst thing about each of the types of Alberta living?
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2017 07:14
|
|
|
Nessa posted:Personally, none. Do you hear it in a day?
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2017 12:39
|
|
|
How bad is C-16?
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2017 12:46
|
|
|
roomforthetuna posted:How urban and rural are we talking? Have you lived in suburban Edmonton, or only rural and urban? Do you live in the city proper now? What's the worst thing about each of the types of Alberta living? I have lived in Tofield, Vegreville, St. Albert and Edmonton. Tofield is a little town about 45 minutes from Edmonton and is where I grew up. It's got a population of about 2000 people, so it's the kind of town where everyone pretty much knows everybody else. Lot's of churches. Most of my peers hated the place and couldn't wait to leave. I was the oddball for loving small town life, thought I will admit that the town is run by a bunch of stubborn old folks who are afraid of change. I remember when the town got a video store, an ice cream parlour and the first fast food restaurant. It was an exciting time of growth! I remember going for a lot of walks to the ice cream parlour and riding my bike around town. It was a pretty safe place to grow up. My grandparents had a farm outside of town, so I'd go there pretty often in the summer too. The farm is just outside of Ryley, a village with a population of less than 500. That's where my mom grew up. Apparently, my birthday is still listed on the Ryley town calendar because I guess they just put everyone's grandkids birthdays on the calendar so no one forgets. I also spent a lot of summers in my youth at my other grandparent's farm way out near Beaverlodge. Lot's of time spent playing with a dog, picking peas off the vine and watching all kinds of birds from the kitchen window. I lived in Vegreville for a couple years after high school. It's a town of about 5700 and has a large Ukrainian population. My grandparents family all lived in Vegreville, so though I only lived there for a couple years, I spent a lot of time there as a kid too. There's an annual country fair and my great aunt and uncle would always buy us ride bracelets for the weekend. Rides, games, a trade show, a craft competition, chariot and chuckwagon races and a grandstand show, usually featuring a magician or hypnotist. Then fireworks every night for 3 nights! The Veg fair was always a great time to spend with extended family. When I went to college, I moved to Edmonton and lived with my dad for a bit. I soon started staying with my boyfriend in St. Albert until we got our own apartment in downtown Edmonton. It was super convenient living downtown and I loved all the tall trees everywhere. The pedway systems made it easy to get around in winter. Our second apartment was just outside of townton, but right across from the train, so it only took 5 minutes to get downtown. We were close to the river valley still and went on a lot of nice walks while living there. Nearly a year ago, we bought our first home a bit further northeast of our old apartment. It's now necessary for us to drive, but the train is only a 17 minute walk away. I would say the worst thing about rural living is that you do need to drive if you want to do anything exciting. Wanna see a movie? It's an hour drive. Need to buy new clothing? Another hour drive. Vegreville kind of had the best of both worlds in that it was big enough to have a clothing store (they have a Wal-Mart now too, which closed down the Saan), a bowling alley, a movie theatre with 2 screens and even a pet store. The worst thing about city living is all the garbage everywhere. It's especially bad in the spring as the snow melts to reveal all the trash underneath. I also don't live in the safest neighbourhood, so I worry about that sometimes. When I was waiting for the bus only a few blocks away from my home, there was a guy who got really upset with me and was yelling at me. I was terrified and worried I might become a statistic before I even got to school. About 4 blocks away from my home it starts to get really shady, so I make sure to keep looking ahead and ignore any strangers. Vincent Van Goatse posted:Do you hear it in a day? Not really, no. The only people I might hear say it are guys at a bar. "You see the game last night, eh? That ref!" fart simpson posted:How bad is C-16? It seems to be a good thing? Protecting gender identity and expression is good.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2017 19:19
|
|
|
Vincent Van Goatse posted:So how many times do you say "eh" in a day, eh? People use it way more often than they think, and they can't hear themselves say it, so don't expect Canadians to accurately self-report on the subject. It just kind of creeps in there the way "like" and "umm" and "yeah?" do for other types of English speakers. Nessa, I've always pictured Vegreville as a single industry town with the Case Processing Centre for immigration as the major employer, considering that working in immigration we are always referring to and using CPC Vegreville. Is this the case, and what is the general consensus about the centre moving to Edmonton?
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2017 19:50
|
|
|
Is it true that Westlock has the highest per-capita instances of incest in North America? That was a thing somebody told me once.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2017 19:59
|
|
|
Have you ever taken visitor to the really big egg in Vegreville? BTW, I grew up in St. Albert but now live somewhere much better that isn't Alberta, AMA
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2017 20:01
|
|
|
Spadoink posted:People use it way more often than they think, and they can't hear themselves say it, so don't expect Canadians to accurately self-report on the subject. It just kind of creeps in there the way "like" and "umm" and "yeah?" do for other types of English speakers. I think it's honestly less common here, at least in my circles. It's occasionally used as a replacement for "huh" and I mostly hear it from older people and at places like bars and liquor stores. quote:Nessa, I've always pictured Vegreville as a single industry town with the Case Processing Centre for immigration as the major employer, considering that working in immigration we are always referring to and using CPC Vegreville. Is this the case, and what is the general consensus about the centre moving to Edmonton? The friend I lived with in Vegreville worked at the immigration centre! She got the job because they were specifically looking to hire more minorities. I don't know how people feel about it moving to Edmonton, but I know my friend would have loved it as she hated living in Veg. She was only there because her/our boyfriend (that's a whole other story) wanted to live there. She lives in Calgary now, but she keeps up with immigration news and runs an immigration Facebook page. I don't know anyone else who worked there though. I wouldn't even be able to point out which building the place is in. Most of the family I have out there is long retired and were all farmers. Old, retired farmers make up a good deal of the town I think. bvj191jgl7bBsqF5m posted:Is it true that Westlock has the highest per-capita instances of incest in North America? That was a thing somebody told me once. I wouldn't know. Never been there. bvj191jgl7bBsqF5m posted:Have you ever taken visitor to the really big egg in Vegreville? Didn't really have visitors that weren't already familiar with the big egg. There's also a town with giant perogies on a fork and Mundare has a giant sausage. Where do you live now and in what ways do you consider it to be better?
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2017 20:37
|
|
|
Nessa posted:Please ask me any questions you have about living in Canada or being Canadian! I can only really speak to my experiences living in urban and rural Alberta, so I welcome folks from other parts of the country to chime in as well. I've spent a couple days in Edmonton. Nice town. Reminds me of parts of Texas in a lot of ways. My question is: where is "urban Alberta"? Earwicker fucked around with this message at 22:09 on May 15, 2017 |
|
#
?
May 15, 2017 22:06
|
|
|
Earwicker posted:I've spent a couple days in Edmonton. Nice town. Reminds me of parts of Texas in a lot of ways. My question is: where is "urban Alberta"? Urban Alberta is Edmonton and Calgary, our two largest cities.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2017 22:58
|
|
|
Nessa posted:I think it's honestly less common here, at least in my circles. It's occasionally used as a replacement for "huh" and I mostly hear it from older people and at places like bars and liquor stores. I can believe that. I spent a few days in Ottawa last year and didn't hear anyone say it. Hell, I only met one guy who said "aboot" (which really sounds more like "aboat" anyway).
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2017 23:21
|
|
|
I've lived in Montreal, Halifax, Fredericton, Edmonton, and the GTA. I've also visited every province except Newfoundland so I can take some questions as well I guess! Alberta is a terrible place, but not as bad as Manitoba as far as I can tell. It's also better than New Brunswick, which is the worst place in the world.  I currently work in Northern AB so I can speak to that a little bit as well. Fun fact about Alberta: There's a town called Vulcan that's dying and has a Star Trek centre shaped like a spaceship. It's very depressing! tuyop fucked around with this message at 01:24 on May 16, 2017 |
|
#
?
May 16, 2017 01:22
|
|
|
what are the basic Canadian accents? I know about the Newfie accent, the Quebecois accent, and the one where they say "surry" and "oatside" I guess that's Ontario? people in western Canada seemed to have the same accent as most of the western US.
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2017 01:26
|
|
|
You encounter more 'eh' the further east you go. And maybe more with older folks. Earwicker posted:what are the basic Canadian accents? I know about the Newfie accent, the Quebecois accent, and the one where they say "surry" and "oatside" I guess that's Ontario? people in western Canada seemed to have the same accent as most of the western US. Yeah, most of the PNW sounds the same on both sides of the border.
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2017 01:30
|
|
|
Earwicker posted:what are the basic Canadian accents? I know about the Newfie accent, the Quebecois accent, and the one where they say "surry" and "oatside" I guess that's Ontario? people in western Canada seemed to have the same accent as most of the western US. People from cities talk like Americans. People in the countrysides of provinces have hilarious and distinct accents. Off the top of my head: Nova Scotia South Shore accent, kind of like a stereotypical person from Maine. Cape Breton Accent, low rent Newfie Halifax, wannabe Torontonian Dartmouth, white trash New Brunswick Bay of Fundy, hardcore franglais that actually can't be understood anywhere else Northumberland Straight, see Dartmouth above Fredericton, see Dartmouth above Quebec Montreal, I don't know, they say their T's weird or something. Ontario Toronto, they speak like everyone else but refuse to pronounce their city name as if it starts with a T. The rest I've seen sounds just like any newscaster in the US Manitoba You start to get some weird hick sounding voices up here. Kind of like white trash but they'll talk more about pulling the head off of a turkey instead of going to the only strip club in Nova Scotia (Ralph's Place). Alberta Many words have two syllables for some reason: fire, car, wire, etc. See Manitoba. BC We're back to typical North American poo poo except for the rural areas which could be confused for Alberta except snowboarding instead of cowboying (read: driving a snow mobile).
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2017 02:14
|
|
|
tuyop posted:Fun fact about Alberta: There's a town called Vulcan that's dying and has a Star Trek centre shaped like a spaceship. It's very depressing! I keep meaning to do a road trip to Vulcan! My favourite place is probably Drumheller because it's the town with the dinosaur museum. There are dinosaur statues all over town, including a t-Rex wearing a tuxedo. I think I would like to live there someday. Earwicker posted:what are the basic Canadian accents? I know about the Newfie accent, the Quebecois accent, and the one where they say "surry" and "oatside" I guess that's Ontario? people in western Canada seemed to have the same accent as most of the western US. Western Canadian accents are pretty close to Northwestern US ones, but there are some subtle differences. The town I mentioned before, Vegreville, has it's own unique accent. My mom picked it up temporarily when she worked there as a telephone operator. It's very similar to the Midwest accent. I can usually tell when someone is from there because they sound like my relatives.
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2017 02:25
|
|
|
Nessa posted:I keep meaning to do a road trip to Vulcan! Oh yeah, and the Mike from Canmore Royal Canadian Air Farce (is this known in the US?) accent is a real thing. I don't know if it's actually from Canmore. I also like Drumheller. It's got a very interesting landscape. Being from the East Coast, I find the topography around here really unsettling. It's too flat and you can see forever and I don't like it.
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2017 03:23
|
|
|
Nessa posted:It seems to be a good thing? Protecting gender identity and expression is good. But did you know some Yale professors quit their jobs because of the sort of ｃｕｌｔｕｒａｌ ｍａｒｘｉｓｍ that C-16 represents?
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2017 03:23
|
|
|
Nessa posted:Where do you live now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFk2_5RkwlA quote:and in what ways do you consider it to be better? Every single way that isn't related to the quality of minor hockey players and the insanity of their parents.
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2017 03:26
|
|
|
Holy Cow. Alberta is like 10 times bigger than Scotland with a similar population. Vast expanses of nothingness in Canada?
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2017 15:25
|
|
|
Macarius Wrench posted:Holy Cow. Alberta is like 10 times bigger than Scotland with a similar population. Yup. Lot's of farm land. Most of the population lives within a couple hours of the US border. The further north you go, the less there is, then you get into permafrost areas where nothing can really grow. There are a few areas in northern Canada that you can only reach by plane. It is incredibly expensive to live up there because it costs so much to import groceries and basic necessities. They don't even have sewer systems up there. Nessa fucked around with this message at 21:14 on May 16, 2017 |
|
#
?
May 16, 2017 16:59
|
|
|
Nessa posted:Yup. Lot's of farm land. Most of the population lives within a couple hours of the US border. The further north the you go, the less there is, then you get into permafrost areas where nothing can really grow. I flew from Calgary to Peace River the other day, and it's really striking just how much loving nothingness there is along that route. And then you realize that the southern part of the "north", like Yellowknife, are as far again as you've just travelled and there's whole expanses of even more nothingness way north of that.
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2017 20:52
|
|
|
PT6A posted:I flew from Calgary to Peace River the other day, and it's really striking just how much loving nothingness there is along that route. And then you realize that the southern part of the "north", like Yellowknife, are as far again as you've just travelled and there's whole expanses of even more nothingness way north of that. Yeah I make the drive up from Edmonton to a town near Peace River every few weeks. It's like driving through New Brunswick. Canada is a little bit bigger than the entire US, including Alaska, and has fewer people than California. It's just a lot of trees and swamps forever. Edit: I think it's a cool experience to drive up the I95 from Georgia straight through to New Brunswick, because even Maine looks like a thriving metropolis compared to the Northern side of the border along that route, and if you continue East or West along the Transcanada, it'll be like 6 hours until you reach a place with a population larger than the undergrad population of a large university (Quebec City to the West, Halifax to the East). I95 in comparison is basically one huge city for like 30 hours of driving. tuyop fucked around with this message at 02:42 on May 17, 2017 |
|
#
?
May 17, 2017 02:35
|
|
|
I simply cannot fathom Canada. A drive from end to end in Scotland might take 5 hours. I'm lucky in that I live in a relatively rural area and I've got countryside right at my doorstep but also every major city within an hours drive. Some parts of Canada it sounds like you'd take longer just getting to a cinema than watching the film itself.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2017 13:12
|
|
|
Macarius Wrench posted:I simply cannot fathom Canada. A drive from end to end in Scotland might take 5 hours. I'm lucky in that I live in a relatively rural area and I've got countryside right at my doorstep but also every major city within an hours drive. That is definitely the case. There are some small towns that are several hours away from a major city. In the prairies, it's not uncommon for smaller towns and villages to cluster around a larger town with more amenities, like a Walmart and a movie theatre. That lets people in those smaller places only need to drive 30 to 40 minutes, instead of the 2+ hour trek to the nearest major city. I'm lucky my town was close enough to a major city that day trips were pretty frequent on the weekends. Small towns and villages that are near each other will also tend to form one community with a friendly rivalry. Most of the folks in Ryley do their shopping and visiting in Tofield and people from Tofield go to Ryley to use their swimming pool. When we'd go to spend a couple weeks at my grandparent's by Beaverlodge, it was a long 7 hours of driving. We stopped going every year because my mom couldn't handle the drive back home anymore. Nessa fucked around with this message at 18:29 on May 17, 2017 |
|
#
?
May 17, 2017 18:27
|
|
|
Some Canadians have an itch to just drive North for as long as they can on the weekend, 'just to see what's there', and it's very annoying to dissuade them from this because it's a waste of gas and there's nothing there. That's why I've never been to the top of Vancouver Island, because while there is a beautiful park up there, the six hour drive to the park would mostly be endless trees. Also see: the drive into Ottawa, the goddamn national capitol, from anywhere.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2017 19:16
|
|
|
Macarius Wrench posted:
It's funny you say that, we drove down to see Life and it took 90 minutes each way. The tickets only cost $5 each, the Theatre only took cash, and it looked like it hadn't been renovated since the 70s, there were even ashtrays in the seats! And we're not even very far north, you can drive places! There are whole sections the size of France where there are just no roads and you've got like 40 shipping containers and some prefabs where people live. Like Igloolik, where I desperately want to work for a year or two. Though Resolute Bay has better photos of that stuff I think. It looks like the surface of the moon.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2017 21:30
|
|
|
as an American I'm glad there is so much room up there. see yall soon!
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2017 21:57
|
|
|
Nessa posted:I keep meaning to do a road trip to Vulcan! Other than the museum and a few geological features around the Red Deer river, Drumheller is a garbage tourist trap full of creationists and prison employees.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2017 20:11
|
|
|
tuyop posted:Alberta is a terrible place, but not as bad as Manitoba as far as I can tell. It's also better than New Brunswick, which is the worst place in the world. Nah, Manitoba is great; 3x the land mass of all the British isles but with just 1 million people? Largest continuous region of boreal forest in the world with amazing rivers and lakes and almost no people. Perfect!
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2017 16:01
|
|
|
I always said to myself that if I visited Canada it would be the maritime provinces. I always found the idea of visiting Nova Scotia fascinating, might be cause I'm Scottish. Also had no idea that Montreal was on an island. With that I have done Canada questions I could just google but I'd rather hear answers from authentic Canadians. 1. What's the most dangerous animal in Canada? 2. Which is the best band from Canada? 3. So do Canadian schools teach French further West? 4. What caused the division between America and Canada? 5. Why is France so integrated into French culture but not Spain which also has a massive presence in America. Thank you kindly Canadians
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2017 16:18
|
|
|
bvj191jgl7bBsqF5m posted:Other than the museum and a few geological features around the Red Deer river, Drumheller is a garbage tourist trap full of creationists and prison employees. The museum and geology are primarily why I would want to live there. Also, milder winters. My mom's friend lived there and her backyard faced the hills, so she'd go out after a rain and pick up fossils. I have some fossilized wood and some bone from when I was out at her place. I'm a bit of dinosaur nut, so living in dinosaur town would be cool to me. Macarius Wrench posted:I always said to myself that if I visited Canada it would be the maritime provinces. I always found the idea of visiting Nova Scotia fascinating, might be cause I'm Scottish. Also had no idea that Montreal was on an island. With that I have done Canada questions I could just google but I'd rather hear answers from authentic Canadians. We have bears and wolves and cougars. But moose are the most dangerous. You can hit a deer with your car and come out unscathed, but if you hit a moose, you're pretty much dead. If you're not in a car, they can really gently caress you up if they want to. They are pretty massive animals and faster than you'd think. Polar bears are also very dangerous, but you're very unlikely to interact with one unless you live in Churchill. I've seen footage of polar bears playing with dogs out in Churchill. There are a few places with black widow spiders and rattlesnakes, but you're unlikely to encounter them. quote:2. Which is the best band from Canada? I'm gonna go with Bare Naked Ladies. quote:3. So do Canadian schools teach French further West? Yup. I had regular non-optional French classes from 4th through 12th grade. I cannot speak French. I remember a few words and phrases, but I would not be able to understand someone speaking French to me unless they spoke incredibly slowly and mostly used the words I know. quote:4. What caused the division between America and Canada? In what way? I mean, historically speaking, The American colonies were separate from the Canadian ones from the start, as far as I know. America became it's own country and eventually rebelled against the British. Canada only officially became a country 150 years ago. We're a Commonwealth country, so we still have the queen on all our money. I've always viewed Britain as Canada's mom and America as our rebellious older brother who ran away from home at 16, while we took our sweet time and only moved our of mom's place at 25 and still chose to live just down the street so mom could still do our laundry. quote:5. Why is France so integrated into French culture but not Spain which also has a massive presence in America. If I understand your question correctly, much of Canada was explored by French explorers and there were major French settlements here. Spanish settlements were much further south in America. The Spanish just never really came here.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2017 17:08
|
|
|
Nessa posted:I'm gonna go with Bare Naked Ladies. Depends on the kind of music you like, but we also made Arcade Fire, the Weakerthans, Grimes, Feist, etc etc. And we certainly did have Spanish explorers here. I'm not sure of the politics behind why their legacy is so different in Canada than the French, but I live near the Juan de Fuca strait, and visit Tofino every summer.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2017 18:14
|
|
|
DavidAlltheTime posted:Depends on the kind of music you like, but we also made Arcade Fire, the Weakerthans, Grimes, Feist, etc etc. Huh, I never knew that! I had certainly never heard of any in school, just all the big name French guys.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2017 21:00
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2024 19:55 |
|
|
DavidAlltheTime posted:And we certainly did have Spanish explorers here. I'm not sure of the politics behind why their legacy is so different in Canada than the French, but I live near the Juan de Fuca strait, and visit Tofino every summer. They explored but never colonized the western coast of Canada (and Alaska), because by the time they got to that area they were already stretched very thin and starting to fall apart as a global power. And the British were already much stronger in that area. So, there were definitely a few individual Spaniards in what is now Canada but there are no parts of Canada with a history of Spanish settlement as in much of the US and the rest of the Americas. And so there was never much reason for large numbers of Spanish people to emigrate to Canada the way there was for the actual Spanish colonies.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2017 21:26
|
|