Slowly and steadily the first snowflakes of this winter fall towards the barren ground, as if they knew that it is too early for them, as if they wanted to spare us the cold months ahead, if only they could. But nobody calls a halt to nature´s forces. The view from the living room window is breath-taking, almost too exciting for the view from a common apartment, but that´s only the thoughts of my German mind. Not too far ahead of us large hillsides stretch out, most of them only sparsely covered in bushes or a lonely tree. In the interplay of shadows and light the giant´s faces seem to be always changing, now they slowly grow pale below the thin layer of powder snow. At our feeder two pileated woodpeckers are looking for a refreshment to conquer the harsh winter weather, further down the yard the white-tailed deer are playfully fighting over their ladies. In the valley below our appartement we can see the shore of the Kamloops Lake and several equestrian centers, ranches and single houses on their enormous properties. Only a car ride of half an hour is separating us from Kamloops, but still we are closer to nature out here, than we have ever been in Germany. But how did we end up here? I hereby would love to answer this question after a long time of silence.
The last time I tried to write this down, we had just arrived in Canada. Our arrival had been both astonishing and sobering, already on the plane we were ungently ripped out of our trance of a ten-hour flight, when the local government alerts were warning us about the devastating forest fires in Nova Scotia, before we even had set foot on Canadian soil. Our first few days were wonderful, yet disillusioning. Our plan to cross Canada in our own car was almost impossible after a thoroughly research left us with the facts that you had to independently insure your car in every single province and that east coast cars with rust-damage from road salt were hard to sell on the west coast. Moreover, Nova Scotia had an incredibly high unemployment rate, and we felt bad about the idea to take away jobs from the local people who really needed them. We quickly decided to fly further west. But before we left the maritime province, we tried to see as much as possible of the natural beauty of Nova Scotia on a road trip. We visited steep cliffs, formed and destroyed by the wild surge of the ocean und we saw a multitude of foreign birds and wildlife which we had never seen before. We fell in love with the rough beauty of Kejimkujik National Park and fell asleep in our tent with cicadas and crickets chirruping around us under a sky full of stars, while the calls of the loons were haunting the nighttime forest. It was harder than expected to leave this beautiful place behind, but the appeal of the unknown captured us before we could even grieve.
Our arrival in Vancouver was not much easier, though, Canada was seemingly trying not to make it too easy for us. We rented an overpriced car at the airport, because we wanted to look at a car on Vancouver Island. The rental car was supposed to take us out of the city right away, not only because we yearned for nature, but rather because we could not afford the local accommodations. But we did not get that far, even though our flight from Halifax to Vancouver was only five hours, we got hit by the worst jetlag of our lives, none of us was able to drive anymore and so we had to stay in a guest house to recover for two days. Re-energized we departed to our little Vancouver Island round trip, but we could not take all the time in the world, because in the meantime we had secured our first farm job on workaway, for which we had to set out to Alberta as soon as possible. But again, everything developed differently than estimated: the young German girl who sold us her car, forgot to mention several more or less major issues with the car and we did not look carefully enough because we were in a hurry. We were confronted with the first problems when we left Vancouver towards Alberta and had to turn back to get the car to a mechanic, looking back being more doubtful would have saved us thousands of dollars. We were lucky that we had to forcefully lengthen our stay in Vancouver, otherwise we never would have met our good friend Marilu from Argentina who made us part of her family and let us help with her Airbnb. She not only gave us emotional support but helped us lighten our moods when we were in total despair. Our new boss was also desperate for help at the farm, so we left Vancouver as soon as the car`s condition allowed it.
The road to our first job was an adventure in itself. It is not a big surprise, why so many people come to Canada every year only to be sitting in a car and explore the seemingly endless highways. A road trip in British Columbia is rarely disappointing, even after all these drives down Canadian roads we always discover something new, see stunning natural landscapes or have thrilling animal encounters. So, we made the best of our little joyride to Hinton in Alberta, before it was about to get serious for us for the first time. As I mentioned before, I had found our job on Workaway, a social network for willing workers and farms, ranches or lodges looking for volunteers or employees. We were lucky enough to find a job that was paying minimum wage, but also very much in need for money. It was mostly my dream to work with horses in Canada, not only because I grew up with them and love working with them, but even more because I wanted Kevin to get to know and fall in love with these majestic creatures as well. Our boss was a young-at-heart cowgirl in her sixties who was running the whole guest ranch with cabins and trail rides on her own. We were thrown a little into our daily tasks because we arrived in the high time of the season and sometimes we were not sure what was expected from us, our German minds expected clear instructions. Our saviors were Josie from Sweden and Sergio from Spain, a joyful and relaxed couple who had been travelling all over the world who helped us to get into the vibe of seasonal work. I learned everything about western tack which I had never used on a horse before and the western style of riding and Kevin learned from both Josie and me how to act around horses, how to care for them, how to get on a horse and how to stay in the saddle. On one of the last days on the guest ranch, we could already ride through the forests in full gallop with Kevin, unfortunately this ride was a one-time experience because we had too much work to do.
Our days on the ranch were mostly like this: around 8 in the morning one of us would go and water the horses and the other one went from our trailer to the main house to prepare breakfast. If there was a trail ride in the morning, we gathered the horses we needed from the paddocks and brushed them and tacked them up. If guests checked out of the cabins, teepees or the suite we had to clean those in the meantime and prepare everything until 3PM when the new guests would arrive. Half an hour before the ride leaves, the guests would arrive who we had to brief on the horses and the rules of the trail and on top of that made them sign their lives away, before helping them to mount the horses. The rides were always between one to two hours, rarely we had a three-hour ride. After that the horses had to be taken care of or new horses brought down and tacked up for the next ride, the shower house on the campground had to be checked and cleaned, horses on pastures had to be watered and twice a week garbage and recycling had to be taken to the disposal station. Besides all of that, we were building a new fence on her lease that the government demanded. Kevin improved his mechanical skills and fixed the quads and the skid steer every once in a while. In the evening, we cooked and had dinner together with our boss and some nights we sat at the fire next to our trailers with Josie and Sergio until it got dark. Our season ended in late September and we went on a road trip through the Rocky Mountains.
Our season in Alberta ended with a covid infection for both of us. While Kevin was sick at work, I was sick as soon as we left and so we escaped to a hotel in Edmonton where we hid and did not see daylight for the next few days. But I soon got better, and we were able to celebrate Kevin´s birthday with a concert of howling coyotes in the background and a delicious beer at a cozy fireplace on a campground in the Elk Island National Park. We were sleeping in the back of our truck and soon got used to being on the road and calling our car our home. For three weeks we discovered the Rocky Mountains in this manner and explored famous tourist attractions, like the Icefields Parkway, turquoise-blue Lake Louise, the mountain villages Banff and Jasper and we climbed countless mountains which were already powdered with the first snow of the season. We wanted to keep on working with horses or other animals on a farm in the winter season as well, we were absolutely sure that we did not want to work in a ski resort like everybody else does. Because of the fact that we were still completely clueless about what to do this winter season, we visited our friend Marilu in Vancouver once again and helped her out in the Airbnb and spent some good times with her and her family and Debby, an Airbnb guest from the UK. Again, everything developed differently than expected and one afternoon when I was tending to the garden, I got a call from a nice lady from Mount Washington Ski Resort on Vancouver Island who said she would not only hire me, but Kevin, too. We quickly found a great accommodation as well and our winter season was safe. Since we still had to bridge some time in between, we found ourselves a three-week volunteering position at a small private equestrian center in the Cowichan Valley where we worked for food and accommodation. We were responsible for taking care of the horses and the cutting and clearing of fallen trees around the property. In return, our host and his son fixed some issues with our car, so that after several months it finally ran on all eight cylinders again. The farm of our host family was in a dream-like location, a decent part of Vancouver Island´s magical rainforest was on their property, which invited us to go for numerous hikes after we finished working. At this place our hearts began to burn for Vancouver Island again.
Shortly after that our season at the Mount Washington Ski Resort in the Comox Valley started, but since we applied so late in the year, all that was left for us were the dishwasher positions, but that was great for us anyways, because we were mostly lured here by the mild winter temperatures and the stunning landscapes with the ocean at our doorstep and the mountains in our backyard. We moved into a furnished apartment belonging to a cheerful and humorous lady, who turned into a good friend in the upcoming months. The ocean was just a short, five-minute walk away from our home and so we spent every unoccupied minute there. We took our bird-watching skills to another level, explored the ocean floor that was uncovered by the tides for hours and watched the colorful creatures living in the tide pools with excitement. We hiked for hundreds of kilometers across the island´s trail network, climbed high peaks and explored green rain forests filled with mosses, lichen and fern. We had found our personal paradise. In the workweek we were picked up by a staff bus in the morning in the city center and brought to the resort on Mount Washington which took us almost an hour one-way. When we arrived there, we first cleaned up the mess from the night before and were then responsible for the dishwashing machines and picking up and taking out the dishes where they belong. The work was neither challenging, nor exciting, but it paid our bills and that was the important part. Our supervisors and co-workers were the ones that made our time at Mount Washington special: our coworker Katy was always up for a nice chat, the bakers Katie, Johanna and Andrea always kept us well-fed with burned or damaged goods from the bakery and our supervisor Amanda did the best she could to keep us happy. Unfortunately, we spent way too few hours on the slopes, because we always worked when everybody else was skiing or snowboarding and at the end of the season, I had not only hurt my knee badly, but also been on the snowboard only four days in total. We had seen a lot more of the island, though, than most of our coworkers had, all of our days off we spent hiking and exploring. When the season came to an end, we stayed for a few more months with our landlady Barb, not only because we loved this place so much and Barb let us work in her amazing garden for hours, but also because we had to figure out how to get another visa.
Even though the process of getting a visa had been so easy in Germany, it got a whole lot more difficult over here in Canada, because in the meantime Kevin had become too old to obtain a working holiday visa. We spent hours and days investigating around the questions how to extend our stay in Canada and if we could not do it, where should we go? We were really focused on staying and so we figured out a way in the end, to buy another visa for me with a recognized organization and then sponsoring Kevin with my visa as my “Common-law partner”. In Canada you do not have to be married to live in a recognized and proven relationship, you can legitimate your relationship with shared contracts or similar proof and after spending so much time together, this was not a problem for us. But first we needed an appointment at the border to activate our visas and to get an appointment you have to go to the border in-person. So, after a little Sunshine Coast road trip, on an extremely hot summer day, we had to go to three different land borders in our unacclimatized car until we finally had an appointment that was only one week and not one month in the future. In the meantime, our good friend Marilu became our safe haven again. In the weeks prior to our appointment, we had gathered every imaginable document that they might want to see and so our visas were granted quickly, even though I was in constant fear in the waiting room. The immigration officer was kind and wished us another successful year in Canada and let us go.
While we were dealing with this stressful topic, our boss from the guest ranch called and asked us if we could imagine another summer in the Canadian Rockies and since we missed the horses badly and yearned for the outdoor work, we left for Alberta right after our visa appointment. We knew beforehand that we could only stay for two months, because while I was struggling with the visa stuff, Kevin managed to find a promising position with a German-Canadian company which wanted him to start in October. Not the engineer job he was hoping for, but a good start as a technician for CNC wood-cutting machines on a larger scale. We spent our summer again with the horses, with countless funny and entertaining chats with people on the rides, with nerve-racking accidents and horse training. We felt like real cowboys and -girls, even though we weren’t even working with cattle. This year our boss had the wild idea to buy a green, pregnant mare called Addie and to see her colt “Payday” growing up and living his best life was one of the highlights of our season. Another highlight were our co-worker Carmen from Germany and our friend Debby who had worked on the guest branch for years before. We had loads of funny conversation, swam in the ice-cold lakes of the area, even went for a swim in the Athabasca River and ended most of our days with a bear at the same fireplace as the year before. Life was good. At the end of September, after we had a lovely birthday celebration for Kevin and attended the Hinton Oktoberfest, we drove all the way to Airdrie where Kevin had a three-week training for his new job. Finally, we returned to British Columbia where we are now living in the outskirts of Kamloops. Kevin works from home most of the time and occasionally must go to costumers in Central BC to help with problems or install new machines.
Even though the time flew by when we look back, we lived through countless ups and downs that we never would have experienced, if we would have stayed in Germany. There were lots of difficult days: my depression and anxiety disorder stressed me out daily, the job market is a tough competition when it comes to professional jobs, the prices for rent are astronomically high, the wages barely adjusted to that, and groceries are often ridiculously expensive. And still, we have no regrets, because at the same time we have done so many breath-taking hikes, have climbed so many lonely mountains and have camped on deserted sand beaches without another human being close by, have encountered bears, have seen wild whales playing in the ocean, have ridden through colorful forests on horse-back, have had delicious beer-breaks on blue mountain lakes, have encountered cheerful and helpful people along the way and finally found ourselves again in the vastness of this country, spending our days together every day. We did not have many expectations when we came to Canada, but this country captured us with its vastness and untamed nature, and it has presented us with opportunities that we never had in Germany.
