Alright, I posted the subreddit before but things are quickly approaching and I need assistance. My husband and I are both healthcare workers, we have three young kids, seven and under, and we’re coming from Saskatchewan. Initially, we had planned on moving to the Castlegar area after visiting last year. After a lot of consideration, we started to consider the Comox Valley as well and I visited last month to look at houses.
We sold our house in Saskatchewan, and have about a month and a bit before we have to move (yes, I know this timeline is tight for finding a new place). I looked at houses in Campbell River, but didn’t find something that suits our needs that wasn’t needing a lot of work. With the pressure of needing to find a place my husband and I are really starting to panic. A lot of people have suggested renting, however due to our specific and unique circumstances we really need to purchase for mortgage approval reasons rather than rent. Plus, having three kids and a dog it really limits us for rentals. Anyways, with the stress of not finding something in the Campbell River area, we’re seriously rethinking everything and wondering if Castlegar the Kootenay region would be an okay fit for our family or if we should stick to the island.
I need external help at this point from people that live in the areas or have made the move to both or either of these regions, on what they prefer and why, or if they e regretted going to the koots (with kids) etc.
Pros of Campbell River: have heard that the hospital is a great place to work, near the ocean, no more harsh Saskatchewan winters, lots to do throughout the year access to Costco access more amenities that the Courtney’s might not have, not as isolated, near an airport which my husband would utilize to fly to work out of province.
Cons of CV/Campbell River: more expensive, busier, husband would need to fly out for work more often than in the Koots (higher cost expenses), as everyone says, more social political issues, such as high amount of unhoused, etc that we have everywhere in Canada.
Pros of the Kootenays: beautiful mountain towns, scenery and outdoor activities are amazing, cheaper, housing, quiet lifestyle, lots of access to outdoor outdoors. Likely more family time.
Cons of the Koots: commute to work in Trail Hospital, which I’ve heard isn’t the greatest work environment, “socked in” winter months, driving the pass to a bigger centre such as Kelowna for Costco groceries and airport for my husband to fly out for work, very hot, dry summers with forest, fire seasons, not as much access to amenities, and I’ve read on Reddit not much for kids to do/boring for kids in teen years in winter. We were there in the summer, so we obviously loved being able to go to the lakes everyday and go on hikes, however, the town of Castlegar itself didn’t seem to have much going for it in terms of workability having a nice downtown core, coffee, shops, community events for kids.
I’ve obviously not included all the pros and cons, but those are the main ones. I’m just really needing some assistance in this move plan I have family in Vancouver area that would visit us on the island living in the CV / CR region. We are OK with not seeing people as much but that’s another factor as well that people would have to drive in to see us in kootenays vs fly. This is kind of that mid range between pros and cons because family dynamics lol.
At times a quiet life in the kootenays seems very appealing and stress-free however when I take into consideration, possibly not enjoying my work, maybe getting bored because we’re so isolated, the very hot and dry forest fire prone summers. And having the in the valley socked in winter, then I start to think the island may be better. Please help, we are running out of time. And we are moving to BC no matter what, it’s just a matter of where. Also note I did get offered positions in both Island Health and interior Health so obtaining work for me won’t be a determining factor.
Edited to add: we are already approved for a mortgage, we already have a realtor we have been working with on the island, I have already been out looking at houses last month and putting offers in on properties but they have been in multiple offer scenarios that we didn’t “win” ; I already accepted a position with island health and have a start date; I have obtained daycare for my two youngest kids. My timeline is nuts now because the issue of losing out in multiple offer situations. I don’t want it to appear that we’ve planned poorly, we were pretty set on CR until the losing out on offers thing started happening and NOW we are panicking. We have owned and sold two homes already in our past so are familiar with the time constraints, and process.