It has been way too long since we’ve put something on this blog. Sorry, it’s been a bit of a whirlwind summer. However, I’d like to write a quick summary of our time in Canada, one of the biggest highlights of the summer.
Since arriving in the states, we have been flat out. We were told by others who have come here from overseas with a family that the first six months or so would be a mess and take a lot of getting used to. They were kinda right. After we’d been here for half a year and had survived the first winter, the place started to feel a bit more like home and it felt a bit more normal. But it was still full on.
As the summer and the one year mark approached (remember summer here is June-August) we realised that we had been going full steam ahead for almost 18 months without a real break away. Also, we’ve wanted to go to Canada for years (like, about 10) to take Sonia back to visit the place she spent a year of her youth on a student exchange. We figured that we were more than three quarters of the way to Canada already (from New Zealand that is) and that it would cost over 3 times the price to go up there if we did it later from NZ, so we decided to head off to Northern Alberta, Canada to visit Wayne and Val Schamehorn and their family.
Canada was amazing. It is such a vast country, with amazing diversity. Where we were staying (Northern Alberta) it is mostly forest and vast amounts of prairie land. Sonia had said to me a number of times in the past that the sky was huge in Canada. Approximately just as many times I had thought to myself “the sky is the same size no matter where you are in the world – science kind of dictates that”. Well, it turns out the sky is HUGE!! in Canada. I don’t know how to explain it – I’m sure it is physically the same size as anywhere else on the planet, but it just seems to stretch an unbelievable distance, and in all directions. I’m picking that it’s due to the fact that in the prairie land there are no hills and almost no trees. There is nothing anywhere 360 degrees around you to stop you from seeing all the way to the horizon. It really is something to behold.
It also turns out that it’s not just the sky that’s huge there. The country itself is enormous. It’s enormous and vast. It’s enormous and vast and for the most part empty. Approx 80% of Canada’s population lives within 100 miles of the US border. If you look at a map of Canada you’ll soon realise that the other 20% probably get to have about the size of a small country each if they divided it up evenly. But I got the opportunity to experience first hand how vast the country actually is. I got to go on a fishing trip to the west coast, to a sea side town called Prince Rupert in British Columbia. It was about a 2000km drive, spanning three days (we did it in two on the way back). The thing that stunned me though, was that I had only travelled across approx a third of the country. It’s crazy how big the place is.
We all loved our time in Canada. The kids loved being on the farm up in Manning, riding on quad bikes, catching frogs, going camping and playing in tree huts. And we all loved catching up with so many people we hadn’t seen in a long time (and many that I’d never met before). They were all amazingly hospitable and everyone had time to stop and chat, and if required, spend an afternoon just catching up and “visiting”, as they call it. I think we can learn a lot about the way they structure their lives and the priorities they put on people and relationships.
There is one major downside to having gone to Canada – the fact that we want badly to go back one day. I would love to see a winter there (Sonia already has). We’ve had a winter here in Kentucky with a bit of snow, but we measure the snowfall here in inches and fractions of inches. They measure the snowfall there in feet (even though they use the metric system in Canada – that’s another story for another time). Perhaps one day the Lord will give us cause to go back there, but for now it is a memory that is imprinted in our minds with a vividness and a fondness that we are immeasurably thankful for – a memory that we will cherish forever.
