This year marks 25 years of yours truly living in this magnificent province.
I should explain that those years have not been spent in chronological order.
I was born in North Vancouver and spent my first year of life in B.C. before my family moved to Montreal and then Toronto.
I returned, alone, in 1992 – the call of the mountains and ocean being too much to ignore and the concrete jungle becoming too much to bear. And here I have stayed.
My family eventually followed.
When living in such an ecologically diverse province as this one, a decision has to be made of where to plant your roots: Do you choose urban or rural? Lake or ocean? Rainforest or boreal forest? Valley or mountaintop? It’s a bit of a quandary.
It depends on where your interests lie, what your budget can afford, where the jobs are, what kind of life you want to live.
The cost of living on the coast can be prohibitive, but the work more plentiful and the shopping, nightlife and culture more diverse.
Then again a mountain town can be a prohibitive place to afford, unless you want to cram into one house with 10 ski bums sharing the rent. But then you have fresh air to inhale, powder to shred, rock faces to climb, and trails to hike and bike to your heart’s delight.
Or you can choose the quiet life in a sleepy island cove or a small city or town tucked alongside one of B.C.’s many Interior lakes or rivers, or a farm in the plentiful Peace Valley, or a mining/logging town, where the fishing and foraging are not just for weekend retreats.
I’ve been lucky to experience most of those scenarios. I’ve lived and visited just about everywhere (OK, except for north of Prince George. Just chop three-quarters off the top) around the Southern Interior and Vancouver Island.
I have moved more than a dozen times – from the capital of Victoria to the snow covered mountain town of Revelstoke, to the quaint seaside villages of Cowichan Bay, Maple Bay and Ladysmith, to right here in the Okanagan Valley.
As a photographer, I worked up and down and all around Vancouver Island, along the Sunshine Coast, in the Lower Mainland over to Hope through to Princeton and Keremeos, and up to Squamish and Whistler.
My sister and best friend live in opposite ends of the Kootenays – second homes to our family.
My newspaper reporting jobs have taken me to places in between, each community having its own peaks and valleys.
And along the way, I have always scouted out the place where I could lay my hat, settle down, raise a family, call home.
The North Okanagan has been that place for close-to 16 years. Originally beckoned to Vernon through a university-work internship at The Morning Star, I have remained here for numerous reasons – work, family, and location.
Where else can you swim in a lake, climb a mountain, and eat an apple fresh off the tree all in one day?
And it turns out that lifestyle is beckoning others. The North Okanagan is becoming a hot spot for new residents.
It was just announced that Vernon is the fifth fastest growing town in B.C. with a population of 25,000 or more, while the North Okanagan is the third fastest growing regional district.
The area has also been receiving positive media attention as of late.
Reader’s Digest listed Vernon as one of the ultimate places to spend a long weekend vacation out of five Canadian destinations.
B.C. Living Magazine just released the ultimate guide to visiting Vernon, listing some of the city’s restaurants, attractions, accommodations and wineries (although two of them are actually located in Lake Country, but BX Cidery is on that list).
And Silver Star Mountain, along with Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre, is currently ranked #4 out of 20 favourite cross-country ski resorts in a USA Today readers poll (the only Canadian resort on the list).
So the word is getting out there.
My wanderings around this province have led me to one of the best places to live. Right on!
