Hiya,
Depressed southern neighbor here looking for some advice. I’m sure you can guess where I’m going with this, so let’s not mince words: what’s some advice on getting to the Vancouver area, obtaining a visa, and a job, etc.? I’m not really looking for nitty gritty details on legal processes and what not, I can find that info documented in various places online (unless you just have a really good link chocked full of info for me). I’m more so looking for some insight from the denizens of the area that know it well.
I’m a millenial that’s been in tech my whole life. I know it’s a massive field, but because I’ve been on linux terminals since I was a wee lad I know how to do… well almost everything that has a job title for it and even at an older age I can pickup new languages and systems with relative ease. Besides that, I’m also an electrician, mechanic, and musician. I’ve been loosely looking for jobs, but so far what I’ve seen seems to be in the city and I need to refine my search. I generally prefer to be closer to the forest, or the mountains (glacier snowboarding is on my bucket list, before they all melt), but I wouldn’t turn down the city if it came down to that.
What are some not-so-populated areas of the west coast that still have at least a semblance of infrastructure? I don’t really care about nightlife, I just want to do tech things and mind my own business without everything that’s happening around me right now (I’m currently in the epicenter of the southern maga dipshits).
I’m curious, too… what’s the temperature like as far as Canadians accepting educated, healthy, non-fascist US citizens? In other words, do you think there might be some bias against me just because of where I currently reside? Take note how I don’t call myself American, because my ancestry is not indigenous to this land. I just happened to be born here.
Any advice on places to checkout/avoid, companies to checkout/avoid, etc. would be awesome and I appreciate it.
And just in case it’s a requirement, you should also know that I put a spoonful of Maple Syrup in my coffee every morning, nothing else. It’s a magical thing! Started doing that many moons ago and I’ll never take coffee any other way now.
ETA: After a couple of comments and staring at the map, I probably should have said British Columbia rather than specifying Vancouver, that’s my bad. Seems to me like the remote areas up there may be more my speed.
Some people might try to dissuade you, as there is a housing crisis in BC. But truth be told it’s a beautiful place, you’ll fall in love with it. Nobody will hate on you for being American. Anywhere on Vancouver Island would be very civilized but it gets remote up above Campbell River. The Kooteney’s are gorgeous, Nelson and surrounding areas. Shushwap is nice. The Okanagan. Up north Quesnel is supposed to be great. There are crappy areas in some of these places too, the island feels methy at times. It’s not perfect but you could make a life there and be very happy imo. It’s gonna be expensive
The kootenays are my favourite area of BC but there isn’t any housing vacancy. I recently had a job offer for 100k/yr in nelson but i couldn’t find anywhere to live for 2000/mo and i lost the job offer.
Damn, the housing bits I didn’t really know about, which means that expensive is probably an understatement.
It’s almost sounding like I may need to consider anywhere else in CA. I do love remote, though. I really love remote areas. The sound of nature does wonders for my tinnitus and focus.
If you like remote, consider northern Ontario. You don’t even have to get super north for the population to plummet. The area is also incredibly beautiful, but so is BC and they don’t get the same snow (there’s so much snow, oh god…).
The only issue with Ontario is that I have some personal reasons for wanting to be somewhat close-ish to Washington State. I have considered it, though. I used to work with some devs up there, but my company canned them before I could get transferred…
Which one is the snow king, Ontario or BC?
Well, in terms of amount of snow, northern Ontario probably has more. But in terms of snow-related recreation, BC has more skiing and snowboarding opportunities since there are way more mountains. Ontario is more suited to ice skating, snowshoeing, snowmobiling (AKA skidooing), and sometimes tubing.
Haha, good distinction. There’s “the king of dumping on you” and the “king of fun” kinda snow.
I know Whistler is pretty much THE ski spot in the entire world.
We’re a country of mostly trees and fields, so there’s no lack of nature. Or remoteness.
I would try to find a map of areas serviced by fibre optic internet, and use that to target regions to look into.
Do note, though, that basically anywhere between the Rockies and, like, Fredericton gets right proper cold during winter.
Good idea on the fibre map!
I’ve experienced cold-as-shit, but I’m not sure I’ve experienced proper cold yet. Lowest was -8F (-22C) and even then it only lasted for the coldest part of that night and went just above 0F (-17C) as the sun came out.
I lived in Vermont at the time, house was heated by an oil furnace. The furnace died 2 days before this happened and didn’t get replaced until a week after 🥲