The Move to British Columbia, Part 2: Leaving Ontario

Before the Labour Day weekend of 2021, we pulled the trigger on our move to British Columbia. I had driven from Toronto to Calgary once, but I didn’t think I could re-create the same route and timing with the kids. Using Google Maps shows that crossing the country is accomplished the quickest with crossing the US border, but COVID-19 testing requirements ruined that idea. So we left early in the morning from Mississauga with a fairly unambitious goal of making it to Sault Ste Marie (the Canadian one – there’s one on the Michigan side too!).

Before I get into the journey, I should mention our packing. Obviously, we couldn’t fit everything we owned into my Kia Sportage, but a Thule rooftop carrier and trailer hitch bike carrier made it feasible that we could have a bit of life when we got there. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get my wife’s bike onto the rack due to its shape; it’s a ladies-style leisure bike and doesn’t have the normal triangular frame that the rack needed. The upside is I got to bring 2 bikes, my Trek hard-tail and Sable. The drive into Northern Ontario, was part familiar (maybe till around Sudbury), then got new and novel.

We stayed in a Holiday Inn and ate at Montana’s.

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The next day’s driving was a tricky one – we selected Dryden as our destination; Thunder Bay wasn’t far enough, Kenora was too far. Thanks to stopping in White River for the Winnie the Pooh monument (and a job interview over the phone), we were driving through lonely Northern Ontario roads in the dark and rain, which was a little white-knuckle for my tastes.

2 days just to get out of Ontario! The next day took us clear through Manitoba with a stop at a Winnipeg McDonalds’. In Regina we had a nice evening of Sushi and Steak at an Earls’.

Now we knew we were closing in on our new home. The next day we spent some time getting last-minute items for school including socks and pants. We stopped for lunch in Medicine Hat, but had something special planned for the evening – we would be staying at the Canmore Inn. Canmore is a tourist town for sure but was the better option (compared to Banff) going into a long-weekend COVID or not. The kids loved the waterslide and pool and it was a welcome change from being cooped up in the car for 3 days. Lucky for us, the Lightning Kid had a swimming cast on. Did I not mention he had a broken ankle?

Here’s a video to get you caught up!

From Canmore, we got to drive through the mountains, and start really savouring the scenery.

The cell service in the mountains was surprisingly poor, given that we were on the Trans-Canada highway, and we had been forewarned that forest fires were still active. Though there was nothing dangerous to us, we could smell smoke throughout our drive and we saw a helicopter dump extinguishing chemicals on a small fire.

We arrived at our temporary digs in Langley in the late afternoon. The kids attend school in Abbotsford, and Shark Boy is back to competitive gymnastics training in an actual gym. We’ve moved around the Fraser Valley a bit, but we’re settled in nicely here. More BC adventure reports coming!