Spring has officially sprung and that means I am lagging WAYYYYY behind on the happenings of the J-squad. Nothing new there, eh? (Did you catch that eh?). This is a continuing trend it seems that I can’t shake off. Maybe some day.

Canada presents an entirely new landscape that we haven’t explored. I know that I won’t be able to scratch the surface of all that we’ve done, but I’ll give it a shot. I absolutely love when things once foreign become routine. Life on the ranch is exceedingly enjoyable. It forces us to spend tons of time spent outside. Physical tasks are super rewarding, and significantly easier to tackle on land vs. the boat. The icing on the cake is all of the animals that we get to play with. What’s not to love?

Our daily lives follow a pattern. We each have our own routines and chores. Jake is following a training schedule that would allow him to partake in a marathon, which means he will do yoga and do a run every morning. Thankfully we have access to a treadmill, otherwise slogging through ice and snow and cold would be required. In the meantime, I will spend each morning doing work and then either make breakfast or tend to our fluffy chickens. And of course, no Jake and Jill morning is complete without a trip to the climbing gym, where we spend about 2 hours, 5-days a week.

Life continues to revolve around the weather, just as it did on the sailboat. We like to walk the property everyday to ensure its all in order and to get the pooch some exercise (the cat sometimes joins in for part of the march). That is unless its -40 degrees or blowing 70 knots of wind! Then we must entertain ourselves indoors or in the workshop. Winter in Canada did not bring nearly as much snow as we expected, but it did bring very chilly temperatures for weeks at a time. It is an incredibly dry climate here, but we’ve grown accustomed to it and find that a 0 degree (32 F) warrants short and t-shirt attire.

The early months of winter only gave us a few hours of daylight. Being that we are so far north, the sun would barely reach above the horizon and only hang around for a few hours. It was an adjustment to live in near darkness for the bulk of our days. With such little daylight, we tried to accomplish all of our chores in the short span of time. One perk of dark skies is the ample opportunities to photograph the moon and stars. We still haven’t seen any Northern Lights but my fingers are crossed.

Now that Spring is here, the sun is up far longer, almost 15 hours compared to 5. That means we can spread it out a bit. Some chores are less frequent. The collection of firewood, for example, is only required a handful of times. We already had a large pile to begin with, but burned through it very quickly in the early winter months. We tried to anticipate the weather so as to replenish the dwindling stock before long bouts of cold or snow would come. Early on we did much of this job manually, with axes and a handheld chainsaw. It was tedious and only gave us a mire amount of wood that would barely last us a week. We got smart and took advantage of the resources at our disposal, namely the Bobcat, chainsaw and wood-splitter. The process was far less exhausting, other than trudging the wood pile up several flights of stairs.

There is no garbage pickup out here in the country, so we find that we are more conscious about the waste that we do produce. We feed the compost to the chickens, use paper and cardboard items as kindling, save the items that are recyclable and drop them off when we have a good stash, and then burn the rest of the garbage on one of those infrequent snow days (or non-windy ones).

We only ever saw an inch or two of snowfall at a time, but the strong “Chinook Winds” caused massive drifts locking us in. On average we would get 50 mph several days a week. One day it blew steady at 78 mph, causing doors to fly open and anything loose outside would break apart or blow away. The Bobcat is the savior in all of this. If you have ever seen “Life Below Zero,” one of the characters in northern Alaska uses her Bobcat for everything. I can fully appreciate and understand the glory of this wonderful tool because it hauls, lifts, pushes obstacles aside and its a blast to operate.

After the chores are done, we find time to explore the areas around us. Banff National Park is a short 40-minute drive with countless trails. Lake Minnewanka and Castle Mountain are two of our favorite areas. We have been out to Lake Louise with some good friends for a day of ice skating. Our gracious hosts let us use their cabin in Windermere, BC, which is nestled in a mountain-valley and sits right on a huge lake. We’ve explored hot springs, national forest, ice climbing meccas and still have barely scratched the surface of this amazing land.

There are loads of the animals and wildlife on the property. Deer, elk, coyote, fox, hawk, pigeon, magpie, porcupine, weasel, and even 2 gigantic lady moose are seen almost daily on the property. And of course our surrogate animal family, Ekho, Radar and the chickens. The chickens share their coup with wild pigeons, so it can get a bit crowded in there. They don’t like to go out much in the winter (can’t blame them) and egg production is much lower. When it warms up, they’re outside as much as we are and they give us TONS of farm-fresh eggs.

With a steady stream of eggs, Jake and I do loads of cooking and baking. Jake is the MacGyver of bread and puts his skills to use daily with delicious coconut breads, butter-crust breads, sweet rolls and buns. We delight in making food from scratch (see the homemade veggie burger on homemade brioche bun and hand-cut potato fries below). I’ve been focusing on the sweet-side of baking, AKA, caking. I’ve taken a few semi-professional courses; covering the fundamentals and materials used as well as wedding cake design and construction. I still have a long way to go and tons to learn, but it has becoming my most favorite hobby.

To top it all off, we have made some wonderful new friends and enjoyed being social; game nights, dinners, weekend trips, hikes, climbing adventures and so on. This is a place that Jake and I could easily call home.

Canadian Culture

Canada is quite different to the US in a lot of ways. I was surprised by how extraordinarily diverse Canadians are, being from every corner of the planet. It seems like this is a TRUE melting-pot of culture and everyone (no matter race, color, background) is welcome. It gives me some hope in humanity, especially with all of the negativity surrounded by human differences, but here, those differences unite people. And of course, those people are some of the kindest, giving and caring that we’ve ever met. Speaking of different culture, one fun aspect of this is seeing a bi-lingual country in everyday life. All the street signs, food labels, etc. have both English and French on there. Its wacky to see everyday brands that we know in another language! Temperatures are recorded in Celsius and measurements are on the metric system; speed and distances in Kilometers, so on and so forth.

In some ways, it feels like we’ve gone back in time about a decade. The adverts on television make that abundantly clear. Its not like this everywhere, but here in the country technology doesn’t seem quite as advanced. People certainly aren’t on their phones as much, and many don’t even have smartphones, which I think is GREAT.

The biggest sport celebrated is ice hockey (go figure), though all winter sports are popular. I’ve seen more professional curling in the last few months than ever before in my life! We’ve taken to ice skating on frozen lakes and rivers in Calgary and ice climbing is a new and intriguing activity we’d like to dedicate some time to.

The most common vehicles are trucks and small hatchback SUV’s. All cars have 4-wheel drive and all of them are filthy. It seems futile to clean them since many roads are gravel and dirt out here. Old Blue blends in nicely. Petrol (as its is called here) is way more expensive and comes out by the liter. Its about $5/gallon, but no one seems too bothered by this. Its odd filling up, though, because you have to know ahead of time how much gas you need OR how much you want to pay. We almost never get it right and end up with a 3/4 full tank.

In general, most items are 25-30% more expensive than in the states. Food, especially organics, are significantly more pricey. Its fun to shop at the “Canadian” chain stores; similar to Home Depot and Wal-Mart (both of which exist here), are places like Canadian Tire, Canadian Superstore (like Costco) and Tim Hortons (like Starbucks).

We’ve even experienced the healthcare system a tiny bit. I hurt myself on a hike, hyper-extended my back and strained my abdominal/stomach muscles. We bought some medical insurance (which you have to do if you don’t want to pay the pricey bills) and in all it worked out very well. In the E/R, they treat patients based on the severity of the accident. Mine was very low-risk so we ended up waiting a long time for treatment. But, it was all done right there, imaging, x-rays, an IV for pain. It was very quick and easy and with insurance we didn’t have to pay anything.

Its important to note that while some things are free, not everything is included. Canadian citizens don’t have to pay for basic care; think broken bones, accidents, even surgical treatments related to such things are covered. Specialized ailments (psychological or mental-health issues, physical disabilities, etc.), prescription drugs and/or if you are above the age of 55, require additional insurance, similar to the states. In all, the system works well but its not perfect.

One surprising thing is that the roadways aren’t managed as well as we assumed they would be. Plowing is only done on the Trans-Canada Highway, otherwise its completely privatized and therefor most roads are left to their own devices. Just a few inches of snow can be catastrophic. I guess thats why everyone has 4-wheel drive out here. There were many days when the roads were too treacherous to attempt, made worse because the snow turned to hard-packed ice and didn’t abate for weeks at a time. Thankfully most of our driving was to and from the gym (on the Trans Canada).

Did you know that in Canada, most people don’t wear shoes indoors? Its a faux-pas to wear outside shoes in yours or someone else’s home and even in some public places. Its common courtesy to remove shoes and either have inside-only shoes or slippers, or socks.

In all, Canadian culture is one that we truly enjoy and could easily fit ourselves into. The environment is right up our alley, as are the sweet cuddly animals that we get to play with everyday!

Ekho is the most well-behaved dog we’ve ever known. We have enjoyed teaching her some new tricks (like playing fetch) and going on long walks and hikes with her. She is very independent but is always craving our attention. She is quirky too. Her favorite things are chasing coyotes, burying treats or bones in the yard and/or under pillows and helping with farm chores. She is friends with the chickens but gets very jealous of the cat and will fight for your attention if giving it to Radar. The kitty is incredibly sweet and funny. He is the most vocal cat I’ve met, letting us know if he wants something (mostly more food or treats). He loves to basque in the sun or by the fire and roam the property for small animals. He chases birds and has caught several mice (good boy). He also loves to cuddle. Radar and I have a special bond and he follows me wherever I go, which is so cute!

Its been such a blast and we still have a few more weeks to soak it all in before we have to go back. The hardest part in all of this will be leaving our animal family, friends and life we’ve made here in Canada.