Why move from Jasper?

A lot of people have been asking why we would decide to move from Jasper. I just thought I'd take the time to let everyone know why we made this decision.

It is true, Jasper is a beautiful place, one of the top nicest I've seen yet. But from the moment we moved here, it became very apparent that we would never be able to live here permanently. Jasper is extremely expensive (half a million for a falling down shack), and even more, not very welcoming. I don't mean to insult Jasper, but I have found that most people here to be very guarded due to the transient nature of people who live here. We have only a few friends that we have known since moving here 6 years ago, that are still here... the rest all moved away. Also, never say you are a local, if you're not born here you have no right to say it (so the real locals say). Most of all, living in Jasper is so expensive, that one must work enormous amounts of hours, especially during the summer, thus one can never truly enjoy the wilds of Jasper National Park. Living in a National Park is difficult, there are numerous double standards; there are many rules that apply to all but park employees... nudge nudge wink wink.
Another reason is the climate. After several failed attempts at a garden, I gave up. Every evening in the summer, the temperature always dips down to single digits... a constant reminder that winter coming soon. When winter does hit, often we receive little to no snow, making winter fun more like aggravation (except ice climbing... you can't beat it here).

Believe me, we contemplated living here for the rest of our lives, we said we would never move anywhere that didn't have all that Jasper has to offer. Well then we found Lillooet... everything Jasper has and more. After six years of living here, Jasper really began to wear us down in all sorts of ways, emotionally, financially, and physcologically. I don't regret a moment of living in Jasper, I accomplished a lot and saw a great chunk of the park (more than most life-long residents), but I couldn't stay any longer... the funny thing is, many people that we know here will also be leaving this year too. I never understood why people thought Jasper was a hard place to live; now in retrospect, I can clearly see that it is true. I no longer see Jasper as the next best thing to heaven; it is more like its historically reality, a place with extreme environments that was never conducive to ongoing human habitation. Natives never lived here full-time, only wandered through from other areas of favourable conditions. I feel I have done much the same... stuck around when conditions were more or less favourable, only to move on to a better place for our needs.

Lillooet Blog

Waterfall coming from Moon Lake - found 5 km from Lillooet, heading East on HWY 99

Two Damsel flies on Pavilion Lake, 45 km East of Lillooet

Check out my other blog - Livin' Life in Lillooet @ http://lillooetbc.blogspot.com/.

I'll keep you posted on my renovations and other Lillooet stuff. I'll keep posting on the mountain world when it pertains to mountain stuff!

July and movin' on

Happy Canada Day!

What the hell is George Doing here?!?

Surprise Lake - Final Visit

Surprise Lake

Surprise Lake

Hey everyone, here's a few photos from July. Most of our time has been devoted to moving and moving out. Over the last month George showed up with Isabelle. We moved all of our stuff during the second week of the month, and I just returned from Lillooet today after a lone 10 days of renovations. Tracey and I move out on the 30th and will be in Lillooet as permanent residents on July 31!