Blackout Curtains and Other Canadian Mysteries
There are some things you don’t truly understand about a place until you live there.
Healthcare is one of them.
Blackout curtains are another.
Stay with me.
Waiting for a Family Doctor
We’ve now been eligible for British Columbia’s healthcare system for nine months and, like many British Columbians, we’re still waiting to be assigned a primary care physician.
Had you asked me about that before we moved, I probably would have considered it alarming.
Today, I don’t.
Part of that is because we’ve discovered the reality is more nuanced than the stories often told south of the border.
Shortly after arriving on Vancouver Island, we visited a local clinic with a list of medications prescribed in California, copies of relevant medical records, and a healthy dose of uncertainty. A physician reviewed everything, met with us, and renewed all of our prescriptions.
Problem solved.
Would it be nice to have a dedicated family doctor? Absolutely.
But if urgent care is needed, it is available. Like many healthcare systems, there can be waits depending on demand and urgency. So far, however, we haven’t found ourselves lacking care when we needed it.
The larger challenge isn’t unique to Victoria. Across Canada, physician shortages have left millions of people waiting to be attached to a primary care provider. British Columbia is actively recruiting healthcare professionals from around the world through programs such as Express Entry and provincial immigration pathways.
Which brings me to another lesson from this week.
Finding Community
Recently, we hosted a gathering for members of a social media group made up of former U.S. residents now living on Vancouver Island.
It’s a remarkable collection of people.
Some came for family. Some for retirement. Some for adventure. Some for reasons more personal. Yet despite arriving here through different doors, most of us seem to share a common conclusion:
We love living on Vancouver Island.
Every week, new members join the group. Regularly, someone posts a photograph of a favourite beach, a forest trail, a ferry crossing, or a neighbourhood café they have discovered. (Speaking of regular, at the end of our social gathering, both the group’s administrator, Bob, and I, as hosts, realized none of us had taken photos. We were all too engaged in chatting, sharing our own experiences, and eating some delicious food.)
Among those attending our gathering was a nurse and his husband from Florida, by way of Portland. Goodness knows, we need as many nurses, doctors, and other healthcare professionals as we can attract. Enter Canada’s Express Entry pathway for a wide range of professions. Listening to their story of why they are moving here next month reminded me that solutions to today’s healthcare challenges are already underway.
Progress isn’t always dramatic. Sometimes it arrives one family at a time.
The Mystery of the Blackout Curtains
Now for the question that puzzled me when we first arrived: Why do so many rental listings and real estate ads proudly mention blackout curtains? Back in Southern California, that seemed an oddly specific selling feature. Somewhere between “updated appliances” and “new flooring.”
Now I understand.
Victoria sits significantly farther north than our former beach town of El Segundo. As summer approaches, the sun rises earlier, shines brighter, and lingers longer than we were accustomed to. Our bedroom faces east, and lately I’ve found myself awake before 4:30 a.m., encouraged by a determined ray of sunshine to start a cappuccino and take the dogs for their morning walk.
The curtains aren’t decorative. They’re defensive equipment.
What surprised me even more was comparing the weather forecast back home with Victoria’s. This week, Victoria’s daytime temperatures ranged from 70°F to 76°F (21°C to 24°C), while our former Southern California beach town hovered between 71°F and 75°F (22°C to 24°C).
In other words, Victoria wasn’t colder at all.
That’s one of the great misconceptions about Vancouver Island. People often assume that because we’re in Canada, summer must be cool and rainy. Yet Victoria enjoys one of the mildest climates in the country. The trade-off isn’t temperature—it’s daylight. Lots and lots of daylight.
And apparently, the need for very good curtains.
What Living Here Is Teaching Me
One of the great surprises of relocation is discovering how many assumptions you bring with you.
- You think you know what healthcare will be like.
- You think you know what you’ll miss.
- You think you know why people buy blackout curtains.
Then real life happens.
Nine months in, we’re still waiting for a family doctor. Yet we’re healthier than we’ve been in years. My blood pressure normalized within weeks of arriving. We spend more time outdoors. We walk more. We worry less.
We find ourselves keeping an eye out for our resident deer family, who appear twice a day on the grassy little hill across the street as reliably as any clock. There are six of them, and over the months we’ve watched them shed their winter coats, raise their young, and settle into the rhythms of the seasons. In a way, they’ve become part of ours as well.
The healthcare system faces real challenges. So do most healthcare systems.
But this week reminded me that statistics tell only part of the story.
The rest of the story is lived.
And so far, we’re quite happy with the chapter we’re in.
Cheers to that.
One of the surprises of living on Vancouver Island: Victoria’s forecast often looks remarkably similar to our former home in Southern California.
We spend more time outdoors. We worry less. And these days, we’re often awake early enough to watch the Island wake up alongside us.