Living where you thrive
Credit to Author: rebeccakeillor| Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2019 13:00:25 +0000
When mobility trainer Natasha Currah and her husband Patrick started having children, they began reassessing their downtown Toronto lifestyle and looking at alternatives.
“We loved our neighbourhood (Christie Pits) and the city worked really well for us, but once we started having kids we started seeing things more long term,” Currah says.
Schooling options for their daughters, now six and nine years, along with the fiercely competitive lottery systems for alternative schools were factors, she says.
“I could really picture myself being more a helicopter mom in that area, so we both were looking for a lifestyle change. A big part of it was also not wanting to raise our kids to be consumers, and I felt like when we were in the city, everything we did was transactional,” she says.
Bowen Island home of mobility trainer Natasha Currah where she lives with her husband, Patrick, and daughters Eden and Hazel.
Friends of the couple had moved to Bowen Island, says Currah, and were posting photos of their view.
“We were like, what! And then we realized Bowen is a totally commutable island, but has such a removed from the city and civilization type of feel,” she says.
The Currahs moved to Bowen five years ago and haven’t looked back, she says.
“You get really good simple things. Living downtown, you’re always dealing with noise at night, or it’s not fully dark. For me, I wanted my kids to sleep somewhere that was super quiet, and really dark and it feels safe here for them, so I can give them more freedom. We wanted to bring them somewhere they can thrive,” she says.
The key for them — in making this move a successful one — was to think flexibly, Currah says.
“I don’t come from the mentality that you buy one home and that’s your home forever. You go with what suits your phase of life,” she says.
When asked what some of the highlights have been for their family, Currah replies: “We arrived on Halloween and the neighbourhood and the community and the amount of effort they put into decorating all the houses, and the fireworks is so amazing. Halloween is definitely a highlight point. Swimming in the phosphorescence in the pitch black in summer is pretty great, and the ability to leave school with my kids and go straight to the beach. I feel really fortunate,” she says.
Moving from Burnaby to Bowen Island allowed Paula and Erin Gillgannon to build their own home.
Fellow Bowen Island resident and stop motion animator Paula Gillgannon and her husband Erin moved to Bowen with their three sons for much the same reason, Gillgannon says. They sold their Burnaby home and moved to the island three years ago following a shooting across the street from where they lived, and were hankering for more fresh air, she says.
“We were looking for something similar to how it was where we grew up,” she says. “Where the kids could play and run around the neighbourhood and you don’t have to set up a play date two weeks in advance,” she says.
They have found this on Bowen, she says.
“Our 10-year-old goes fishing and looking for snakes. They’re interested in wildlife and insects, which we didn’t have right beside us before. It was a day trip to go to that kind of thing,” she says.
Access to the West Vancouver schools for their sons’ middle and high school years, along with Bowen’s local elementary school, which is a 10-minute forest walk from their home, have been some of the highlights, says Gillgannon.
“When they come home after walking through the forest, even for 10 minutes, it kind of rejuvenates them. As opposed to other schools they’ve been to where there’s just a couple of spindly trees and a parking lot.”
Selling in Burnaby also meant they could build a large, new home on Bowen, she says, and have more space than ever before.
Bowen Island home of Paula and Erin Gillgannon, where they live with their three sons.
“The kids all have their own rooms. We have a big garage and workshop for me,” she says.
Paula’s husband does commute to Burnaby from Bowen every day, where he works for Electronic Arts, and this isn’t without its inconveniences, she says.
“If you’re looking for something cheaper than the city, you’re trading the highway for the ferry. So there’s still that division, that hurdle to get over,” she says.
Child psychiatrist Smita Naidoo and her husband moved from an apartment in Coal Harbour to a large home in Burnaby village two months ago. The move was motivated by a few factors, says Naidoo, including feeling increasingly unsafe on the streets around their neighbourhood because of drugs and the area feeling too transient.
“We were right in Coal Harbour, on Cordova Street,” she says.
The new buildings being constructed around their apartment building was also giving her environmental allergies, says Naidoo.
“I would just be sitting down on the couch and breaking into hives and it was just really bizarre, but it makes sense because there’s so many pollutants in the air,” she says.
They love their new home, she says, and if they have any regrets it’s that they didn’t make the move sooner, spending years feeling completely discouraged by what they couldn’t afford in Vancouver as opposed to what they could get for their money further out.
“I think if you’re looking within a small lens where you’re currently renting you’re going to be constantly disappointed and you’re not going to get what you want,” she says.