Why We Moved to Canada at Age 63

Finding a slower, quieter place

The U.S. adventures were terrific. But during our quests north of the border, we found ourselves falling in love. The Canadians we met were friendly and helpful but also realists who won’t bathe you in warmth. (Some of us appreciate respect for boundaries.)

But it was the stunning landscapes on both coasts that caught our imagination. Long hikes and kayaking trips beckoned. Other selling points — the relative lack of blight, a common language (outside of francophone Quebec, of course) and the fact that people, including those in government, have agreed to take care of one another — hooked us on the place.

As we pondered picking up stakes four years ago, we thought the swagger and hipness of Vancouver, not to mention its warmer Mediterranean climate, would suit us best. With our adult son and daughter living in Baltimore and Hawaii, respectively, the City of Glass would allow us to split a considerable distance.

But a three-year delay during the pandemic, coupled with our edging closer to retirement and the tough financial choices that come with it, forced us to reconsider how long we could afford to live in what a recent Chapman University study deemed the third most expensive city in the English-speaking world.

Landing in the East

Instead, we ended up on the other side of Canada in Dartmouth, a small town just northeast of the more cosmopolitan Halifax. It’s a five-minute walk to the ferry, then a 10-minute ride (that costs only about $2 U.S.) from our apartment to “the big city.”

Halifax (population: 492,000) boasts more charm per capita than most places: a delightful promenade along the harbor, several colleges and museums, a smorgasbord of excellent places to eat and drink, and a churn of people who are busy but not too busy.

As in many places within the Maritime provinces (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island), life unfolds at a slower pace, even as worldly Halifax both blossoms and groans amid a recent population boom.

Americans have a sanitized view of Canada that is not entirely wrong. It’s safer, a little slower, relatively calm and quiet. It exudes manageability. Not the sexiest attribute in the world, but for people of a certain age, that adds up to something resembling charm. (Save the seedy neighborhoods and edgy, exotic locales for the young, I say.)

With a population of 39 million, less than an eighth of that of the U.S., Canada can seem like something of a bedroom community, close to the center of things but far enough from the madding, rat-racing crowds to allow for some sense of peace.

Even as its handful of world-class cities hustle and bustle their way up livability indexes (and battle the same urban problems as megalopolises south of the 49th parallel), Canada remains a salve for many of the 1 million Americans who live here. The traffic is less gridlocked, the culture less angry and divided, the pursuit of wealth and status not quite so ceaseless. Upon arrival, we felt like we could exhale. Phew. Finally.

Not quite paradise

The Canadian bureaucracy and the much-admired, mostly misunderstood national health care system take some of the luster off that shine.

Judy, a physical therapist now living in a country with a shortage of them, has been prevented from working because she lacks a Canadian license. (This, despite being a citizen by parental birthright.) She’s spent much of our first year here battling the authorities over the authenticity of prehistoric, noncomputerized records from her undergrad days 40 years ago.

When we’ve needed health care it has been adequate or better. Anyone who is a legal resident in Canada can enroll in the national system. As a citizen, Judy was able to sign up immediately and received her health care card within 60 days of our move; I had to apply for permanent residency, sponsored by her, and got my card in about 90 days.

Still, access to care is an issue. Waiting lists for orthopedic procedures, even minor ones, can keep you from getting care for a year or more. In Nova Scotia, where health practitioners are in short supply, people wait for years to be assigned a family doctor. We not only get our meds but our checkups from pharmacists. Many can only see a doctor virtually — and they wait for those appointments too.

We find comfort in reminding ourselves that the care you do receive, including immediate help in the event of emergencies or dire diagnoses, will never result in bankruptcy, as it does for too many in the U.S. But it’s not free. You need supplemental health insurance to cover dental and vision visits, as well as things like private hospital rooms. (We pay about $130 U.S. each a month for supplemental plans.)

On top of that, many items, including gasoline and groceries, cost a good bit more up here than in the U.S. (a condition that predates pandemic-era inflation, although that struck here too). The 15 percent Nova Scotia sales tax is an added insult to the wallet. You fly through looneys — the Canadian dollar — as if through air.

Hard to forget ‘home’

At times, the challenges of setting up housekeeping across a border remind us of how much we’ve left behind. I still love Baltimore and all our people there. Some of them are suffering the indignities and travails of aging. Though they have children or significant others to help them, we regret not being around to offer on-hand support. We deeply miss our son. To say we feel a tug toward him, and our hometown, is a considerable understatement.

Maybe our friends are right. Maybe after an “adventure” here, we will decide to write life’s coda with the closure and resonance that comes only from the familiar.

Sunset over Georges Island in Halifax Harbour.

Carolina Andrade

Still, as I type these lines, sunshine glittering from Halifax Harbour makes me squint through my twelfth-floor windows. In the near distance sits Georges Island, once a prison for uprooted Acadians, now an emerald oasis in one of the world’s deepest natural harbors. Every now and again, I’ll spot a seal in the cove below my window. Cranes that hoist containers off hulking ships loom over Point Pleasant, next to the many cruise ships that dock here. The Atlantic Ocean dominates the azure horizon beyond.

Sure, things aren’t perfect up here. But I still can’t imagine living this well, or aging more gracefully and gratefully, anywhere else.

AARP essays share a point of view in the author’s voice, drawn from expertise or experience, and do not necessarily reflect the views of AARP.