Six B.C. towns among '10 worst places to live'

I don't know about that report, Williams Lake and Quesnel are certainly mill towns, but they are nice small communities.

Great place to retire to, quiet and small, easy to get around.. but still has the WalMart and all the major stores.

I think these guys are talking through their ass.

I think they forgot about Trail...

Hey, none in Ontario!

I agree. Someone living in these towns may have other things that Money Sense can't make sense of. If I lived in Bay Roberts I would certainly have a boat and lobster and crab pots and spend quite a bit of my time with a rod in the ocean. Being able to go to the Opera may be a good thing but it's not the most important.

I take all these reports with a grain of salt. One report had Kingston Ontario as the second best place to live in Canada, and while it's a nice city I can think of a dozen or more places I have lived that would put Kingston to shame.

Agreed.

Prince Rupert is a port we regularly visit, and I always enjoy it. Campbell River (outside of having Campbell in the name) ain't so bad, nor is Port Alberni.

Definitely full of shit.

...indicating the authors have never been to Lindsay or Arthur or Hamilton or, SEVERAL sections of the GTA (if Jane & Finch isn't on a list of the worst places to live in Canada ) And what about all the shitty paint-sniffing, suicide's-the-most-common-cause-of-death Native reservations in this country? Don't they count?

I imagine some of these towns are on there because they are supported by the forest industry which just went through it's worst year ever. Also it's next to impossible to get a doctor in these towns if you are new. I've been in PG for four years now and I still can't get a family doctor.

City slickers who have no appreciation for small town life - or the outdoors, obviously. Quesnel is the perfect little town for anything to do with nature, really. Hiking, boating, rafting, fishing, hunting.. it's all there. And, as you said, all of the amenities.

Obviously they've never been to Dawson Creek.

Terrace & Rupert you couldn't get a job to save your rain-soaked ass.
Williams Lake & Quesnel winters would scare anyone from the Mainland to death and might have 4 more jobs than Rupert/Terrace
Campbell River there's no work, high prices and both it and Port Alberni are an expensive ferry ride and a long drive from reality.

But believe me... there's plenty WORSE places in BC.
cough... Vanderhoof... cough, cough...

WTF man I grew up there. Ft. St. James is worse.

Living in the Fort, I simply must continue the rivalry.
At least we have a lake and an economy about to boom.

They missed Hazelton with it's 96% unemployment?

Vanderhoof is one of the worst place to move to in BC.

I do not want to attack anybody who lives in Vanderhoof. I just write down my personal experience and some of others who live or lived in your town.

I do not want to single out your town, because I think most small communities like this no meter where you go, but this is a personal experience, so it dose have validity.


I moved to Vanderhoof over 3 years ago. We made our decision by the initial visit and interview with one out of the 25+ churches’ leaders, to place our young child into there privet ( means family business)“Christian “ school. We had high hopes moving to a “small Christian community” because we thought that it is the right place for our family to live in. What a mistake!!! We did not know that the town is broken into 25+ of social groups ( churches) and only about 4,000-5,000 people? .
We found out with in a year that they are self serving, self protecting, people calling themselves Christians. There are two main groups of religious groups in Vanderhoof. The Mennonites and the Mormons. I do not know much about the Mormons, because we by chance got involved with the Mennonites. The only way an outsider can get in the inner circles if he or she married someone in this groups. If you come into the town with your own family, you are set up for frailer. Unless you are a professional whom they can not function with out , like a doctor,a lower, or a dentist. Professions that they can not produce from they own groups. These folks are tolerated. We were not one of this professions, so we are neglected from day one. We tried a lot of things to fit in. Joined their church, helped out of their social events, helped out in their school, and nothing. They just won’t care to make any effort to make friends with us. I have developed a serious depression because of the social isolation we been experiencing for the passed 3+ years. I lived in this beautiful country for over 26 years and do to this experience I am seriously considering to leave Canada and go back to my country of origin. We thought that we are doing something wrong. Not try hard enough to fit in. But a couple of days ago I spoken to a man who lived in Vanderhoof 40 years ago told me when the town was a boom town in the early 70's, and they were taking in anybody who came close to town to fill the positions in their wood mill, he had felt the isolation in the good times as well. He said “ I do not want to bad mouth them, but I felt that the people were cold to me , never wormed up to me while I lived there”. There is one other family I recently met had been living here just over three years and they are also try to get out of here. I just mentioned to them that how we fell, and instantly we became friends. I call my new friend John to keep his identity secret, so he cannot get in trouble because of me. So, John asked me if he could come and visit us, after a short conversation with him. They feel the isolation too. He told me he do not know most of his immediate neighbors, they never cared to say hello or invite them for a coffee. In a town where everybody knows everybody???!!

I like to advise people who were not born in Vanderhoof, to stay away from this town!! People are as I wrote earlier, self centered, selfish, and self protecting. I also call them self serving Christians!! If there is anything like that....

I cannot wait to get out of here!!!!