Why climate change pushed these Western Canadians to move to Nova Scotia

Moving across the country isn't an easy decision for most people, but for two couples in British Columbia, it was made simple by the seasonal threat of wildfires and overpowering smoke.

Sarah Kistner and her husband, Carl, left the western province in December 2021, after a scorching heat dome plagued their area that summer, killing 619 people, according to the province's coroner service.

It was the deadliest weather event in Canada to date.

Amanda Sin and her partner, Casey, left last year, for the same reason, as smoke from wildfires made it difficult to enjoy the outdoors.

The couples both moved to the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia, and their decisions to leave, at least in part, were driven by the changing climate in British Columbia.

Sin and Kistner spoke with CBC Radio's Jeff Douglas about their decision to move to Nova Scotia.

Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Jeff: Sarah, where you were in British Columbia, what you were doing out there, what was life like for you?

Sarah: Well, my husband Carl and I had a farm there called Stone Meadow Gardens and we grew and cut flowers and sold bouquets at our farm stand and all throughout the West Kootenay region there. We've been doing that for, I think we're going into our seventh season doing that and we love the West Kootenays.

It's an absolutely beautiful area, lots of fun things to do and just like everybody else who's there for that reason, to go biking and hiking and play in the rivers and yeah, we really loved it.

Jeff: And Amanda, how about you?

Amanda: Yeah, same as Sarah. I lived about a half an hour from Sarah in Rossland and it was a small mountain community with amazing mountain biking and trail running and just outdoor adventures. That's why I was there and loved being there and with the start of the heat dome and the fires, it was becoming a little bit more difficult in the summer.

Jeff: How important were those activities — the mountain biking, the backcountry skiing, all that marvelous stuff — in your life there, Amanda?

Amanda: [It was] pretty much everything. Besides having to work and do all those things, every other moment was really spent being outside or planning the next adventure. I love the winter for backcountry skiing and all those things, but I absolutely love the summer for being in the mountains and biking, running and just experiencing the whole environment

And then when the summer became less enjoyable and you don't have views because you can't see because of the smoke and it's uncomfortable to breathe and it starts to hurt to breathe, then it definitely becomes less fun.

Jeff: And Sarah, I know for you the heat dome in 2021 was kind of a pivotal moment, right?

Sarah: It was, absolutely. Yeah. Of course, we love the Kootenays for all the fun that it offered as well, but we made our living working outside and over the few years before we had moved, of course fires are kind of part of the regular cycle in that sort of ecosystem. 

But they just kept becoming more and more prevalent and every summer it felt like, "Wow, OK, here comes smoke season. Get ready for it." That year with the heat dome, we were out working in the field and I think it was 42 degrees and we have three or four employees working with us and you could just feel everything change. 

Like everyone just was on edge because you knew that instantly there were going to be fires and I think that afternoon actually, the fires started and over the course of the next month, I think it was 35 almost every day and the smoke was so bad that you couldn't see the back of our field and here we are working in this. We have to be outside. That's where you grow your plants so every day it felt like it was becoming kind of more and more intense.

And we just looked at each other and we're like, "Is this really what we're going to be doing for the rest of our lives? Like this is kind of scary, and we all feel like we're a bit at risk."

And we just said, "Let's make a change."

Jeff: And Amanda, for you and your family, how did that moment come? Was it one moment or was it a slower, longer process?

Amanda: It actually seemed kind of quick in the moment. I think, as Sarah said, we're used to having some fires and having some smoke, but it might last for a short period of time, not everyday, not constantly. But in 2021, it seemed like it just came and stayed and then with the heat on top of that, you couldn't open your windows. It was just awful, and then I realized that's not necessarily going to get better with time, it's only going to potentially become worse and become more consistent and that really made me start thinking about making that change. 

Both my husband and I do have family in Nova Scotia and it's been something, we thought we may move back with our family at some point or closer to our family and that helped make that decision.

Jeff: Now Sarah, you and your husband, don't have a family connection in Nova Scotia. How did you end up coming here?

Sarah: Yeah, we don't have any family connections here. We just started looking around of where would we want to go if we were to leave. My husband's originally from Vancouver Island, so we kind of entertained that thought but the price of land there's just unreachable for us, so we kind of started looking around and another person, also from the Kootenays, had mentioned that they were moving to Nova Scotia. So we thought let's look into that.

We had heard of the Annapolis Valley and being that we do farm for a living, we were specifically looking at farming areas, and so as we looked throughout the country, we thought, "Well, this is maybe one of the few places that it's still somewhat attainable for a person to be able to make that move," because so much of the farmland all over is just out of reach, price-wise, for people.

So we looked at this area and we loved the outdoors. It's such a beautiful place to be here in Nova Scotia and came for a visit and really fell in love. I grew up in New Hampshire, so I'm not too far away from my family, so it didn't feel too totally foreign to come here.

Jeff: Those decisions to leave, though, they must have been agonizing decisions.

Amanda: Yeah, for me it was. It was hard. I have such a great community in Rossland and it's such an active community and I really felt very at home there. And just like your daily life was going on a trail or doing something in the outdoors and always with someone to do it with. There's always like a list of people that can go and would be into going and so that was a big decision and it was hard and it still is, but it's been great being here.

Jeff: And Sarah, how about you? What was the ultimate thought or reality as you spoke about things with your husband? What was the moment that made you say this is the time?

Sarah: Carl and I, I think that moment when the fire started after the heat dome —  that was the moment. We had been thinking about it prior to that over the last year or two, we had kind of entertained the thought of maybe moving to a different spot because we were feeling really vulnerable where we lived. Like we're at the base of the mountain. We're surrounded by this beautiful forest, but at the same time, that beautiful forest can become a dangerous place. 

We just were feeling like we were in kind of a vulnerable spot. And so then when that heat dome came in and the fire started and it felt like it was a month of smoke and driving to go do our deliveries, there were times where you couldn't see the vehicle in front of you on the road.

And consistently, the worst air quality on the planet was in Castlegar. It was something we were thinking about, but for sure that was the moment and it wasn't a big, dramatic decision, right then. 

We just looked at each other and thought this kind of feels like it's the right time to make a move, and honestly, you know, we realize we're in a privileged enough position to even consider that as an option because there's so many people out there that that's not a reality for them. 

That's something I think about a lot. We were lucky enough to just go, "Oh, OK, we think we want to do this." And for us it was a big risk because we had our business there. We had great customers, lots of friends and people that we love and care about there, but we just thought this is the way we make our living and it's feeling more and more precarious all the time.

Jeff: And your business, Stone Meadow, is here. It's still operating. It's just now down in the valley.

Sarah: That's right. We're gearing up to go into our first sort of official season here and signed up for the Annapolis Royal Farmers Market, so we're really excited about that. 

But yeah, we feel a little bit more secure and of course, we know you can't run away from climate change, so there's always things to consider.