Summer in Powell River, British Columbia. Written by Theresa Niakrok.
I had a great time in Powell River. I’ve met new friends and gained new work experience. For the five weeks I spent in B.C, I did a lot of activities and learned about living in Southern Canada. My placement buddy and I did everything together and became close friends. There were times when we disagree on little things but we worked it out.
My work placement was great. It is not that far from where I lived, approximately 10-15 bike ride. We had different students every week, and had different theme’s every week. My duties were supervising children, play with them, help them out and most of all, make sure they had fun at the camp. We weren’t always inside, we went to the beach (Willingdon on Mondays, Mowat Bay on Wednesdays and Palm Beach on Fridays) every second day, and swam in the pool (Tuesday and Thursdays). We also went bowling and played mini golf.
My host parents Bob and Cathy McLean are so welcoming. They have two kids Rick and Travis, and Aidan and Haaken are their grandsons. My host father is a wood shop worker. He makes everything on his own, his creations are pretty neat. My host mother is a busy woman, she organizes the fall fair every year. Fall fair is when you sell your vegetables / baked goods, and there’s also games and contests going on at the same time. I never had any problems while I lived with them. They showed me around town and also went to Bob’s brothers place for a BBQ. We went to Lund, which is half hour to forty minutes away from here and spent the day there. We had movie nights a few times. They also took us roller skating one night.
The activities that I did are; hiking with my buddy and Matt (my buddy‘s co-worker Joan’s son), attended sea fair weekend. Sea fair is like a circus, there’s all these rides you can go on to. There was a long parade before the sea fair started. That same weekend, my placement buddy and I entered a talent show, we throat sang but had no luck, but we had fun anyway. Also went out-rigging a couple of times (it’s like canoeing). There was a firework’s before the sea fair ended.
Joan (my buddy’s co-worker) took us to the Vancouver Island for a day. We went on a ferry to Courtenay. She took us to a little town named Coombs. Took us out for lunch to a restaurant called sheep’s on the roof (and actually had sheep’s on the roof). We went horse back riding. She took us to this really cool-awesome forest where tree’s are like 800+ years old. There’s also a water fall there so we got to see it and took pictures, the view is so beautiful.
Powell River is Isolated, you have to go on a ferry to go anywhere. The population is about 13, 000 people in town only, but if you count Texada Island and Sliammon (first nations) it’s close to 20, 000 people. There is an old theatre here that is still running, and plays new releases, it’s been running since 1913. We went there a couple of times to go watch movies. We’ve seen Harry Potter and the deathly hallows part 2, transformers (dark of the moon) and Monte Carlo.
There are a lot of trails here and there if you want to go hiking, and also a lot of lakes close by. People here are nice and Powell River is considered as a small community.
I had a great summer and thanks to Northern Youth Abroad program / staff for letting me experience this spectacular opportunity. I had a lot of fun and I wish it never ended.
Comments