Life North of the 54th

Transcript

• 00:00 - Background
• 15:22 - Working in the North
• 23:08 - Living in the North
• 31:42 - Northern Lights
• 38:38 - Reflections on Moving South

00:00 - Background

Opening Theme Music:
[bass guitar riff]

Garett:
Welcome back to Life North of the 54th, I'm Garett Brown.

Preston:
And I'm Preston Brown. And we're happy to have with us today, Ronald Stanford, and we'll have him introduce himself for us.

kkGuestkk:
Cool. My name is Ron Stanford. I spent a few years up in the Peace Country and then left for a little while and came back. I'm the second oldest of five children. My parents have lived in the Peace Country for about 30, actually over 30 years now, probably pushing 40 years now. I really enjoyed my time at the Peace Country and was up there for four years during high school. My parents moved up there. My dad took a job at Fairview College, one of the more northern colleges, I guess, in the province. He moved us up there, like I said, when I was in grade nine. I spent four years up there in the Peace Country schooling and whatnot. And when I graduated high school, I had to get out of the Peace Country and move south because I was more used to the big cities. And I really enjoyed the time I spent up there.

Garett:
So where did you grow up before you moved to the Peace Country, before your dad took that job?

kkGuestkk:
Oh, I mostly spent most of my time down in the Edmonton and central Alberta area. My dad was kind of with the Alberta government for my early years. And we bounced around in Edmonton, Red Deer. He worked for some of the hospitals here in the province. And he decided he wanted to take a job in teaching because he really enjoyed teaching. And so he moved to Fairview College and was working in the business program and later became the coordinator for the business program up there in Fairview College. And he really enjoyed the different programs that he was teaching out of. I know that Fairview College offers the only Harley-Davidson program, I believe, in Western Canada. And it was a big draw for anyone who's into motorcycles and wanted to learn how to work on motorcycles. And that was also the business program. I think my dad taught, if I remember correctly, my dad was teaching the guys in the Harley program, some of the business programs, stuff that they would have to know, some of the courses that they were taking. But I think he had one or two of the courses that they taught. That's why he moved us to the Peace Country.

Garett:
That's pretty cool. I did not know that there was a Harley-Davidson course up there in Fairview.

Preston:
Oh, yes.

Garett:
Yeah.

kkGuestkk:
Yeah. I guess—

Garett:
I'm also not a motorcycle person.

kkGuestkk:
You're not a motorcycle person? Yeah, no fair. Well, neither am I.

Garett:
[chuckles]

kkGuestkk:
But I found out after the fact, we got up there that they had the only program, I believe, in Western Canada is what the program is. And it's widely supported by Harley-Davidson. Anyone who takes that course will easily find work and employment in the motorcycle industry because it's, I guess, the best program that's around.

Preston:
Yeah. I think it's the only motorcycle mechanic program in the whole province of Alberta, too.

kkGuestkk:
I believe so, it is.

Garett:
So did you go to high school in Fairview, then?

kkGuestkk:
Yeah, I spent the four years I spent in high school, it was FHS, Fairview High School. [chuckles] I drew a blank on the name.

All:
[laugh]

kkGuestkk:
It's been a bit of a few years since I graduated.

Garett:
It's probably just two or three, right, Ron? [chuckles]

kkGuestkk:
Yeah, a few more than that. I had a zero on the back.

Garett:
[chuckles]

kkGuestkk:
But yeah, it was a great little town, I think, to grow up in. It was fun, the fact that, well, because the high school is so small, if you tried out for any kind of sports team, you probably made it the team. I guess that was probably one of my earliest memories of the Peace Country is traveling around just their basketball team and playing different tournaments and different communities up there in the north. I guess that's why I kind of love the north. The fact that you could drive for miles and never run across a person. But of course, when you met anyone, you pretty much knew who they were because it was a small community. So you got to know everyone in town. Got me a few speeding tickets because I happen to know some of the RCMP in town.

Garett and Preston:
[chuckle]

kkGuestkk:
Reffed basketball, a few of them. So it made for a very interesting time. And they knew who you were and what you're up to. So you couldn't get away with much in town. But when you knew them, they're a little more lenient about what you're up to, I guess.

Garett:
Yeah. So where did you go after high school that you said you wanted to go back to the city?

kkGuestkk:
Yeah, I moved down to Calgary and lived— Well, I first moved out of Calgary and lived with one of my uncles for my mom's youngest brother for a few months, just got my feet on the ground, found employment and started working. Then I moved in with roommates for a bit and I eventually wound up moving in with my future brother in law as a roommate for about eight months before I came back to Fairview to take a year of business college and study business. And then after my year of college, I went on a mission for our church, went to Denver, Colorado, served for two years down there. Then I came back briefly to the Peace Country before moving back to Calgary to again find employment. I started working for Costco, which I'm sure many people are fully aware of Costco. Costco took me out to BC when they opened a new warehouse out to Abbotsford, where again, living with roommates was working and just went to Churchfield there, exploring the lower mainland of BC. I eventually met my wife out in BC and after we got married, we decided BC was not the place we wanted to raise a family. And just the expense of living out in BC was just too much at the time. So we wound up moving back to Calgary, but Calgary was not going to be long-term for us. We eventually moved down to Lethbridge for a little bit, then back to Calgary for a couple of years, and then we eventually came back to the Peace Country in 2005, where I was working in audiology at that point in time. I'd left Costco and moved on to a different career path.

Garett:
Yeah, I really wanted to ask you about this, how you ended up in audiology. It's, I mean, yeah, not really something that when you ask kids or teenagers what they want to do when they grow up, that they say, "Oh yeah, I definitely want to be an audiologist."

kkGuestkk:
I want to test people's hearing for the rest of my life. Interestingly enough, before I got married and lived out in BC, I had a very good mission friend that lived down in Seattle, or the Seattle area. He actually lived up in, I want to say Everett, Washington, is where I believe he was at the time. I call it Seattle because Seattle's kind of one big, massive area. But I was going down actually for an AC/DC concert. They were touring again, and he was a great big concert kid, loved going to concerts. You name the band, he's probably seen it multiple times. Anyway, he called me up, and I was living out in BC at the time, and he goes, "Hey, AC/DC's touring, let's go to the concert." And I said, "Fine, let's do it." So I went down one weekend to go to the concert with him. And his dad actually was an audiologist. And before we head out to the concert, he turns to me and says, "Hey, do you want to set up earplugs for the concert?" I looked at him and said, "Earplugs? Why do I want earplugs for a concert for not thinking about it?" I was young and dumb at the time. And he goes, "Well, I'll make a quick set anyway." So he actually did ear impressions on me, and he made me a custom set of earplugs. And off we went to the concert. We got back, and his dad and I got talking the next day. And his dad actually mentioned to me, he said, "You should actually look into audiology, because you might actually enjoy it." I didn't really think much of it, but I didn't think much of it, I guess, that weekend. But when I got back to Abbotsford, where I was living at the time, I started to think a little bit about it, kind of looking into it a little bit. And I thought, "Schooling as an audiologist is going to take way too much of my time. Not into that." But after myself and Marcia had moved back to Calgary, I ran across a program called the Hearing Aid Practitioner Program, and it was offered out at Grant McEwan. And then I looked into that program, and it wound up only being a two-year program. You basically do the exact same job as an audiologist, just the difference in degrees is they have a bit bigger degree. But I looked into it, decided I wanted to get into it, and wound up moving to Lethbridge, working in a clinic that my wife's aunt was actually working in as a receptionist. I got to know the two gentlemen there. They brought me on. I did all my training down in Lethbridge, and the rest, I guess, is kind of history in a way. I was still working for Costco at the time, I was just going to school just so I could pay the bills and make ends meet and everything else with a young family. And when I got done with the practitioner program, Costco had just been opening up hearing centers just kind of here and there, kind of quietly. They weren't really big into it just quite yet, but when I got finished with the program, they actually asked me if I'd go back to Calgary and work in one of their hearing centers.

Garett:
Wow.

kkGuestkk:
So I wound up going back to Calgary. It wasn't long after going back to Calgary that I realized that I needed to probably look outside of Costco, because Costco was not really the place I wanted to be actually dispensing hearing aids from. I got really interested in the medical side of it, and learning more on the medical side, which is actually what brought me back to the Peace Country, because I found a position up in Grande Prairie, where I'd be working directly in line with an audiologist who had more of the medical side of the industry, rather than just the fitting of the hearing aids. And so moving up to Grande Prairie is more of a step for me in the fact that I was going to learn more of the medical part of the industry, rather than just the fitting of hearing aids.

Garett:
If I understand this correctly, people would get prescriptions for a hearing aid, or some kind of referral for a hearing aid, and then they would go to Costco and just get it fit?

kkGuestkk:
More or less. Well, Costco would be doing the testing and the fitting as well, but it wasn't on the medical side. The medical side is more of a specialty part of it. As a practitioner, you touch on the fact that you'll have certain problems with people's hearing that you need to refer back to their family doctor for. But that wasn't really— I was more or less kind of learning why we do the testing and everything else. I didn't really have the full background about, I understood why we did the testing and certain things along that line, but didn't really understand more of the medical side of things, like the problems that would develop from conditions that people would have. That's where the audiology came into play, where I kind of learned more about, I guess, the pathology of the problems that people were having. It's not as a practitioner, you don't learn it as much in school as learning it more on the job type of thing. I guess I felt working for Costco, I was more or less selling hearing aids and not actually doing the medical side of things. And so when I got out and was working with an audiologist, I kind of learned more of the medical side of things. And since then, it's actually developed more into— I've worked with ear, nose, and throat specialists over the last number of years, where you've even learned more of the medical side of things. Again, the different pathologies, how the hearing is functioning, and not all problems can be fixed with hearing aids when it comes to hearing disorders. That's why I became more interested in getting outside of Costco, because they're just more specialized in, "Hey, you need a hearing aid, we'll fit you with a cheap hearing aid," type of thing, get better pricing on stuff like that. But you don't really learn the ins and the outs and the whys behind things.

Garett:
Yeah, no, that's really fascinating. Yeah.

kkGuestkk:
I just hope that makes sense the way I'm putting it there. It's why I wanted to learn more about the why behind things as to why we just do certain things.

Garett:
Preston, do you have any questions? I have some more about audiology.

Preston:
No, not right now. You better ask your question, Garett.

kkGuestkk:
Sure.

Garett:
My question is actually more of an observation, I guess. But it's kind of fascinating that this friend of yours, who was a child of an audiologist, was a huge fan of concerts, which is typically known for damaging your hearing. But he would just go and enjoy them with earplugs.

kkGuestkk:
Chris would never wear earplugs.

All:
[chuckle]

kkGuestkk:
His dad was teaching him, saying, "Hey, you should protect your ears in your 20s." Like realistically, we're all young and dumb at some point in time.

Garett:
Yeah, yeah.

kkGuestkk:
Interesting enough, my good buddy, he actually needs hearing aids. And he was back up here visiting in March of last year. And because I have my own business again, I grabbed him over to the office, we did a test on his hearing, we threw him in a pair of demo hearing aids we had, and actually let him wear them and see what it's like to experience what he should be hearing. And we were out to a restaurant, and he was the only one out of four of us at the table who heard properly in the restaurant. He was sitting back, relaxing in his chair the whole time, thinking it was way cool because he was hearing everything that was going on at the table. And we were sitting up on our elbows trying to hear everyone talk at the table. But he was sitting back relaxing just because of the way the amplification works these days. And even the hearing loss, he was the one who was hearing properly.

Garett:
Yeah, it makes a little bit more sense that maybe I'm just reading too much, but you know, like teenage rebellion, I don't want to do what my dad says. Even though my dad's right.

kkGuestkk:
Well, all teenagers have that attitude, right? Like, I know more, I know this, I know that.

Garett:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

kkGuestkk:
And you're cutting your teeth, you're kind of exploring and whatnot. But listening to sometimes the ones who know better is not what you want to do. No.

Garett:
And I guess you've had personal experience with teenagers now too at some point, right? I have not yet. [chuckles]

kkGuestkk:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yes, I have some young adults in the house and some teenagers. And one of our mission presidents, we changed mission presidents right near the end of my mission. And my second mission president was Dean of Psychology out of BYU. And in the closing interview with one of my good friends from the mission, he said, you know, I thought I understood psychology when he came out to this into the mission field. He says there is no rhyme or reason to a 19 to 21 year old male. Psychology goes is a window.

Garett:
That's a really fascinating journey. Moiving a lot of times north and south, well, I mean, if Calgary is north, but, you know, [chuckles] back and forth in Alberta. Yeah. So like we were living in Grande Prairie or just outside Grande Prairie. And you guys moved, as you said, in 2005. And that's when we started becoming friends with you guys.

kkGuestkk:
Yes, it is.

Garett:
So how long were you in Grande Prairie for?

kkGuestkk:
We were in Grande Prairie about 10 years. I took a position with a guy who owned a business up Grande Prairie. It was a kind of a scary step because we went away from what we knew of in Costco with full benefits with everything you needed for a family to the unknown of working for a small company, no benefits and a way different lifestyle. We'd only lived in bigger centers where there was lots to do, lots of activities for kids, if you will. Not that Grande Prairie doesn't have activities for kids, but it's a different lifestyle up the arcs. It was definitely going to be a change. My wife always jokes that the roads only go south out of Grande Prairie because nobody really wants to come to visit you because you're so far north. But in reality, Grande Prairie is not that far north when you think about it.

Garett:
Yeah. And your parents were still living farther north in Fairview at the time.

kkGuestkk:
Yeah, my parents are still in Fairview to this day. They've been there for so long, it's just the community's just grown on them. My dad's been around. My dad served on town council. He worked at the college until the programs got downsized when I believe it was, was it NAIT or Grande Prairie Regional College took over. They've just been up there for years and they've just really gotten themselves entrenched in the community and the lifestyle and everything else. But so yeah, it's a beautiful place to go visit, beautiful place to raise kids. I learned to drive up there, which was great because bigger cities would, back then I'm sure big cities scared me, but learning to drive up there and you had to drive differently because you had more or less watched for animals on the road, not people on the road. It was just a different lifestyle. Definitely a lot more laid back lifestyle. Let's go that route.

15:22 - Working in the North

Preston:
So Ron, what activities did you get into living in Grande Prairie for recreation?

kkGuestkk:
I tried to convince my wife to get quads and snowmobiles and stuff like that, but she was not really going to have that too much. I would have liked to have done more of that, but it just wasn't in the cards for when we're out there, young family, young kids. It was very, very hard. We were not going to go into a big debt to buy toys, if you would. I know many people do get into big toys and lots of them, but we were not going to be able to do that. I guess it was still kind of payoffs from student bills and student debt and stuff when we first moved up there, but it was for our lifestyle change because in the city I was never around because working, I was managing one of the hearing centers for Costco at the time and it was just a busy, busy lifestyle where as a manager you didn't have a lot of free time, if you will, and you'd put in a lot more than just a 40-hour work week. They expect you to be there a lot longer because you're making more money, but it was not the lifestyle that we really wanted to be in. So when this position came up in Grande Prairie, I was going to be home every night by a certain time. It was going to be a more relaxed lifestyle rather than the hustle and bustle of the city, so that's what we kind of moved up there for. People like to spend more time with their kids and stuff like that. It wasn't that we changed much in when it came to financial, but it was just going to be a different lifestyle.

Preston:
Indeed.

Garett:
Did you have intentions to move up to Grande Prairie for a short period of time, or did you and your family have the idea to make a long-term commitment?

kkGuestkk:
Well, we were up there for 10 years, but I guess we started looking at actually leaving a very short, we'd been up there about two years, and I'd been in the hearing industry long enough that I decided this is what I wanted to be doing long-term. I started looking actually into the interior of BC for potentials of opening up my own business. And then the guy I was working for at the time kind of caught wind of it because I was talking to one of our manufacturers. The hearing industry is actually a very interesting industry because banks don't like lending you money because they don't feel you're a wise investment, but manufacturers of the product will lend you money on a lot better interest rates than banks would because they want you to be selling their product.

Garett:
That makes sense.

kkGuestkk:
So I'd talked to one of the manufacturers about the potential of going out on my own and what it would look like from their perspective, how they would help me and how I could benefit them. And one of the manufacturers I'd spoken with, our sales rep at the time, was a very good friend of the guy that I worked for. And I'm sure she put the bug in his ear, the fact that I was potentially looking at this. And when I went up there to work with the gentleman, I grew the business very, very quickly with him, where he realized that I was more of an asset. And he realized that if he lost me, how much more work he's going to have to do even to kind of keep up to where he was at. And so instead of losing me, he brought me on as a partner with him up in Grande Prairie. And so we actually stayed in Grande Prairie longer than what we were actually, well, we hadn't really planned on a time, but longer up in Grande Prairie than we thought we would be up there, just by the principle fact that we bought into a business in the Peace Country.

Garett:
Yeah, that's kind of amazing. Do you feel like that was a good move?

kkGuestkk:
It was definitely a good move on my part, because I looked at the business as a forced savings plan. We had bought in, we knew that eventually that we would probably sell and move at some point in time in our life, but we weren't really sure when. And I looked at it and said, you know, owning a business is, it's there as an asset and you treat it as an asset. That it would be a forced savings plan for us. It would build equity in the company, have money that when we did decide to do something else, we would have money built up that we could do this with. Well, a few years after I bought into the business up in Grande Prairie, there's a big shift in the hearing industry as a whole that we started going away from privately owned businesses to manufacturer owned businesses. Manufacturers realized that if they wanted to keep their name in the game, if you will, they had to start buying clinics. And so that people would not be swaying back and forth who they would dispense product for. Because as a private business, we would change manufacturers periodically just because of problems that you might have with one or something happened where they had a bad product. In any industry, you know, you have, there's a flaws in every industry that's out there, whether it be auto manufacturing or whatever, that you get a lemon every now and again. And same thing with hearing is that every now and again, you get a bad product comes out in the market. And if you only dispense one manufacturer, well, they come up with a lemon all of a sudden and you're going to do with the lemonade that comes after that. So we were dealing with a couple of manufacturers and they made an offer to potentially buy us out. We looked at it. My partner at the time had a very bad back, had to go in for some surgery. He was going to be out for six months to a year. And so when they made us an offer to buy our business, we jumped at it and sold the business. And it was a very profitable decision on my part when I did buy in because we made out very well. I looked at it and said that probably puts about 10 years further financially ahead than if we would have held on to the business and worked for 10 years.

Garett:
Yeah, that's a great opportunity.

kkGuestkk:
Yeah. And we stayed on and worked for them for a few years afterwards. But the time came where I looked at it and said, okay, enough's enough. I can't deal with corporate. I have to get my own.

All:
[chuckle]

kkGuestkk:
I get the fact that big business is, what's the right word for it? It's interesting to say the least when you're dealing with people's different views behind things and how they view things and what they think should work and what doesn't doesn't work. But big businesses was not where I wanted to stay. It never was. That's one of those things that when I look at it and going, I see why they're doing what they're doing, but that's not for me.

Garett:
Yeah. I can also imagine the motivation for a business like a manufacturing business to try and own the part of the business all the way up to the customer. They're necessarily going to make different decisions in what they want done in that last line in front of the customer than you would because they have different motivations than you as the manufacturer.

kkGuestkk:
Oh, totally. And we'll even look at what they're currently doing when it comes to advertising and stuff like that. They have a different viewpoint on it. They're using celebrities to promote products. They get away from the mom and pop shops. We can offer you more because we're across Canada. We're into the United States. We can give you more than the mom and pop shops, but you really lose out on the service. And I know a lot of people complain to us about the price of hearing aids and how Costco is so much cheaper. Well, you really have to look at the service model behind things. It's like you're not just buying a product. You're actually buying the service behind the product as well. You think of warranties when you buy a vehicle or you buy another product. You think about the warranties that go behind that. Yes, there's a warranty, but there's also the service plan behind it. There is maintenance when it comes to hearing aids, and that maintenance has to be dealt with either by yourself or by somebody else. And do you want to pay every time you walk into a hearing clinic? Every time you walk in, you got to pay a certain fee just to have something maintained. And some places say yes, some places say no. I'm of the viewpoint that if I charge you a fair price up front, but I'm still maintaining that product for the number of years for you, that you don't have to worry about it. It's kind of like you buy that worry-free maintenance plan at the dealerships so you can take your vehicle and have it maintained and not be dinged every time you walk in the door.

Preston:
Yeah.

Garett:
Yeah. That's really fascinating. I really appreciate that. I did not have that kind of insight to something so important as hearing.

kkGuestkk:
Yeah. Fair enough.

23:08 - Living in the North

kkGuestkk:
You know, one thing I really love about the Peace and working on the Peace is we actually traveled not just from, well, we had our office in Grande Prairie, but we traveled up to 17 smaller communities around the Peace Country. We went as far north as High Level, Peace River, Manning, Fairview, Beaverlodge, Fort St. John, Dawson Creek, Valley View, and all the way down to Grande Cache. And so we spent our time not just in Grande Prairie, but all over the Peace Country. And I love my drives. I love just going for the car ride a couple times a month or out to these different locations. Split between three of us. So we weren't, we each had about five clinics we've traveled out to. But just seeing the country and the beauty of the place up there. You have a completely different mindset when you work up there and live up there than you do in the city. So, yeah, I just love the area.

Garett:
Do you want to elaborate more on that with us? Not so much in terms of the business of going up there, but just some of your favourite moments or any stories that you want to share about the drive? Because inevitably, if you drive that many hours, something's going to happen.

kkGuestkk:
Oh yeah. [chuckles] I love driving up there. The fact that, well, you see the different seasons changing. Like every year, it was just, you're always doing something different. When you mentioned the drives, like I got a drive to Fairview, and one of the most beautiful drives you'll probably ever take is fall, going through the Dunvegan Bridge. When you're dropping the river valley, you have the oranges, the yellows, you still have the green in there as well. Just the beauty of nature as a whole. It's just beautiful. If you love traveling, if you love driving, the fact that you could drive for hours up there and the roads were, it seemed like endless at times. Just because you could just, I guess because I drove them so often, I kind of became a little bit, I don't want to say numb to the situation, but you become numb to the beauty at times. But I do miss that. But just the first few years I was up there, I just marveled at how beautiful the country was. I remember leaving one morning early, early winter, and I was just, I'd left her house, I was driving down a back road to get out to one of the main highways and just passing the amount of deer or elk that were down around the city of Grande Prairie. I actually drove through a herd of deer that were crossing the road, and I don't know how I did not hit any of them, but I somehow missed every single animal that I had. I saw a deer with antlers standing right in front of me, and all of a sudden he just disappeared. But just the way I swerved through them, I'm not sure how I made it through, but it was just incredible because when I look back, you can kind of sort of see the animals, just as the sun was starting to just barely come up, dark enough that it was not great visibility yet, but anyway, just the amount of animals that were crossing the road at the time, I wondered how I missed them all.

Garett:
Yeah, that's astonishing.

kkGuestkk:
[chuckles] Yeah. It also made me appreciate driving a bigger vehicle, and why you drive bigger vehicles is, up there is, people always say, "Well, there's so many trucks up north." I'm like, "Yeah, there's a lot of trucks up north." But people think it's all before work. Yeah, a good part of it's going to be for work, but you also drive the bigger vehicle because if something happens, you want a bigger vehicle, you want to be in something bigger that you're going to know you're going to be able to walk away from it.

Garett:
Yeah, when you hit a moose, the moose is not going to land on your windshield, it's just going to hit your—

Preston:
Yeah, a moose in a sedan is fatal.

kkGuestkk:
You know, I remember a story, even here in Edmonton, I believe a lady was driving on the Anthony Henday, and she ran up on a moose or something. I believe that killed her, and this was just not too many years ago, here in Edmonton. I'm thinking, "Oh, if you're in a bigger vehicle, that probably would have totaled the vehicle, you probably would have walked away from it with minor injuries." That's, I don't know, just one of the interesting stories I came up there. The different stories about the wildlife, like I've seen bear, moose, elk, deer, bobcats. There's a lot of different animals up north that just because you drive so much, you just see so many different animals by the roads and stuff. Actually another story I have about wintertime is the way they plow the roads up there, I guess they call it a wingback, where they plow the snow off the road, but they kind of push it into the ditch a little bit. So you kind of got these wings that kind of stick out of the ditches. And I was traveling north of Peace River up towards Manning, and the road has a little bit of a funny split where the road divides for maybe not even two kilometers. But I was driving up this way, and these two moose were fighting in the middle of the road, and they had their antlers locked together. And as I drove up, I could see them, and probably about less than 25 yards before I was passing them, they broke free of each other. One turned and ran back towards me. And the size of this animal, I happened to be driving a Ford Expedition at the time. And so it was actually a fairly decent sized vehicle. But this moose ran back down beside my vehicle, and his head and antlers were above my window on my truck.

Garett and Preston:
[chuckle]

kkGuestkk:
And I thought, "Oh my gosh, how big are these things?" But they were that close. And this was the one that passed me. The other one I think was even bigger than that one. But he ran off in a different direction. But these two moose got locked in this area with this wing back, and they couldn't get over top of the ditches because the wing back was so high. And they had to basically find another way out. But I guess they kind of ran across each other, and who knows what they were doing or why they were wanting to lock antlers. But it was just funny watching these two big moose after they broke apart and they went two different directions. Not sure how they got off the road, but they eventually I'm sure did. I've seen bear on the road where in the summertime when driving up to High Level one time where a bear was actually climbing a telephone pole. That was part way up the telephone pole.

Garett:
[laughs]

kkGuestkk:
But whatever. I think my neatest experience though is driving through the Peace Country is running across two bobcats probably less than 100 feet apart. It was just an open stretch of road. The trees had to be a little bit lower than this section. It was in the wintertime again. And they were just off the road, maybe 30-40 feet. Not far enough into the bush yet, but just before the bush line where you can actually see them. And I know that bobcats are pretty loner animals, and so seeing two that close together was actually pretty interesting.

Preston:
Yeah.

Garett:
Yeah. Did you go south to Grande Cache often to see the different seasons in Grande Cache?

kkGuestkk:
Not Grande Cache. I went down to Grande Cache for, oh, there was only a couple of years I was driving to and from Grande Cache. Grande Cache was not one of the areas I went to until we had actually sold the business to a manufacturer. We had another practitioner working with us too. When she left, I took over the areas that she was going to. And Grande Cache was her route at the time. But I was driving up to Grande Cache about four years. I actually went to Grande Cache earlier than that. But anyway, I think the scariest thing about Grande Cache is just because you're kind of in the mountains and stuff like that, and driving up to Grande Cache, you kind of go up that big, long hill out of the river valley again. It's a little bit of a scary drive in the wintertime.

Garett:
It definitely is, yeah.

kkGuestkk:
But it's a beautiful area again to drive that area. I guess I didn't pay as close attention to the change of the seasons going that route because I was more concerned about the road in the wintertime.

Garett:
Yeah. Yeah.

kkGuestkk:
Yeah. There was a lot of oil traffic on that road as well, or just traffic in general, gas, oil field business going down that road. So there's a lot more traffic going that way than it was going north. So I had to pay more attention to the road rather than the scenery. I see many logging trucks or just the big water hauling trucks or whatever truck was on the road. I just remember seeing a lot. But that was probably the road, actually that was the road I saw my first ever vehicle hit a moose. And just seeing what kind of damage a moose can do to a vehicle. That was probably one of the scarier days of my life when I saw that happen.

Garett:
I remember driving south a few times towards Grande Cache and I would pass by the mill there, the lumber mill.

kkGuestkk:
Oh, okay. Yeah.

Garett:
You would just see the sign on the side of the road that said, you know, logging trucks turning logs may swing into your lane. I saw that many times, more often than I ever saw logging trucks turning. And then one time I was actually behind a logging truck and it turned and I saw the log swing into my lane and I was like, Oh, that's what they mean. They mean don't try and pass it because it's going to hit the logs.

kkGuestkk:
Oh, totally.

Preston:
You had a bit of an aha moment.

Garett:
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Preston:
As your life flashed before your eyes.

Garett:
Yep.

kkGuestkk:
Yes. Seeing those logs stick out the back of trucks and there's many a time where the guy's not tagged the back of those trucks properly.

31:42 - Northern Lights

Garett:
I also wanted to ask about your driving. Did you leave or drive in the dark a lot? Did you see any of the Northern Lights while you were driving?

kkGuestkk:
Oh, love the Northern Lights. The Northern Lights are one of the most beautiful things you'll ever see. Further North you go, the more colorful they get. Down here in Edmonton, you might see the odd Northern Light here and there, but it's a very, very faint color. The further North you go, the greener they get, the darker they get, the more colors that you'll see. You're just going to love the Aurora Borealis. Part of the reason why I still go up to High Level is because every now and again, you can see those Northern Lights and it's just the dancing in the skies. Just the beauty behind that. Just incredible. One year we had come back one Christmas from Seattle and we got in late, but we were able to watch the Northern Lights as we were driving into the city. And then we went onto our back deck and we were able to watch the lights dancing above us in the air. They're not as great in the city as they were outside, but the different colors and stuff, the different hues you'd see at different times of the year, if you're lucky enough to see them.

Garett:
Was this your back deck in Grande Prairie?

kkGuestkk:
Back deck in Grande Prairie. They weren't as great in the city because the lights in the city kind of dulled the lights in the sky. But into Grande Prairie, we could see the different colors and everything else. Funny enough, we came up through the Grande Cache that time because it's shorter for us to come through Grande Cache than driving further over and back up the normal way that we'd normally come up to get back home usually, because we're coming from the BC side of things. But we'd come up Grande Cache Road and then we were driving in late at night, I think it was about 11:30, 12 o'clock, close to the end of December, early January, I can't remember which. But just watching those lights dancing in front of us as we're coming into town. And then because we lived in the south end of the city, when we got home, we just walked out the back deck and just watched in amazement at the beauty of the color of the lights. Just incredible. And then going up to High Level, just how dark the greens were up there and just the colors and how bright it is and vibrant the colors were.

Garett:
Yeah, one of my favourite memories of the Northern Lights was that I actually saw them on a summer's night.

kkGuestkk:
Oh, really?

Garett:
Yeah, which is much more rare because, you know, the summer nights are much shorter and brighter because the sun is still in sort of a twilight dip. But yeah, it was amazing to see them in the summer because I could be outside and thoroughly enjoy watching them instead of, you know, the dead of winter where you're like, well, I want to sit outside and enjoy these, but I think I should probably go back inside soon.

kkGuestkk:
It's too cold for me to be out here. I want to go back inside where it's warm.

Garett:
Yeah, you were going to say the downside?

kkGuestkk:
Oh, yeah, the downside of the summer is the fact that you just don't see them as often. It's harder to see them at that point in time. But yeah, and the wintertime, of course, depending on how cold it was, will depend on how long you spend outside watching the lights. So yeah, it was definitely the beauty of it all. I love the Northern Lights.

Garett:
So my wife Jessica, when she came up to Grande Prairie, actually after we stayed at your place in the Christmas of 2015, when we drove up from Edmonton to Grande Prairie, that evening and night was a spectacular display of Northern Lights. And she had never seen Northern Lights growing up. So she was very excited, just watched them in awe for hours, which it was. I mean, it's a long drive and it was Christmas time. So it was essentially dark the whole time. We watched it for a while and then we stopped outside of Grande Prairie over by Bezanson actually and just took time to just watch them for a while. The Northern Lights are more or less on an 11 year cycle with the solar activity. So 2015 was a really good year and then dipped down to 2020, not so great for Northern Lights. And so now coming up to 2025, it's going to be more activity again.

kkGuestkk:
Oh, nice. I did not know that about the Northern Lights. It's interesting.

Garett:
Yeah, they're pretty cool. That also means that if you're trying to plan to see them, it's more likely if you go in the better years.

kkGuestkk:
Plan appropriately. [chuckles]

Preston:
Yeah, so if I ever go to Iceland or Denmark, I should go in 2025, 26.

Garett:
Yeah, there's a YouTube traveling couple that my wife enjoys watching and they've been trying to see the Northern Lights for many years and they decided that this year they were definitely going to see them. And the way that they were going to do it is they were just going to take a road trip up Norway as far north as they could just slowly in their van. And they were sharing on Instagram like last week that they finally saw them. [chuckles]

kkGuestkk:
Finally saw them, and you grew up in the north and be like, this is more common than you think.

Garett:
But always beautiful.

Preston:
In regards to Northern Lights, I have seen them, remember seeing them August long weekend once, which I was rather surprised because the daylight is not incredibly long. But seeing them in August and as late as May, considering you wouldn't really see them in June at the peak of the summer solstice, right? You just couldn't.

Garett:
[laughs]

kkGuestkk:
No, June and—that's the hard time about it, during the summer time is the fact that the days are just so long up there. The chance to see them is so, so rare during the summer months and stuff, spring, summer months.

Preston:
Yeah, but I really love the long daylight. Go play baseball or something until like 11 o'clock at night.

kkGuestkk:
Yeah, you know, that was one thing I never really thought much about being a kid because we'd be outside playing, it'd be like 11, 11:30 and you'd still be playing football or playing baseball or whatever. Didn't think much of it growing up, but as an adult it was like, holy crap, you got to put kids to bed. This is, this is crazy.

Garett:
[laughs]

kkGuestkk:
Blackout blinds in the kids room. What do you mean I have to go to bed? It's still light out. Yeah, wait till the winter months come. They'd be saying the opposite. So, but yeah, as an adult, it was like, I appreciate the long summer days when you're driving back from a long day, it's still light out. Yeah those are definitely fun times.

Garett:
Yeah, it's definitely one of my favourite things about the North is the long summer days. I was working on a night shift in the summer when I was an undergrad and I was awake on the solstice, June 21st. So I was working night shift. So it went over into June 21st. It was, you know, dim. It didn't really go dark, right? But it was dim that we had to have lights on to work. And then I saw the sunrise on the solstice and then I went home and slept for eight hours and then got up and went back to work and the sun was still going strong. Had a number of hours of daylight left to work and then I saw the sunset on the solstice. I do not recommend anybody try and outwork the sun in the Northern summers.

kkGuestkk:
[chuckles] Oh, those are long.

Garett:
Oil and gas tries to outwork the sun.

Preston:
They definitely do it in the winter though.

All:
[chuckle]

kkGuestkk:
Oh yeah. The winter makes up for it.

Preston:
The question I always ask myself, it's like, is every winter, even as far North or South as Edmonton, is every winter worth the beautiful summer? [laughs] And I argue with myself about it.

kkGuestkk:
It's the further South you go, basically it's the same all year round. You have so much sunlight, so much darkness. There's not a whole heck of a lot of change. And you know, sometimes that change is nice to have.

38:38 - Reflections on Moving South

Garett:
Do you want to tell us how you and your family felt leaving Grande Prairie and going to Edmonton in the 2015 time? I mean, your kids spent a lot of time growing up in Grande Prairie.

kkGuestkk:
There's still things my kids love about the North. The things that they didn't like about the North was the traveling down to Edmonton or traveling out of the North was probably the hardest thing for them. Well, they love the North for a lot of reasons. But now that they've been down here in Edmonton for the last eight years, it's definitely a change for them. They enjoy it. My son might wind up going, I don't know what he's going to plan on doing because he's getting into land reclamation. He's looking at it for schooling right now. So he might wind up back up North doing that type of stuff. But he enjoyed the outdoors-y stuff more than not. As a kid, I enjoyed camping. As an adult, not so much. I like to camp from my bed. I need comfort these days. I'm getting old. But I could possibly see him going back North, but I can't see my girls going back North. They enjoyed the long summer days, but they had more problems probably in the wintertime when you have the long, cold winter days. But living in BC, I can tell you, I prefer, I'll take minus 40 with the sun than whatever they have in BC and raining. That is one thing to definitely take. Because there's nothing like a cold winter day where the sun is still shining and it still looks beautiful out and you have that blanket of snow. It's just beautiful to see. The few years I lived in BC, I lived in BC for three and a half years and it just rained all the time. And in snow you can still go out and do stuff, when it's raining you just feel miserable. I don't know how people do it. They have shorter winters, they have more milder climates. None of them know how to drive out there when it snows, though. So that's one thing you learn about driving up North is that you learn to drive on ice and how to maneuver your vehicle when it's snowing and ice and everything else.

Garett:
Yeah, there was a polar vortex, cold snap here in Toronto a couple of weeks ago and it dropped down to minus 30-ish. It was mostly minus 25 in the city, but it was a little windy. But the next morning it was cold and snowing and everybody had basically just retreated indoors and I went out to get some milk and eggs. And it was so beautiful because it was so quiet. Because normally the city is just so loud with so much traffic and the high rises and everything. But to go outside and it being snowing, so it's dampening the sound from the snow and nobody wants to be outside because it's still so cold. It was so peaceful and amazing. I wish I could have this all the time.

Preston:
[chuckles]

kkGuestkk:
Yeah, how do you know if you're a true northern person?

Garett:
[laughs]

kkGuestkk:
Minus 40 and you still wear short sleeves outside. Thicker blood. You know, think of living up North, you just become more resilient about things. Things don't bother you anywhere as much. The weather you look at and say, it's a fact of life, you've got to deal with it. Whereas down here, that's the other thing about living here, even in Edmonton, which is a lot smaller city than Toronto, but living here in Edmonton, you can pretty much almost shut the city down if you have enough snow. Or even not have enough snow, you can still shut the city down. Different attitude of life, that's for sure.

Garett:
Yeah, but still the rain. Albertans have a harder time dealing with the rain. And I think maybe one of the other differences is, again, the mud of the Peace Country. If it snows, if it's frozen, you can deal with it. But when it rains, you just can't deal with it.

kkGuestkk:
No, definitely can't. That's why we have certain businesses up there just for dealing with mud. [chuckles]

Preston:
They do.

Garett:
Oh yeah. Alberta in general, but in the North too, just the sunny days, even if it's minus 40 outside, when it's sunny, it really makes a difference on your attitude and your demeanor when you get that ray of sunshine. And when it's rare to see, because it doesn't come up until 10 o'clock, then it's even more exciting and invigorating to get the sunlight.

kkGuestkk:
Oh yeah, that's definitely for sure.

Garett:
And related to that, I served my mission for the church in England, and I had never really understood why the Beatles song, "Here Comes the Sun," was so popular until I lived in England. And it's like, oh, because the sun just is gone all winter. It's just rain. It's just rain and rain and clouds and rain and clouds. And then the spring comes and finally the sun comes back. And it's like, I understand why they're singing about the sun coming back, because that seasonal depression is very real in the UK.

kkGuestkk:
Oh, totally. You'd see people during— I know there's a few people up there that had sun lamps or whatever they're called for the winter months, because the winter months, people get depressed. It's definitely a harder lifestyle in the winter up there, but I guess it all depends on your outlook on life. Have a more negative attitude towards things, oh, it's this, it's that, then you're going to have a hard time with it. But if you have more of a positive outlook, you're going to go through it just fine. I think about wintertime is you have to stay busy, which is why people do it, is they stay busy even though it's cold out, because they do it for their own mental health reasons. You need to have good friends and vehicles that run well, and you go visit people.

Preston:
Yeah, one of those things missing isn't very helpful.

kkGuestkk:
[laughs]

Preston:
I find I've worked outside most of my life, and especially when I was still living in Grande Prairie as a younger man, we worked outside almost all the time. But even if it's cold and you get outside and you're active, I find that really did help me psychologically and mentally as well. Even if the sun's only going to come up for six or seven hours, you get all of it. You're outside the whole time, so you get to see the sun come up and pick up your tools before it goes down so you don't lose them.

Garett:
[laughs]

kkGuestkk:
You know, minus 40 is not cold unless there's a wind blowing. Then it's cold.

Preston:
I don't know. It's still cold, man. [laughs]

kkGuestkk:
It's still cold, but you don't feel it as much. Then the wind blows. Once the wind blows, then you feel it.

Preston:
Depends what you're doing.

kkGuestkk:
Actually, minus 40 without a wind chill is actually probably better than a wet cold. You know, that's one thing about winters out in BC that I realize is that that wet cold goes right through and you get chilled to the bone. But the dry cold, you don't feel it nearly as much unless you have that wind. And once you have the wind, then nothing feels warm. But anyway, I don't think you're nearly as cold if you're in the dry cold as you do in the wet cold.

Garett:
I used to hate the wind of Alberta because it's just always windy in Alberta, especially southern Alberta, but it's just very windy. And then, you know, the wind with the cold, it just makes it so much worse. I used to hate it so much until I moved to Utah. And the Salt Lake Valley in Utah is known for its smog problems because the pollution just settles in in the mountains. It gets trapped and it gets trapped because it doesn't blow away. There's just a lack of wind. And so the valley there in Utah would just get bad air and then it would just sit there and it wouldn't go anywhere. I actually began to miss the wind and that was something that I never thought I would miss.

kkGuestkk:
You know, you think about the air up north, I think it's a much fresher air. When you're further north, you go to the fresher the air is, the less pollutants are in the air. You just feel better.

Garett:
Yeah.

Preston:
It's because you're arguably in the largest forest on the planet.

All:
[laugh]

Preston:
The Great Boreal Forest that spans across the whole northern part of the northern hemisphere.

kkGuestkk:
There you go. Well, you got to go down and check out the California Redwoods too because that's one pretty amazing forest too though.

Garett:
Yeah, I agree. I do really love visiting that area of California, but I do not want to live there. I don't mind visiting it, but I don't want to live there.

kkGuestkk:
I'll visit but not live. If you could stay in that one little area, like I know we came down out of Grande Prairie one time to go down to California to visit my sister. We passed the Redwoods and just the air again, that's probably one of the best smelling airs, if you will, around other than up northern Alberta. Anyway.

Garett:
Well, I think we'll probably come close to ramping up, Ron. We really appreciate the chat we've had with you. You mentioned some little bit about how growing up in the Peace Country and living in the Peace Country, it develops a grit and resilience. Do you have any insight or words of wisdom that you would like to share with people about living in the north?

kkGuestkk:
The only word of wisdom is, yes, drive a big vehicle because you never know what you're going to run into.

Garett:
[chuckles] That's good advice.

kkGuestkk:
Even down here in the city, I watch people drive small vehicles down here in the city and you see people getting accidents all the time. I think the north just made me really appreciate the fact that if you drive a big vehicle, if anything happens, nine times out of ten you're going to walk away unless you run into something bigger than you. Down here I love to drive my truck because I look at people and go, "You're half my size. If I run over you, you lose." That's all there is to it. I know people criticize people who drive trucks but I'm like, "You know what? I think we have a better outlook on life because we're not scared." You have to drive with an attitude. I don't know, I guess that's my only word of wisdom about that.

Garett:
[chuckles] That's fine.

kkGuestkk:
The north also made me, I guess, really appreciate things more because I come down here to the city and people just have a very, it's a different attitude. In the north, like I mentioned earlier, that you rely on yourself more for things. You become more resilient. Down here in the city, there's too many comfort features around. I look at how even my kids have gotten a little more relaxed when it comes to the comfort features of, "Oh, we'll just pull over here and get that," or, "We can just do this because it's right here." Whereas in the north, you had to plan things a bit more because you had a longer drive. I know down here people think, "Oh, a 25-minute drive? That's horrible." I'm thinking, "25 minutes? That's nothing." Your time just changes because in the north, you realize that you're living in a more isolated lifestyle and driving is just something you do. You appreciate things. I think people in the northern areas just appreciate things more. Even watching shows like Life Below Zero where they just appreciate a more simplified lifestyle. They don't need all the, I don't want to say the comforts, they don't need all the extras in life. If you need all the extras in life, you look for others' approval on things. I think you have a lot more of a dim outlook on life. I think those who've lived in the north who realize that there is more to life than being on your phone or running in the rat race, I think they just appreciate life more. I think you meet more people who are more salt of the earth rather than those who are taken up in, what's the word for the lifestyle?

Preston:
The fast lane?

kkGuestkk:
Well, the fast lane, yeah. You don't seek for other people's approval. People in the north just, you know what, life is the way it is and I don't need other people's approval for me to be a good person or to live a good life. We're more down to earth, I guess. Hopefully that is words of wisdom.

Garett:
Yeah, thank you for sharing.

kkGuestkk:
Yeah. You bet.

Garett:
We'd like to thank all those who listen to our show and if you would like to share feedback with us or write in a story for us to share, you can email us at lifenorthofthe54th@gmail.com or you can check us out online at peacecountrylife.ca. Thank you so much, Ron, for joining us. We really appreciate the time you've given and lots of insight in many things that I did not know before. I really appreciate it.

kkGuestkk:
Hey, thanks. Good to talk to you guys. It's been a while.

Preston:
Thank you, Ron.

Garett:
So we'll see you around. Hopefully we'll be able to stop by and see you again.

kkGuestkk:
Okay, next time you're out, stop in and say hi.

Garett:
Take care, Ron.

kkGuestkk:
You too, thanks.

Garett:
Bye.

Preston:
Bye.

kkGuestkk:
Bye

Ending Theme Music:
[bass guitar riff with drumbeat]