Life North of the 54th

Transcript

• 00:00 - Introductions and Early Memories
• 09:52 - Moving to the Peace Country
• 21:38 - Adventures in the North
• 29:43 - Year of Hell
• 39:03 - Leaving the Peace Country
• 51:55 - Some Final Thoughts

00:00 - Introductions and Early Memories

Opening Theme Music:
[bass guitar riff]

Garett:
Welcome back to Life North of the 54th. I'm Garett Brown. Preston Brown's not here today, but we have with us today, Rick and Leisa Olson. So Leisa and Rick, would you like to go ahead and introduce yourselves?

Leisa:
Well, hi, it is so awesome to see you again, Garett. Well, we can see you. [chuckles] And we are really happy to be here with you and to talk about our memories of living in the Peace Country, which began back in 2000. That's when we first moved there. But Rick does have some earlier memories of an experience a long time ago.

Rick:
[chuckles] When I was 20, 21, I was involved in a project to map the canoe routes in Alberta. So we traveled everywhere in the province, including up in the Peace River. So I actually paddled from Dunvegan to the city of Peace River that summer. And then another crew went from Peace River all the way up to, what is it, Fort Smith in Northwest Territories. So, and we paddled the Little Smoky and the Big Smoky and all the different rivers in that area. So that was my initial experience.

Garett:
Wow, how was that? That's amazing.

Rick:
It was quite an experience, actually. I won't tell you my first day, 'cause that's a whole different story and it might take too long, but on the Little Smoky, one of the biggest memories was, we'd come around a corner and there'd be the cow moose and then a calf. And you don't want to get close to the calf 'cause the mother moose, and they're big.

Garett:
Yeah, were they in the water or on the shore?

Rick:
In the water.

Garett:
Oh, man.

Rick:
And the Little Smoky isn't all that big, but we just carefully drifted past. And there were about, my memory may not be totally correct, but I think it was 17 pairs that we saw as we were drifting or canoeing down that river.

Garett:
Wow.

Rick:
So that was quite a major experience.

Garett:
Yeah. Yeah, that's really amazing. Thanks for sharing. I know a lot of people in the Peace Country have either canoed or taken some other sort of flotation boat or tubing device down the rivers. It's pretty fun. It's pretty cool.

Leisa:
Well, that's his very long time ago memory.

All:
[laugh]

Rick:
Like I said, I was 20, 21.

Leisa:
Yeah, long time ago. And so we were looking for an adventure. We'd been living in Port Alberni. That's where I grew up. I was born and raised there. I moved away a few times and I came back in 1990 as a single mom of four little girls. And I met Rick in '91. Yeah, and we got married in December of that year.

Rick:
Well, I'm gonna go back a little bit 'cause I moved there in '76, I believe it was, '75, '76 with my ex-wife. And it was in the mid '80s that we separated, divorced. And then like Leisa said, in 1991, we met. And the story of how we met was interesting. Leisa?

Garett:
Yeah, would you mind sharing?

Leisa:
All right, I love that story. It was January of '91 when I made a very definite decision that I was needing to have a companion to help me raise my little girls. So I got out my journal. I wrote out a list of 10 characteristics of some kind of man that I would really like to meet. And I even put a dress on layaway because I was planning to go out and meet people that fall and have fun and just start dating. And it was in the spring, about March, where a friend of mine, she was a single mom as well, and her daughter was close to my oldest daughter's age. And we were doing some things. We'd go out with our girls and have fun. She said, "I met this guy, and I think he would be perfect for you." He asked me out for coffee, and he had apple juice. And he talked a lot about his girls. He's just like the real family person. And I just think that the two of you should meet. And I'm going, "No." [chuckles] And so finally, she would talk to me almost every day after school. And finally I said, "Okay." And I gave her my phone number to pass along. And that was in April. And I never heard anything back until August the 25th. And I got this phone call on this Sunday afternoon, and there was this handsome voice on the other end of the line. And he's like, "Barb gave me your number. And I just thought, you know, I would call." And I'm like, "Oh, okay." Now that weekend, my girls were with their dad, and they were coming back on Tuesday. And we kept chatting and talking. And he says, "Well, you know, maybe we should get together and go for a walk." 'Cause there was this nice walkway right near where I live. And he was just thinking that, you know, someday we would go, like in the next few days. And I'm going, "Wait a minute. My girls are away with their dad. All this is going in my head." And the next day I was painting my bedroom. Tuesday morning, I was putting everything back together again. And so I wouldn't be ready. Like he would, the girls were coming, and I wouldn't have time to go for a walk after that. So I said, "Well, how about today?" And he kind of went, "Okay." [chuckles] And so he came to my door, and we went off for this wonderful walk. And we felt a spark right at the very beginning. And then at the end of the week, we got together with all of our girls and had a fun time picking berries and having hot dogs and a good time.

Rick:
Can I tell my version of the story?

Leisa:
Sure.

Garett:
Yeah.

Rick:
Like Leisa said, Barb and I went out for coffee at a restaurant. And like, I don't drink coffee, so I had apple juice. And I guess that really offended her for some strange reason. But anyway, yes, I guess I did talk a lot about my daughters. And she mentioned this woman with four girls who she thought I would get along with. And eventually I got her number. I'm not sure, I thought it was right away, but maybe it was after a while. And I was seeing someone at the time, and I didn't feel comfortable starting a conversation with this other person. So I stuck the telephone number in my little thing beside my telephone and sat there for four or five months until that other relationship broke up. And a couple of weeks later, I thought, "Ah, I've got this number. Maybe I should give her a call." And it was on a Sunday. And I heard this nice, sweet voice on the other end. And I was kind of surprised that she said, "Let's meet today." And I said, "Okay, well, let's go meet at somewhere, maybe on the dike or something." And she said, "No, just come to my house." And we've never met. And I was thinking, "Ooh, this is a trusting lady." So I came to the house and she opened the door and she was in this pink sweater that really made her look cute, very cute. And like she said, we went for the walk in the dike. And as our hands were moving past each other, we could feel that, like I could feel the electricity. I didn't know she was feeling it too, but it took us a while to talk about that. But yeah, we went that next weekend, we had a fun time picking blackberries. And if you haven't picked blackberries on Vancouver Island, you've never had blackberries. And then we went for a wiener roast, but it was raining. And I started-

Leisa:
It was drizzly.

Rick:
Drizzly, okay. But it was wet and I got a fire going. It was a little harder, but I still got it going. And we roasted wieners. And then I made this marshmallow for Leisa and I'm the kind of person that likes them golden brown. So I got it nice and golden brown and gave it to her. And she was like almost swooning, but also because I was so close to her. [chuckles] So, so anyway.

Leisa:
Yeah, it was a fun beginning. And we got married on the 7th of December.

Rick:
Oh, well, we met on August 26th, I think it was.

Leisa:
25th.

Rick:
25th, I proposed on September 25th, exactly one month later. And then in December 7th, we got married.

Leisa:
Yeah, and Rick had made the choice to be living in this community because his daughters were there. And he said he was staying until they graduated. And so that means I was staying until they graduated.

09:52 - Moving to the Peace Country

Leisa:
And so when his youngest daughter did graduate in 1999, we decided that we would look for another place to go. We've just all felt that it was time to move and to have an adventure and to hopefully maybe, have a better financial outcome. And Rick got the job up in Grande Prairie and we moved in, well, we arrived, Rick arrived in October and we arrived on the round the 1st of November. And he had found, I went up with him when he went for his interview and we were just scouting around for houses. And we found a place that was on 10 acres. It was beautiful. And the house was old and it just kind of reached its arms out and wrapped them around me. And I was like, I wanna live here. So when he did get the job and he was up there looking for places to live, the best deal ended up being that house. And so we moved up there with all our girls and our four girls, the four girls, and started our adventure. And whenever I think of the Peace Country, I think it was the best of times and it was the worst of times. And it was during the six years we lived in that farmhouse, that we went from a lot of highs, but we had our deepest low. And 2003 will always be called the Year of Hell for us. It was very hard, but-

Rick:
Can I go back just a little bit?

Leisa:
Oh, I was gonna go back too.

All:
[chuckle]

Rick:
Okay. Well, when we got into the house, well, there's another story about that too. But we went for a walk and there was hoarfrost everywhere. It was really thick. So I had my camera out and I was taking pictures and then we saw a great gray owl up in a tree and we sort of crept up as close as we could and I was getting pictures all the while. And that was a really positive memory for us.

Leisa:
That was our first big walk outside in the winter.

Rick:
You can tell about the first night.

Leisa:
Yes, okay. Our first night in our house. This house had been emptied for over a year.

Rick:
Year and a half actually.

Leisa:
And of course, you're out, way out on 10 acres in middle of nowhere. And of course, if you're a little tiny creature, you go look for warmth. And that house had a lot of mice. And so our first night, 'cause we didn't have any furniture. So we're up in our rooms and we had two girls in one room. No, I think all four girls went into one room because of they were just concerned about all the mice and they had towels and things shoved under the door and all around them. And did you set traps at night?

Rick:
I think so.

Leisa:
Okay. And so the first night, we're laying on our bedroom floor and we had a, 'cause we had traveled for about 14 hours getting up there and we had a package of Werthers, those little candies. And so we could hear this, something crinkling the package down at our feet in our bags. A mouse went running across Rick and he's like, "Ah!" And I'm like, "It's just a mouse. "It's fine. "Let's just go to sleep 'cause we're so tired." I mean, you're out in the country. Of course, there's gonna be mice. And then the girls could hear something in their room. And I think Rick had put a trap in the little mini wall. When you've got an old house that's got the short little walls upstairs and there's this little storage and they could hear something going, "Bang, bang, bang." [laughs] They were freaking out. So Rick went and got in there and got the mouse. And he did the next week, he killed so many mice in that house. It was quite an, our first time was pretty big adventure.

Rick:
It was a while before we realized there was actually a mouse highway into the house. They hadn't completely framed in the sill plate. So there was a big gap in it. And of course that's a beautiful freeway for them to come through.

Garett:
Yep.

Leisa:
And so we eventually moved. There was a bedroom down in the basement and we had the two youngest girls down there with a bunk bed. And the youngest was on the top bunk. And she came up the next morning after their first night down in their room. And she goes, "Was it raining last night? "'Cause I really heard a lot of something "like rain on the roof." And I'm like, "You're in the basement." So we just didn't have the heart to tell her that there were mice running above her head. [laughs]

Garett:
I'm familiar with that sentence too. Yeah.

Leisa:
Oh really?

Garett:
The house that I grew up in was old and had some poorly done additions on it. My dad was talking about it in the last episode. And yeah, not necessarily like an all night run along, but yeah, in the addition part, the little pitter patter of mice running about. And at one point when we were under renovations, we hadn't put the ceiling back on. We just had insulation and then like plastic holding the insulation up and you could see the mice running around.

All:
[laugh]

Leisa:
Well, I had this really interesting experience that I had these two friends were over 'cause we were having a meeting together and they came out to my house and Rick had found, I think had like a-

Rick:
Sonic thing to supposedly to scare away mice.

Garett:
Okay, yeah.

Leisa:
To plugin. It was, he found it at a discount store. So anyway, he had it plugged in in our dining room. And so these ladies and I were having our meeting and all of a sudden this little mouse comes up from somewhere and it ran across the wall underneath this plugged in thing over to the stairs to go up and crawled up the stairs and they're going, "Ah!" And I'm going, "Oh, just our little pet." [laughs] Yes, we've had those fun adventures living there. That's the best of times of the Peace Country is how beautiful it is.

Garett:
That farmhouse was on Saskatoon Mountain, right?

Rick:
Yes.

Leisa:
Yeah, exactly.

Garett:
Yeah, it's a very beautiful place.

Leisa:
Yes, it is 'cause we had Crownland to one side of us. We had a huge field, somebody's big field behind us. And then at the end of our big field was another big property, but we couldn't see them. And we were really way out and it was so beautiful. And the night skies were immense, lots of stars. And we saw the Northern Lights several times while living there, just beautiful. And the long summer days and the tall weeds. I mean, we had these big weeds that grew almost as tall as me and just as short time 'cause the growing season is short, but the days are so long and everything just grows. So it's the beauty, it's the moose that would be in our yard. Just everything around it was so beautiful. You could feel the energy of the Peace Country. And I would say this is a perfect name for it because that's what you could feel. That was the best of times were the fun memories that we had and one Easter while we were there, the girls asked us if their stepbrothers could come and spend the Easter weekend with us 'cause they never had an Easter egg hunt before. And we said, sure. And so these two young boys came, they were, I think they were almost teens by then. And we bought six different packages of eggs of different colors. So everybody had their own color to look for. And we hid all these eggs in the snow [chuckles] because you're living up there. And so they had to go looking through the snow to find all their Easter eggs. And that was a memory that they've hung on to even. I mean, when I saw the oldest one, not too many years ago, he was like, oh, I remember coming and you made such great pancakes.

Garett:
Yeah, that's amazing.

Leisa:
Yes, the snow was immense. Oh, we have to tell those funny stories, Rick, with your big tractor.

Rick:
Oh, I bought a really old tractor and it had a blade, but the blade was straight on, it wasn't angled and it didn't push the snow. But I also had a snowblower that was supposed to blow the snow, but either the snow was too deep or there wasn't enough power in the tractor. So I would get stuck and Leisa would have to come and push me. So I think half the time I was being pushed and it was just barely getting the snow off the trail, off our road, I mean.

Leisa:
But it was fun. It was well over 200 meters long. So I ended up doing a lot of pushing, like being on the weight on the back and pushing him through the snow and then adjusting the blower so that it would go. And it was an adventure out there. And the snow would come and it was way over my knees and it was just so deep. I remember we had one really snowy day and I think that was one of the days that your sister came out to play and visit with our daughter. And it was fun. She was out there with us and running around with our big dog.

Garett:
Yeah, I think one of the things that is most different about the North is it doesn't necessarily get more snow than other places. It just doesn't go away. So you just have to keep piling it up and piling it up until you get, until the spring comes.

Leisa:
Well, our two, I think it was our first March was I think the big snowfall that was so deep. And we have pictures of us all out there and it was just like, it was almost to the top of our legs. Yeah.

Rick:
It was up to our hip. Yeah, it was up to our hips.

Leisa:
Yeah, and I think that was, and I noticed then at every March, there would always be this huge dump of snow and it would be wet and heavy. So those were our fun. And another thing that we did, because we had a nice grove of trees and it had a-

Rick:
Fire pit.

Leisa:
Whoever had been there before had put in a fire pit. And so on New Year's day, we were having, we decided that we would do things like a wiener roast or sausage roast. And so one New Year's day that we were up there, we invited the Caulfield family over and he had some, I think some fresh venison meat. And so they brought some meat and we were roasting that on the fire together in the snow. [laughs] Yes, it's a lot of snow memories that we have being up there in the Peace Country.

Rick:
And I really miss that grove where the fireplace was or the fire pit. It was a beautiful little grove.

21:38 - Adventures in the North

Leisa:
And then another winter adventure. We, 'cause we had a Bronco and Elizabeth, our youngest, she was working in Beaverlodge at the IDA.

Rick:
Pharmacy.

Leisa:
Yes, and so it was on a Saturday and she needed to get into work and we had just had a real big freeze and I drove her, we got to the end of the driveway, okay? And I made the turn to go up Saskatoon Mountain, the big hill, we got partway up and I started sliding backwards. I just couldn't get it to move forward. And that was freaking me out. So I kind of slid so that we went into the big bank of snow on the side of the road, so that would stop me and I wouldn't be going so fast, I wouldn't be able to ever stop. So that was another big adventure.

Rick:
Yeah, the tow truck wouldn't even stop. He couldn't stop, he was sliding down the hill.

Leisa:
No, he couldn't. That's what he said, "I will come and try, "but if I can't stop, I'm just gonna be keeping on going." And he did, I saw he came down and he just went past us and carried on. So that was really funny. Yes, we've had those fun times up there in the Peace Country.

Garett:
Yeah, sometimes I'm quite astonished at the state of the roads anyway up there, because there are not very many people, but there are so many roads and those, like every range road and township road, most of it's gravel, but if it's iced over, the sand truck might not come by for who knows how long.

Leisa:
Yes.

Garett:
I know there are lots of, maybe even more miles of stretch in the city, but yeah, they got higher priority.

Rick:
Well, you got some priority as long as you had children that took the bus.

Leisa:
Yes.

Garett:
Oh, that's true, that's very true.

Leisa:
Well, speaking of the bus, the following September, all the girls went off to school on the school bus, their first time ever going on a school bus. And then it started snowing and getting cold, and we have 13-age girls who are invincible. And one of our daughters walked all the way out to the bus in her flip-flops and just a light jacket. And you're not allowed to be on the school bus in flip-flops in the winter, you need boots. So her bus driver was pretty nice to let her get on anyway. And so the first winter, that's what she did a lot of. She just, "Well, I know, I'm fine, I'm fine." And her older sister was all bundled with layers and wraps. But I think she eventually started wearing boots. That was great. And then it was just the two younger ones going on the school bus one morning, and they were heading across the field, and I didn't realize they were going across the field. And we have a big telephone pole that was in the field to bring the power to the house. So they start heading out, and I hear one of the older ones saying, "Mom, there's a moose in the field." And I says, "Just get down to the trees and hug the trees." 'Cause I thought they had walked all the way down to where the bus was come. And they were across the field, and they were stuck at the telephone pole. And this moose ran about probably a meter away from them and ran right past them, and then jumped over the fence into the crown land. And they were so terrified.

Rick:
They said they could smell the breath of the moose as it went past.

Garett:
Oh, wow.

Leisa:
Yeah, the whole smell of the whole thing. So we had another moose encounter, because there's a lot of moose encounters there. And we were coming home one night, and we had all the girls, and we were just getting close to where we were turn up to our road. And we could see ahead of us on the other side of the highway 'cause it's a divided highway, we saw headlights rolling into the middle of the road. And so we pulled over, we stopped, we went over, checked them out. This one guy's got up and started walking, and I'm like, "You don't realize you could be injured." And they had hit a dead moose. A truck had gone by just before them, and a big semi truck, I guess it was its mirror, hit the moose and it killed it. And so this truck hit it, and they just...

Rick:
Yeah, it just, it flipped it in the air, and it rotated probably two, at least two times, 'cause we can see the headlights, and then hit in the middle of the ditch. And then the truck was totally damaged. But at least one of them was thrown out of the vehicle, but all three were up and walking around. And the one guy was saying, "Where's my phone? Where's my phone?" I think he was in shock at that time.

Garett:
Yeah, for sure.

Leisa:
I mean, and we had just had first aid. I had my first aid not that long ago, and it was if somebody is in, they think that they're okay because of the adrenaline that's going through them. But when they calm down, their injury will be there. And I was just like, "Oh my goodness, guys, you gotta lay down." But then I was asked if I would go and put, drive and park in front of where the moose was and have my four ways on so that nobody else would get hit. Oh, moose, they stink. It was the most disgusting thing. So that was our first aid in a accident. And the second one was on the road that we rode going up to the hill to up over Saskatoon Mountain. And we had the girls with us again. And there was a truck, a car upside down, I think in-

Rick:
In the ditch.

Leisa:
In the ditch. And there were some, some had been thrown. And so we did first aid there 'cause my oldest daughter, she knew first aid. And she was there holding onto one guy in the snow and we're holding somebody else until, and we've got all our, we always carry blankets when you live there, always. And had our blankets ready to help out. And well, those are some of the adventures that we had being up there. Like it was a different lifestyle from living in a town. We grew up in a small city and you walk everywhere. And the weather's always mild on Vancouver Island and not very often you're gonna have troubled by too much snow to moving to a place where you're way out and rural. I mean, I always had a street address and then people get, "Well, where do you live?" And I'm going, "Um," and you know, I have this, I had memorized the land. What is it called? The land.

Rick:
It's a legal description, yeah. Lot something or other, yeah.

Leisa:
Yeah, where you're.

Garett:
That's right, yeah. The legal land description, I think you're right.

Leisa:
Yeah. And I was like, "I'm out there somewhere."

Garett:
That's something my dad knows super well. Working in oil and gas and going out to sites where you've divided, everything's divided up into sections and like quarter sections and everything has a number and a label. You can label it like that.

Leisa:
Yes.

Garett:
I think since you guys left, Grande Prairie County did redo their numbering system. Everyone in the county ended up with a street address of some kind.

Leisa:
Exactly, yes.

Garett:
Yeah, it made it way easier.

Leisa:
Yeah, a lot easier. It was just that feeling of, "I live somewhere out there."

Garett:
I remember growing up and my mailing address was just like RR2. And that was like, that was it. It was just like RR2. And then it was like Grande Prairie, Alberta. And I knew people who were like 10 miles away from where we lived. And their address was also RR2. And the postal service just knew where the families lived. It was quite remarkable. Any mail got delivered at all.

Leisa:
Yes, exactly. That's amazing.

29:43 - Year of Hell

Leisa:
So in our year of 2003, the year of hell, so Rick had lost his job. Then my father passed away. And so I got this phone call from my sisters and they're saying, "If you do want to see dad, "you need to come now 'cause he's at the verge." So we left the girls behind and Rick and I drove to Vancouver Island. And I got to be there and hold my dad's hand as he passed. He never was conscious while I was there, but I was there for that goodbye with him. And then the next day we had to drive back. So we were leaving, that's when the toll was still happening on the Coquihalla. And as we were leaving the toll, a can fell off the little holder and rolled under Rick's foot. And we were both reaching to get it. And he drove over in front of this person who was kind of going a little bit fast leaving the toll and crashed into us. And thank goodness we didn't go over the edge 'cause where our vehicle finally stopped, it was steep. So we totaled our vehicle and had to go and get checked out. And we ended up taking a Greyhound bus back. We finally get back home and there's our youngest daughter with a cast on her arm. Her older sister, well, we had a good friend named Thomas. He kind of became like our son that we never had. He was the same age as our oldest daughter. And so he could do all sorts of things, ride his bike on the gravel roads and whatever. So Catherine decided, well, they wanted to get a movie. That's when you had to rent a movie. So I'm not sure how many kilometers it really is from Saskatoon Mountain into Beaverlodge, but it's a ways. And so they got their bikes and they're like, "Come on, you know, she's just too old, we can do it." So they rode up. My girls were never really big bike riders either. They get to the top of the mountain and they start going down the hill. Catherine was doing just fine. Elizabeth hit a pothole and flew over the handlebars of her bike. And she's screaming in pain and her sister's like, "Oh, come on, it can't be that bad." And she broke her arm. But there was angels around. This guy was coming up the hill and he had a truck and he stopped, he put their bikes in the back and helped her get into the vehicle. They drove to the hospital. She got her cast. He waited around for them. And then he drove them to the movie store so that he could get their movie they wanted and drop them back off home. So, I mean, we come home and it's like, "Oh my goodness, like how many more things are gonna happen this year?" It was a rough year. A lot of things went on that year. That was the worst of times. But of course, when you have the worst of times and you get down at the bottom, all you can do is go up. And so we did, we had a really good friend come into our life that made a big difference, big change.

Garett:
Yeah, that sounds very hard.

Rick:
Yeah, it was probably two or three weeks after we came back from that trip where we totaled the car. Actually, maybe a little more because we'd used the money we got from the insurance on the car to buy this old Jeep.

Leisa:
That's where we got the old Bronco, wasn't it?

Rick:
Yes, so I was driving that to work and it was soon, I think just days after we'd actually gotten it that I was called into the office and said, "You can either resign or you'll be fired. "Either way, you're done for the day." And that was the lowest point for me because that was my identity, my job. And it was in the middle of some of the busiest part of the year, getting ready for the summer and all the different things that were happening like Canada Day, I was responsible for Canada Day with the planning and running of Canada Day. So it was big, a lot of stuff happening. And then suddenly I had nothing, I had nowhere to go. And I didn't know what I could tell Leisa or the girls. And when I did, like I sat there for a while but obviously I had to go home because there was nowhere else to go. And when I told Leisa, she was relieved.

Leisa:
Yeah, a decision was made.

Rick:
The job was, it was so stressful that it made me sick. I think that's the start of the diabetes, type two diabetes syndrome that I got. And that's where it started because it was everyday stress. And anyway, so that's what happened. But then that moment where I was called into the office and when I sat in the Jeep afterwards with my head on the steering wheel, that became the starting point for our book. So because that's the lowest, we actually moved forward. And I don't know how many years later is when we wrote the book, but when we left in 2006, we were financially great. We owned our home, we had lots of-

Leisa:
Yes, that property gave us a nice-

Rick:
Savings in our retirement fund and we were great.

Leisa:
And we left there because our children had all moved away and we were there alone. It was that June that our youngest graduated, that our first grandchild was born and they were living way down South. And so Rick kept saying, "We should sell. And if we sell, we get quite a nice nest egg from it and we'd be doing really well." But he says, "We won't do it if you're not ready." And it was so hard for me to like, how could I leave here? And 'cause I would walk around the big fields and it was just, it was so beautiful. And one day I went out there walking, thinking about everything that was going on and this new little baby coming. And I just suddenly felt like I felt, I felt words in my soul of, "Grandma, I'm coming. So I need you to come too. I need you to come and be here." And so I went, "She wants me. She feels she needs me." So I came around the rest of that field, walked in the house and I said, "Rick, I'm ready to sell." And so we had a sign out on the road for it to be sold.

Rick:
We didn't have any real estate agent. We just put a sign out in the road.

Garett:
Wow.

Leisa:
Yeah.

Rick:
And I was out cutting the grass 'cause there was a lot of grass to cut.

Garett:
Yes, yes there was.

Rick:
And this guy saw the sign and drove up the driveway and said, "You're selling your house?" And he was looking, going to look at a house down the road. And he came, looked at the house. I think he brought his wife and daughter back.

Leisa:
Yeah.

Rick:
And then he said, "We want the house."

Leisa:
Yeah, and he basically kind of said that, "We'd like to help you out." Because he knew that we had found a little place to live down in Coaldale and it was all contingent on us selling. And they were just wanting to help us out too. And they really loved the house. And the day that we had to sign all the papers was that date 'cause it was our cutoff date before. So that if we went another day, we wouldn't get the house that we had put our down payment on and they came to sign. And then we realized we had to do this other signature in Grande Prairie. And it was almost closing time. And so we were driving very fast into the city, got there just before the doors closed and got everything signed right at the last moment. It all worked out. And then we had to move away from our beautiful Peace Country.

Garett:
Yeah. I was gonna quickly say that in hindsight, the timing does well for selling before the 2008 housing crash seems also very serendipitous for —

Rick:
Yeah, we did really well in the sale of that house.

Leisa:
That is true.

Rick:
'Cause we paid a really low price for it.

Leisa:
Yes.

Rick:
And then we were able to get a really good price for it.

Garett:
Yeah, you were saying?

Leisa:
Well, it all worked out and it was hard to leave, but the little granddaughter was easy to move to and to be there for. And that was important, very important. I mean, now, but if I could go back and live up in the Peace Country, I would. It's just so, because it's so beautiful and because of the peace.

39:03 - Leaving the Peace Country

Rick:
Now, we do have some memories with your family.

Garett:
Yeah.

Rick:
Your dad and your step-mom and Leisa were in the same church together. So you got to know each other there. And I think Leisa was a Sunday school teacher for one or two of you or three or four of you. [laughs]

Garett:
[chuckles] Yeah, there were a few of us. [laughs]

Leisa:
[chuckles] I think it was the two, yeah. Or maybe it was more.

Rick:
Anyway, when we were moving, we had, I think, three vehicles that we needed to do something with. So we gave our Jeep Bronco to a neighbor just over the mountain. And then we gave our Ford Explorer to you guys.

Garett:
Yeah.

Rick:
You said that was quite an important gift for you because it meant freedom. [chuckles]

Garett:
Yeah, I remember my brother Travis going to, like, I guess, pick it up. It didn't seem to be in great condition.

Rick:
Well, the four-wheel drive wasn't working.

Garett:
Right, and I think my dad and Travis went down to Edmonton to a pick-a-part and got a new back window and a couple other pieces that they put it back together. Or they put it together to make it a better shape. But yeah, I remember, yeah, it was great. It felt like a lot of freedom for Travis to have his own vehicle to drive around and to take me with him. We had a lot of fun with it. We got stuck, of course, in the snow, unsurprisingly, with it. We were driving back from Wembley. I think on Christmas Eve, we were house-sitting for the Popes who were living in Wembley at the time, and they were away for the Christmas season. And yeah, we were coming back Christmas Eve or something very late at night. And I don't know what we were doing, but we drifted off the road. [chuckles] And it was sort of like the winged snowplow, right? So they had pushed it down into the ditch, but then all the snow went up. So we were down on the edge, and the Ford Explorer was on its side. Not like on the side, but it was up against the drifted snow. We basically couldn't get the vehicle to turn and grab the road. We had to dig a little bit to get it out. We eventually did manage to pull ourselves out of the ditch and get back home. Another memorable moment was the old Wembley Highway that was there. They redid it at one point. And during the construction phase, the hard top that was there was now just mud as they were turning it into proper pavement. And Travis was having lots of fun, like playing in the mud with it, going around, going around. And then we heard a thunk, and the sound of the car changed. And we stopped and we looked back, and the muffler was just like a hundred feet back and [chuckles] just had just fallen off. And I don't know if it hit something. Yeah, we had to take that back home and tie it back on. It eventually went the way of most old cars. Just sort of finally fell apart. Yeah, but it was great.

Leisa:
Yes, that was awesome. That's something that we could give to you, created some really cherished memories of your you. That's awesome. I'd have to say that the other really good part about living up there were the people that we met and the connections that we made. And we look back and we remember all the families. I remember the first time seeing your family at church, and I was like, "Oh, all these little kids." And it was just really fun. And it was a really, really great family. And we appreciate you guys. And just getting to know you. And for me, when I get to know people, they get into my heart. And I always, I remember people from all over the place. And sometimes I'm going, "Now, where did I remember them from?" Because I've lived in a lot of different places. But it's the people that we meet, the connections that we make when we cross paths, and you become a part of each other. And those memories are always there. The memories that we made. And there's a lot of happy memories, even though it was hard there, it was still the best adventure.

Garett:
One of my favorite memories from the Peace Country is actually from your guys' property as well. There was a youth activity that you hosted where we all came out to your place. And then at some dark hour of the morning, we hiked through the Crown Land to the top of Saskatoon Mountain to see the sunrise. And we had some devotional at the top of the mountain at sunrise.

Leisa:
Oh, really?

Garett:
But I remember it was quite different than other youth activities, because it was young men and young women. But we were staying the night, but it was only one night. So it wasn't like a camp really, but we did have to stay the night. And I think some of us slept in tents, but also at the same time, we were gonna wake up so early, 'cause it was summer, to see the sunrise that many of us, at least the group that I was with, didn't really try and sleep very well, because we wanted to stay up the whole night. It was amazing. I think especially helping, we would come out a few times helping you clean up the property before you sold it. And I think that's part why Travis ended up with the Ford Explorer. Yeah, so when you talk about your land, I remember your land, the power pole in the middle of that field that you're talking about. Yeah, I kind of remember the layout, 'cause it was a very beautiful piece of land.

Leisa:
It was, it was very beautiful. I inherited two kitty cats. That would have been, that was like, I think the first, oh, within the first year, by summertime, as a friend that was working at the daycare where I was working, she was leaving and she needed a place for these two little kittens that she had gotten. 'Cause she didn't plan to be leaving, but something came up. So I took these little kittens home. And so the one little Calico cat, I saw her one day sitting out by the fence post, all crouched. No, actually it was the deer that I saw first. This deer was pawing and doing funny things and jumping back and looking like it was frightened. And then it was down by the fence post was this little white ball of fur. And it was this little kitty that was out scaring the deer and running towards it and making the deer run. And they were fun. We had good times out there. I love that place.

Garett:
Yeah, thanks for sharing. Like you said, this time in the Peace Country for you is only six years, like now almost entirely 20 years ago.

Leisa:
Yes, I know.

Garett:
So I know you've had a lot of life since then. If you want to share a little bit of sort of where life has brought you a little bit, but also the ways that living in the North has impacted your life since you lived there.

Leisa:
Well, we moved down to Coaldale. We were there for two years. We decided that if we did not achieve some of the goals that we wanted, that we would just sell that place and move on. And so two years came and we weren't any closer to where we wanted to be. And we decided, well, let's move. So we sold that home that we had there. And we ended up buying a travel trailer, a pull trailer, and we got a vehicle for it. And Rick's mother had gifted him her RV membership for this RV resorts called Thousand Trails. And they were all in the US. So we decided, well, we could go and camp for free and we could just spend the winter traveling where it's warm in the US. And so we headed off and we spent from November till June traveling through the US and had a great adventure. And we got back in time for our granddaughter's third birthday. So from there, we had been empty nesters and we decided to do some, go in a coaching program and to discover what is that we could do with our life 'cause we wanted to have a meaningful life. And through that year, we realized that the information we were learning would be fantastic for families. If parents could teach their children this, families would be so well off. And so we created a program that we called FUSE, but it's still called FUSE, Family Unify, Strengthen, Empower. And we just started creating programs for families. We were looking at ways that we could help couples stay together because we saw what happened through divorce. Because even though our girls all ended up pretty good, they still suffered a lot. And part of that suffering was in that year of hell where a lot of things from their young childhood, the effects of their father leaving the family and just other things, it was just trauma for all of us, really affected them as they were hitting their teen years and developing who they are and how to have relationships and a lot of things. And so we really wanted to help parents create homes that their children feel loved and valued. And so that's what we've been doing. And through that, we kind of got off track when we went and spent some time in Red Deer while Rick's mom was getting older and we were there. She transitioned to assisted living to then to long-term care.

Rick:
A long-term care.

Leisa:
And then she passed away. We took over the house and got all that done. And looking back now, there's so many things we would have done differently. But we stayed there a little longer than we had anticipated and we're not city people, at all. And Red Deer was just too big. And we found this property down here in Southern Alberta in Glenwood, a little village. And we were able to purchase it outright. And then Rick found this property on Kijiji. We bought it without even seeing it.

Rick:
We were actually up in Yellowknife when I found the property, visiting Melanie.

Garett:
Wow, that's quite something, yeah.

Leisa:
Yes, and then we're like, well, what can we put on it that we could afford? And there were a lot of houses that are free in Calgary. But when you have to take into account that a lot of them have asbestos and trying to get the asbestos out is a lot of money.

Garett:
Yes, yes it is.

Rick:
And also the moving from a city.

Leisa:
And then moving it, yes. And so once again, Rick went back to Kijiji and we didn't really wanna live in a trailer. We had a home like that already. But he found a double wide and it had been totally redone. You know, not like it was, what, 10 years that it had been redone. So we went out and checked it out and we offered them, it was a good price and we offered them a lower and they said, well, they went up a little bit. So it was all affordable for us. And we got that house moved onto this property. And we were coveting the second acre at the other end of our property and going, oh, if we could buy that. I wonder who owns it. Well, within the month, it came up for sale. And there's a long story about how we're able to get it. But we did end up purchasing that second acre. So we have two beautiful acres, very few trees, unfortunately.

Garett:
Yes, so is Southern Alberta, yeah.

Rick:
We're growing some, but they take a long time to grow.

Garett:
Yes, they do.

Leisa:
That's when we go, oh, we just love, we wish we could have taken our property up north and brought it down here. But we're pretty happy here. We've met lots of amazing people and we are able to continue working away at creating programs for families. And we did a shift this past fall from not just nuclear families, but we made a shift to working with blended families, parents of blended families, because we've been a blended family for over 31 years. And we understand a lot of things that people go through when you're bringing two families together. And there's a lot of challenges. And I mean, we met our big challenge in 2003. And we made it through that. We were able to make it through everything else that came our way and we've survived it. And we're still here talking about it.

Garett:
Yeah, thank you for sharing.

51:55 - Some Final Thoughts

Garett:
Have you found as you've been moving around that you come across other people who have lived in the Peace Country or connected to people you knew in the Peace Country?

Leisa:
Oh yes, our neighbors right next door. Yes, they met in Grande Prairie.

Rick:
That's true, yes.

Leisa:
They did, yeah, they were both up there. So our neighbor next door is the son, his dad lives over on the other side of us. And so they're kind of more Rick's age and-

Rick:
They're the best neighbors ever.

Leisa:
You could never ask for any better neighbor.

Garett:
That's wonderful.

Leisa:
Really wonderful, wonderful people. And so his son is equally amazingly wonderful. And they bought that property just after we bought our property here. And so they were all moved in by the time we got our house settled and set up. And he was up there with his first wife and then I guess his marriage disintegrated. And then he met this gal who was working away up there. And so they got together. And then his ex-wife moved down to Cardston. So he wanted to be near his children. So they came down here and bought that property. And it was interesting. You're from Grande Prairie? We were there, but they came, I think, just after we left, he had moved up or something.

Rick:
Well, another connection is Gerry Hippard. She's one of the ones that became kind of one of our lifesavers after my job ended. And we got really close with her. And of course, Lincoln, you know Lincoln, her son. And so we're down here and Leisa goes over to the brother, to our neighbor, the Wayne, who is that wonderful neighbor. And she goes to take something to his wife. And she said, "Oh, my sister's here." And Leisa turns around and it's Gerry Hippard.

Leisa:
Going, "No wonder you seem so familiar because there is a family resemblance." And it was just really amazing going, "Oh."

Rick:
And those are coincidences. There's a lot of people that Leisa has met through the church that she's running into relatives, neighbors. And even Leisa's ex's wife is related to our neighbors.

Leisa:
Yes.

Garett:
Wow, that's, well, yeah. Kind of a small world there then.

Leisa:
It is, yes. For anybody who comes from up North, they're strong, good people 'cause you've got to be to make it through. You're so far away. You don't realize it until you travel. 'Cause we would go down to the island pretty much every year to see my family. And then, you know, we get back home and we would drive up through, I think Hinton and then head up, is it Grande Cache? And then up. And you start turning up that highway and it's like, we're really where it's desolate. There's just, you just way out where there's nobody.

Rick:
You don't want to break down out there.

Leisa:
It's just amazing.

Rick:
No cell reception.

Garett:
Yeah, you were saying that it's isolated up there and sort of far out. And the stories that you've told us about the first aid that you knew and the people that you helped on the road is sort of really important, I think, about the Peace Country. Is that really when you do come across somebody who needs help, you might be the first person that they see that needs help. And, you know, the help that you can offer can be vital and even life-saving to them. Because yeah, there's not very many people there. So you might be the person really that saves their life as you go along. And whether that in cases of a car accident, like you were talking about, or in other ways, like you were talking about with Gerry Hippard, that sometimes maybe it's not necessarily like some physical thing that they need help with, but you have a friend or a shoulder or some other sort of support. The people around you are really very important to your life up there. And it makes building relationships with neighbors so much more important or so much more vital than it feels like when you're living in the city, when there's just so many people everywhere.

Leisa:
Yes, that is very true. Because you're more vulnerable out there and you need to rely upon each other.

Garett:
I think it also helps them to be more vulnerable. Like because you are more vulnerable when you're building relationships with people, you are more willing to talk about the struggles you're having or the things that you're facing because you're just vulnerable. And so you have a chance to talk with people, you get less focused in on yourself. Yeah, so as we come to a close now, are there any other words of wisdom that you would like to share with our listeners from your life experience?

Leisa:
Well, when you made the comment about has it impacted our life or affected our life from living up there, at first you're thinking, huh? But really, when you think about, like you said, it was six years of our life, but it was such an impact on our life because it was such a different way of living. We'd never lived out in the country and we've never lived out where it was just so desolate or so far away from everybody else. And it made an impact on our life in that way.

Rick:
For me, the bigger impact was that we came there with this idea that we were going to have this economic freedom and that didn't seem to be happening. And we went down into this really deep, we call it an abyss, that year of hell that we went through, but then things changed. And when we left the Peace Country, we went to an event in Edmonton where we stood up on the stage and we were able to tell people that we own our home and came from at least $250,000 in debt to where we owned our home and we had a sizable retirement savings. So that's a pretty dramatic change. And that's what we went to the Peace Country for was economic shift.

Leisa:
So it ended up being that way at the end. So we used that money and had a wonderful trip around the US and that's a trip that I've no regrets over because what an amazing experience that was 'cause we set an intention of places and people we wanted to meet and places we wanted to see and we achieved those goals. And it was just an incredible experience too. I would love to go and do that again too.

Rick:
We personally met Mark Victor Hanson from the Chicken Soup for the Soul. We met Art Linkletter, who you may or may not know. He was the original, I'd say the darndest things. The friend of Walt Disney. So he's of that era.

Leisa:
Yes, it's a-

Rick:
We met a number of other people that because we set out with intention. Anyway, that's-

Leisa:
That's a whole nother story. That was a great adventure. We loved it.

Garett:
Yeah, I like the contrast of that, actually, that in the Peace Country, you'd set out with these goals and this intention of economic freedom and things that you were going to do. And as you say, by your year of hell in 2003, it really seemed like this was not happening. Like everything was just going the wrong way.

Leisa:
Exactly.

Garett:
And the contrast in different when you're going around the United States and meeting a bunch of people and doing a bunch of things, you also had clear goals of things that you wanted to accomplish. But in this case, more was in your control because of the economic opportunity that you actually had after 2003 that came from the Peace Country. And it's really, really incredible how that sort of contrasts what turns out for you.

Leisa:
That's true. It was. You're very intelligent, aren't you?

Garett:
I appreciate the sentiment. Thank you.

Leisa:
You are. Well, it's a, I am so amazed at seeing how all of you have just grown up and other families that I've stayed in touch with from living up near Grande Prairie, just seeing all the things they're doing and their successes and moving forward. And it's just fun. It's fun to, and just feel like, wow, their parents are gonna be so proud of them for all the things that they're accomplishing.

Garett:
I think along those lines of success, one of the things I greatly appreciate about growing up in the Peace Country is the definition of success is different. In a big city, there's a definition of success, which is typically in terms of like financial success and like whether or not you can make it in the city, which usually requires some sort of amount of money to make it because everything is so expensive. But in the Peace Country, the priority and the focus is just slightly different, that the focus is a little bit more on, not necessarily like what you can do economically, but what you can do, not necessarily spiritually, 'cause not everyone is spiritual, but in terms of like the human connectedness with people and with each other, like there's such a different focus on creating a life with people together, even if you are frustrated with all of the other things that like the world or whatever else you want to, you know, shake your fist at, it's like you're frustrated that you're in some position, but you feel so at peace, like you're saying, at home with your family and like the things that you're doing and the things that you're accomplishing. You can go out and work, you might not really like your job, you might not really like the things that you're doing or the things that you have, but as much as the chase of consumerism is there, just like it's everywhere, it's not a fancy place. And so you don't really have like the other half of that in terms of like the kinds of things that people are chasing are slightly different in terms of what they're looking for.

Rick:
It's a simpler life and it's not pretentious.

Garett:
Yeah, exactly.

Rick:
And I see a lot of this stuff happening in cities, the nightclubs and the bars and all those things as a pretentious.

Garett:
Yeah, the high streets and the shopping.

Rick:
Yes.

Leisa:
Where you're just happy being out there in nature. And it's really, it's the people that you become, that's the success. It's like, you're here doing lots of great things and you're a very down to earth person because you care about people. You care about family and that's what is so important. And you're not chasing off on something elusive dream. It's solid and you have a good head sense.

Garett:
Yeah, I think another way to put it is perhaps from the outside, it seems like people have settled in the sense that they were aiming for something higher and then settled on something lower. But I think it's a little bit different in that they've settled in the fact that they've accepted being with people is more important than chasing other things. And that's how it feels. That they've decided to settle into the Peace Country and accept the Peace Country as home, even if they hate the winters or even if they are frustrated with so many other things, it becomes home. And when you accept the home for its place and its peace, it really changes everything.

Leisa:
Yes.

Rick:
Yeah, I have a slightly different feeling or impression on settling. To me, settling is where you just accept your lot in life. Oh, I can't do that because of that or that's not gonna happen because of that. To me, what I hear you talking about is accepting the person who you are and not needing to do the, like I said, the pretentious stuff, the stuff that is external to you. So you're more focused on who you are and what you want to do, be and have in your life rather than on all the stuff that's kind of, that the marketing and media and all of that is the saying you need to have.

Leisa:
Yeah, it's a-

Rick:
Inward focus rather than outward focus.

Leisa:
Becoming someone.

Garett:
Yeah, thank you.

Rick:
That's just my view on it.

Garett:
No, I agree. I think there's, I think one of my favorite things about podcasting medium is the opportunity and time to be more subtle and to try and tease things more carefully. It's not just quick sound, but usually you gotta wait it out and take the patience and listen to it. Give people opportunity to say something and even change their mind in the same conversation and become something, think something else. As we come to a close now, then we're very grateful for this chance to speak with you and just talk with you again. It has been, as you say, you moved out of the Peace Country in 2006 and I haven't really spoken to you since. So it was really great to catch up with you and talk with you. Is there anything that you would like to share specifically about the work that you've been doing, where people can find the work that you've been doing?

Leisa:
Yes, they can go to fusefamilyfocus.com. That's F-U-S-E-F-A-M-I-L-Y-F-O-C-U-S.com.

Garett:
All right.

Leisa:
Yes, and you'll find out there about, You're Not My Dad, Life in a Blended Family.

Garett:
I saw the title, it's a great title.

Leisa:
Yes, that's what they can do. And we're pretty excited to help families 'cause we wanna have a meaningful life. We want to make a difference somehow in this world because we're all here living and breathing and I got another day to breathe. And so that means I might as well go and do some good. And we have an experience. We have our year of hell. [chuckles] We moved up from it. We have achieved things and we've experienced things. We're grandparents now. We're going to have number 14 born this summer. And we have a lot of life experience to look back on. And there's a lot of couples who, when you're just starting to blend your families, those marriages have a lot less chance of surviving. And we wanna be there to help and help them get through those year of hells, to help them make it through all the difficulties because when you do, you become a better person and you grow. And then your relationship also becomes one that's a treasure and something that is the most important part of your life because your children are gonna grow up and they're gonna have their life. And it's wonderful to be able to share your empty nesting years with somebody who really loves and values you.

Garett:
Thank you. I will put a link to FuseFamilyFocus.com, the top of the show notes for people who look at the show notes of their podcast player. It'll also be on our website at PeaceCountryLife.ca.

Leisa:
Well, thank you.

Garett:
Yeah.

Rick:
Thank you, Garett.

Garett:
And for those listening, if you have feedback for us or if you want to reach out to us, Leisa actually reached out to us to say that she would be interested in talking with us. So if you want to reach out to us, typically people are reaching out to us on Facebook, but you can email us at LifeNorthofthe54th@gmail.com as well. Thank you, Rick, and thank you, Leisa, so much for your time today.

Leisa:
Awesome.

Rick:
Thank you.

Leisa:
Thanks so much. It was so awesome to reconnect.

Garett:
And we will hopefully see you around. My parents are in Southern Alberta more often than not now, so you might have to run into them, and I might be down there at some point to run into you too. So we'll see you around.

Leisa:
Awesome.

Garett:
Thank you, take care, bye.

Rick:
Take care, thank you.

Leisa:
Bye.

Garett:
Bye.

Ending Theme Music:
[bass guitar riff with drumbeat]