Why I CHOOSE To Live In Canada - Welcome Home to WINTER!

My time in Australia has been everything I hoped and dreamed it could be but all good things must come to an end and it's time to fly back to Canada. My first flight is 13 and a half hours before I learn that Vancouver airport has shut down for snowpocalypse. After some number of hours in the air I find my way to the Calgary International Airport not even knowing what day of the week it is. I've seen my fair share of cold weather but I have to say flying from plus 30 on the beach to minus 43 is a little bit of a shock. My buddy Brendan left his car at the airport for me and I've gotta say he's pretty trusting. First time driving on the wrong side of the road in a while. Welcome back to Canada. Good morning everyone it is the next day. I slept like a rock last night and I've just come outside to say hello to an old friend. You'll be happy to know it's warmed up immensely because the sun is out. Now it's only minus 29 and you can hear how loud the snow is because of how cold it is. Oh my god and there she is. It's a blast from the past. Check this out. So it's actually been in a garage for the whole time for a year and a half but my friend Brendan he did me a super solid because he knew it was going to be so cold he got it out of the garage a few nights ago. So he swapped on these brand new winter tyres. I've never even seen these before. These are Yokohama GO75s so these are really high super grip winter tyres. You can see look how many those squiggly lines on there we call those sipes. They determine how grippy they are basically in the snow. They're not studded but they're basically as high end as you can go before you go studded. Because they're only 265 75 17s they're about 15 millimetres lower than the XATs that were on it, the summer tyres. So that lowered the back. Brendan said they had a couple of guys jump on the back bumper and they drove it out of the garage. So wow this is strange to see. I just haven't seen it in so long. It's only been outside for a couple of days but obviously it's been snowing a bit. Can't really see much because it's covered in a bit of snow. But I do have a mission today more than just coming out here to reminisce. The door's unlocked so the battery can't be too dead. We have a sneaking suspicion that the battery is flat and it's kind of hard to say because there is that kill switch that I installed which Brendan isn't super familiar with and so he had a bit of a hard time starting it. But it's hard to say if that's because of the kill switch or because the battery is dead. This is like putting on an old cosy sweater or a nice comfy pair of socks. Wow I've spent some hours sitting in this driving seat and wow it all feels a lot kind of older and different than the Gladiator did. I just see there it's 290 000 kilometres on the clock. I couldn't really remember and it's still got some good dust on it. Some of that might be from Africa, just about. And oh yeah Brendan managed to get two of the summer tyres in the back. You can see one two that fills up the back pretty well. And wow I can hardly even remember all the stuff I left in here. Here's a ratchet strap that we used to compress the suspension to get it in. The air hose because we had to air down and up the tyres. But wow I'd kind of forgotten how worn some of it is. I guess I mean it's not a brand new vehicle like the Gladiator was. It's got a few miles on it but the purpose of today's little expedition I'm not actually going to drive anywhere. I don't think I need to. I really just want to see if it'll start and because it is minus 30 and it's not plugged in starting it is not brilliant for it but I kind of need to know if the battery is dead or not. And when I say plugged in because this is Canadian spec it actually has a kettle inside the engine block. There's just an electric heating element just like your kettle and when you plug it in to wall power it heats the coolant that's inside the engine and because of the heat it would move around a little bit. That just helps the engine be a little bit warmer. So when you turn the key you're not doing as much wear and tear to the engine because it isn't actually at minus 30. Maybe it's something at like minus 10 or something like that. But let's see I guess I have to figure out because if the battery's dead one of my missions here today in the next couple of days I better go and get a new battery and make sure that I can actually drive this thing. So if it starts I'll probably just turn it off again right away because I don't actually need to go anywhere but if it sounds like the battery is dead I'll um come up with a plan on that. Clutch feels really soft. I don't know if you guys could hear that but I could. So it did turn over on the starter I could hear it but clearly symptoms of a dead battery. It was really whirring and really sounded like loading up which part of that will just be because the engine's so cold. Kind of confirms to me though I think I better go and get a new battery. I mean I need it to go for this whole winter so why mess around with a battery that maybe is a little bit uncertain. So that's I think that's my mission for right now. Now I know the battery needs replacing. I think that's going to be my day today and uh reminisce a little bit. Oh there's Sid the sloth hanging off the roll bar. Hey buddy I haven't seen you in a while. Jeez look at him hanging back there. Oh just turn that on so I can see. There he is hey buddy. He hasn't done much swinging lately we better fix that today or tomorrow. Get him swinging around the shovels in the back here. I do feel like I left my old hiking boots in here too. I better have a look for them. The old spirit bubble that I put up here to make sure it was level when I park it. I can't actually see if there's a oh there's the bubble. Oh I wonder if it's frozen. This is this is pretty entertaining. Thanks for coming along nostalgia for me. Let's go find a new battery and hopefully I can get it in while the sun's still out so I don't actually freeze. So there we go we have a new battery on board. I'm in Brendan's car and I got an Optima yellow top because of the dual battery holder in the jeep. Only an Optima yellow top will fit. So that is a $395 battery thank you and I'm sure the house battery is dead as well so I probably need two of them but I'll deal with that another day. I'll change that out when it's not minus 29 outside. I'll show you what the driving looks like a bit around town and it's pretty funny that in Canadian Tire maybe I don't sound like I'm from here I don't know. The guy started trying to lecture me about cold weather you have to plug your car in and all that kind of stuff. I was like I know man I live in the Yukon but he still didn't believe me. I guess my accent's a lot stronger now. Everyone in the shop sounded very Canadian and of course every single person in there is buying a battery because of the cold weather everyone's battery's died. So onwards and onwards. So there we go this is just so strange to see it's all weird memories and feels like deja vu but I guess I didn't clean it too well before I put it away. Sorry girl I forgot Brendan and I went for a big drive the day before we put it away so there are some pretty good bug splatters on here and the engine bay hasn't had a wash for a while I guess. But here's my challenge for the day top battery is the starter I won't have too much trouble getting off the positive and negative they're easy enough. Actually while I was away I hot-wired my solenoid this is both batteries are bridged together I'll take that off I'll disconnect the solenoid entirely so that it does not try to bridge them and then getting the battery tray out I remember is a bit hard. This side is easy I can get wrenches under here under these guys there's one here in the middle and I remember this one's hard to reach I mean it's just going to be a game of perseverance I'm sure I'll get it out but I'll dig out the block heater plug-in and see if I've got enough cables to reach from here I'm not sure but if I could get plugged in that would be great. Two hours later So as you could have guessed of course I froze the GoPro and it totally wouldn't work at all but it took me oh maybe an hour and a half and I did get the new battery fully installed so you can see there it is there and the jib's been on the block heater has been plugged in now for probably two nearly three hours so certainly the coolant inside the engine well it shouldn't be at minus 30 anyway which is good and I've also got the battery right now plugged into a battery charger so I just thought it'd be a good idea to try and get that new battery as strong as it can possibly be so I'll show you this too this is the block heater here factory installed from Jeep this was always in the Jeep and so it goes down into a Welsh plug down on the side of the engine and the whole job went pretty well the worst part was actually these holes in my little gloves that I have every time my finger touched metal basically I lost feeling and by the time I was finished I couldn't feel my fingers or toes that's how it goes so let me just disconnect this stuff then we'll see how she goes so let's see what happens here if it won't start now I don't think it'll start at all let's try there it goes all right so it fired up really strong the battery is obviously very strong it made that bit of an awful noise I don't know if you heard that maybe one of the accessories not happy like power steering or alternator or something maybe I'm just gonna pop the hood and have a look but of course I gotta crank the seat heater because I'm gonna go for a drive here in a minute so full on the seat heater turn the actual heater on a bit try and warm it up in here she's certainly running haven't heard any other bad noises still has three quarters of a tank of fuel I see yeah that's great I'm gonna take it for a drive here give it a bit of a shakedown run it's gonna be pretty fun come along I'll show you what that well good morning everyone it is a balmy minus 32 degrees and I've decided to leave Calgary I'm headed out the Rocky Mountains are directly in front of me and as you can see I'm driving the jeep so last night I took it for a test drive through town of course the GoPro froze again I've had it plugged in for hours and hours and because I've been driving an hour already this morning it's pretty warm inside right now it must be I don't know plus five or something maybe plus 10 got the heater absolutely pumping so hopefully our GoPro keeps going but today I thought I'll show you the scenery as we drive out into the beautiful Rocky Mountains there is a lot of snow on the mountains they kind of looked more like a postcard or a painting than real life and uh and I'll tell you some stories it feels like it's time for a Christmas story and uh the one that I had today is lots of people are asking me why do I live in Canada why would I choose Canada when I could be in Australia on the beach right now I was on the beach the day I flew out getting sunburnt you know my surfboard's there my brother's there he loves surfing um and it's a fair question and so let's talk about that before we do though I think a bunch of you are curious how's the jeep the jeep is great it uh it definitely didn't love starting in that cold weather but driving has been absolutely flawless um I'm really surprised actually it's nicer to drive than I remember um I am talking pretty loudly now to the GoPro it's really windy outside I can hear a bit of wind noise and also once you get above about 80kms an hour the engine is quite a bit louder than the Gladiator um and I wonder if part of that would be my mechanical fan that I've added I should probably take that thing off given that it's winter but overall it's smooth it's nice to drive it's so much fun driving a manual transmission again I forgot how much I enjoy it uh when I first got into I was really shocked that the seat felt really firm and solid and it was a different seating position than I remembered of course that's just because the seat was frozen solid now that it's thawed out a bit I've got it sinking into it it's comfy uh also it was surprising it was like the seat heater wasn't working very well again that's because it's minus 30 the one in the Gladiator only ever had to contend with plus 10 or something so uh it's a bit of a different universe here but yeah it's really great to drive it definitely I wouldn't say it's gutless compared to the Gladiator it just drives differently part of that will be because it's a manual transmission when I'm going up a hill I have to put my foot down more and more in fact right now I have to go for fifth gear otherwise it's just going to keep slowing down basically versus the Gladiator because it was an auto especially it would just keep kicking down gears down down down and it would rev harder and harder and harder until you're revving it four and a half thousand rpm to maintain 100k's an hour which is harder than I would ever rev this engine or really you know any manual transmission but they were just different in that regard that engine revs hard and that's what the auto transmission does versus now I'm in charge I'll probably just go a little bit slower but rev the engine a lot less but overall the Jeep from a year and a half in storage new battery check the oil checked all the fluids drove it around town for an hour last night and now I'm setting out for a seven hour drive 500 kilometers into the mountain um and it should warm up today from minus 32 I'm expecting it to get up to about minus 18 or so I know that still sounds really cold but it is significantly different so I'm keeping my eyes the Jeep has a temperature gauge on the dash I'm keeping my eyes on it it says minus 29 right now as to today's video topic though why do I choose to live in Canada why would I subject myself to this minus 32 nonsense and in fact where I used to live in Whitehorse it's just flat minus 40 this whole week so Canada's getting a cold snap right now and uh when I think about it there's really two major reasons why I choose to live in Canada and Katie is now reason number three of course Katie's in Canada I want to be wherever Katie is so that's where I'm headed right now of course but the two main reasons that have really really been the core of why I choose to live here for the last 15 years or so and you know I could choose to live in Australia New Zealand I choose to live in Canada and the first reason it's pretty obvious on the surface it's just how beautiful it is the insane mountains that I'm driving through the rivers the lakes the wilderness you know the wildlife kind of the beauty that is out here I personally think surpasses anywhere else I've been on the planet I am just staggered right now looking at the mountains I it doesn't even look real more than that though I think I think it's easy and obvious to say that Canada's beautiful what I never appreciated before because when I grew up in Australia you live in a place where the weather is very stable and very consistent lots of people lots of parts of Australia really only have two seasons as a joke people say hot and then hotter they're the two seasons and so what that means is wherever you live whether you're on the beach or whether you're kind of inland or even if you're in the mountains a little bit you basically live in the same place the seasons don't change and if you want a different season you have to go somewhere maybe you even have to fly overseas versus in Canada when you live like even where I am right now it's minus 32 today six months from now it could easily be plus 32 could even be plus 40 and then you actually still live in exactly the same place you didn't go anywhere but now you can go mountain biking now you can go out hiking you go swimming in the lakes and rivers we float down one of the rivers up here in inner tubes every summer because it's hot enough there's swing ropes we swing out of the trees all of that kind of stuff then just wait another six months oh there's a jeep I better wave I've got a jeep wave back another six months later and here it is snowing again now we can go snowboarding snowshoeing ice fishing all of like the winter activities and so really it's like living in two places for the price of one without ever having to buy a plane ticket without ever having to really drive anywhere you get both of those amazing massive seasons a full summer where you will get sunburned and the sun is up for 18 to 20 hours a day and then a full winter where you've got some of the world's best snowboarding mountains to explore backcountry all of that and you never went anywhere to me having well actually the four seasons I really like fall as and spring's always interesting it's kind of a weird transition but some of my favorite days of the year are like the changeovers so it's a real thing in Canada you get all excited you put your snowboard and all your winter gear away but on that same day you get out your mountain bike and you get out all your hiking gear and so it's fun too although you're saying goodbye to snowboarding for six months you're saying hello to all your summer activities and then it never takes very long and the same thing happens in the opposite direction clean up your mountain bike oil everything grease it put it away in storage and while you're there grab out all your winter gear and your snowboard so that's that's kind of reason number one or that is what I think of and it's the obvious one the seasons and the beautiful scenery reason number two I think maybe is a little bit less obvious and it took me it took me a lot of years of living here to really kind of understand it or really appreciate it and to describe this I'm going to generalize a lot I'm going to generalize about Australians and Australian culture and I'm going to generalize about Canadians and Canadian culture and you know maybe generalizing isn't actually the greatest thing in the world to do but I think it's kind of useful because generally it's true that's why it's called a generalization so the main reason I think the number one that I choose to live in Canada is because the seasons influence the culture they influence people's attitudes and for me the Canadian seasons they influence Canadians in a way that I really love that I really appreciate Canadians to me are amazing I mean not only are they extremely kind polite friendly which is fantastic that's great but more than that the bit that really I love is Canadians are go-getters Canadians absolutely go out and they do stuff and they do stuff with passion and they're not the kind of people who are just going to sit around and wait or sit around and say ah you know maybe not this weekend and it took me a lot of years to really put my finger on it and I do think it's because of the seasons and being back in Australia for that year and a half I met a whole bunch of Australians obviously I went all the way around the country and there's something the seasons in Australia because well once when I described it to a friend of mine I said yeah you know the weather's always amazing there's no clouds it's between like 20 and 35 or 40 every day he said oh sounds a bit like Groundhog Day and I've thought a lot about that and the thing about Groundhog Day is it just feels so repetitive every day is the same there's no reason to like get after it or take advantage so my memories of Australia when we were growing up is it would be like a beautiful sunny weekend and you could call up all your buddies and say hey guys do you want to go camping this weekend and everyone would sort of say yeah we could go next weekend which is true because the weather will be just the same next weekend same goes if you want to go fishing if you want to go hiking if you want to do anything like that the answer is always ah we could do it later ah let's not bother let's just have a relaxing weekend let's sit by the river let's sit by the lake which of course also makes sense because often it's stinking hot who wants to go hiking or mountain biking when it's 40 or 45 degrees celsius so I think the seasons in Australia lend themselves to like let's find a shady tree let's have a big cooler full of beer let's have a really comfortable chair and that will be our weekend and don't get me wrong I enjoy a cold beer as well but there's kind of not much else to the weekend I think generally speaking that's true in Australia of course it doesn't apply to everyone it doesn't apply to everywhere but I think on the whole that is the culture let's relax let's slow down let's sit in the shade take it easy all of those kinds of things and people say Australians are really easygoing again I think easygoing is a bit of a synonym for like relaxed a synonym maybe for lazy maybe Australians have a bit of lazy creeping in I know I it's part of who I am inside I feel that draw to like sit on the couch and do nothing for a day but anyway flipping that around coming to Canada and spending time with Canadians what I really learned is if someone calls you up and says hey Dan let's go camping like the weather's good on the weekend Canadians know they need to go camping because in a few more months it won't be possible there'll be snow on the ground feet of snow on the ground and it'll be minus 32 well minus 30 right now so that means Canadians are more motivated to like get after it like to go for it to get out and do stuff and on top of that too when Canadians go camping it always impresses me of course people show up with a comfortable chair and a cooler full of beer that's important but before the beer comes out Canadians bring canoes they bring rock climbing gear they bring hiking gear they bring everything you can imagine to be active and to go out and explore and like take advantage of that season that's available to them I mean the lake isn't liquid for the whole year sometimes it's solid ice so that means while it's liquid let's take advantage let's go canoeing down to the far end of the lake you know there's a cool sandbar down there we can camp during the days we can hike way up into the alpine and find some little alpine lake and maybe jump in there even though it's freezing cold all of those things Canadians are really excited to go and do I think because in the back of their mind they know pretty soon they're not going to be able to do it so they kind of have to right now so it leads to this culture of like let's go let's do it come on no waiting no slowing down no sitting around being lazy and of course the exact same is true in winter as well as soon as there's all this snow on the ground you start getting phone calls from all these people hey Dan let's go snowboarding hey Dan let's go ice fishing let's go snowshoeing let's go backcountry skiing we found a lodge way back in the mountains we're all gonna ski in there it'll take us like five hours drag a toboggan full of gear better concentrate here and uh let's stay in this backcountry lodge you know bring all your camping gear and we sleep inside but you bring a sleeping bag and all that stuff and so again because they know the winter is not going to last I mean the snow's on the ground for let's say five or six months you have to be active and you have to go for it take advantage of this epic snow go and get some of the best snowboarding on the planet because it's going to end because it'll be gone and then you won't be able to anymore and so it's amazing that it actually applies in summer and in winter it gives Canadians this push to like go for it to let's go let's go get it let's go do it none of this like oh yeah you know we could do it next weekend so that's a really long-winded way of saying I live in Canada I choose to live in Canada because I really love the Canadian way of life I love how Canadians are go-getters I love that they prioritize getting after it and I think for me and for what I want to do in my life and the kind of people that I want to surround myself with it just makes me happy and it just makes me smile and it makes me excited to get up in the morning whether it's minus 30 and everything's covered in snow whether it's plus 30 and we're gonna go jump in a cold lake both ways I wake up with a smile on my face and I say oh my god I can't believe where I am I can't believe we're going to do this crazy adventure like I'm excited a little bit scared but I'm excited and I'm like let's go this is amazing that's Canada for me that's why I'm here that's why I'm gonna live in Canada for the rest of my life I love it I have a lot of adventures around the world that I absolutely want to go and explore and look at learn about but I think there's a very good chance I will always come back to Canada so far it is the best country in the world that I've ever found to live in full-time for the rest of my life Canada's it so that's it I hope you're enjoying the scenery I hope you're enjoying this drive I'll uh I'll keep showing you some beautiful things there's a big truck and lots of blowing snow in front of me and uh thanks for watching thanks for coming along on this ride it's taking me I don't even know what I'm up to now 72 hours 80 hours from dad's place to eventually I'm gonna get to uh Katie and my house back home in the mountains so it's been a long journey four-wheel drive it looks a bit slick it's been a long journey but it's gonna absolutely be worth it I'm quite sure and of course it's Christmas time too so I want to say to everyone Merry Christmas I hope you have a really good family Christmas uh it's been a tough couple of years with COVID and being away from family and friends so I hope everyone can find a way to surround themselves with their loved ones and happy new year as well it's always coming faster than you think and on that note I'm gonna take a little bit of a break from YouTube I uh I'm really happy with the Australia series there is of course one more video coming from Australia the most epic of them all I have to edit the footage I'm working on it it's taking a long time I'm gonna take a few weeks off though I need to regroup I need to spend some time decompress and I'm working absolutely on the next vehicle and the next adventure and I'll come back to you maybe in early February I'll come back to you with starting to talk about that and what's involved and how it's all gonna go it's absolutely going to be the best overland vehicle that I've ever owned I think in every category it's a win so I'm pretty excited about it there's a lot of irons in the fire I'm working on things on a lot of different angles but for now I'm going to enjoy a beautiful day in the mountains driving my favorite jeep that I can't believe I drove this thing around Africa in plus 45 degrees for years and now here I am in Canada again minus 32 insane jeep more adventures yeah I'm not gonna pop the roof and sleep upstairs tonight I'm not quite that crazy but jeep's running great it's a beautiful day in the mountains thanks so much for watching thanks for all the support for the Australian expedition thanks for all the kind comments they really mean a lot to me I put a lot of effort and a lot of my heart and soul into this and so thanks guys it's been an incredible journey that is expedition number three in the bag mind-blowing I am writing a book about it it will come it's a ways away but it's coming I've got a ton of magazine articles to write still another video for you guys so much happening thank you all so much I really appreciate it all the best for 2023 time is going fast like it always does what can I say my usual sign off have fun out there everyone and maybe I'll bump into you on the road this is the top of Kootenay and so this is the highest pass the highest mountain pass in Canada that's open year-round so it is open in the winter as well and the sign just went behind that truck yeah elevation 5820 feet 5820 which was 1700 and something meters so you can see it is full-blown winter up here snow banks aren't really high yet it's probably only been maybe two meters of snowfall maybe three but this gets the crazy part now it is down down downhill and this part always unnerves me because when you go downhill obviously you can't control your speed in the same way and if you need to just bury the brake pedal when you start sliding well then you're in trouble big trouble so I'm only in fourth gear right now I'm currently doing 60 a bit over 2000 rpm just gonna see what happens see how I feel the surface has been pretty good I mean it's full winter lots of gravel on the other side not much gravel on our side right now but um they've done a pretty good job plowing and all the trucks have been using chains so the the actual snow that I'm driving on isn't smooth it's very very corrugated but uh I wonder they maybe help with grip better than before it's just sleek I'm just touching the brake pedal ever so slightly to stop me accelerating we're running up towards two and a half thousand rpm nearly 70 kilometers an hour and have a look at the view this is why I live in Canada these are the adventures that I want to have and of course this early in the season you can see on the left there's really no snow bank so if you start sliding right now you will go off the side of the mountain and it is a very very long way down over there so I'm kind of happy to be over this side right now touch that brake pedal again getting close to 3000 rpm minus 24 and of course because I'm not using the accelerator the computer isn't injecting any fuel into the engine right now which means it's not burning anything which means it's not generating any heat and it's always fascinating to watch as you come down here the temperature gauge just starts going down and down so obviously it's closed the thermostat and it's trying to maintain its heat but without any combustion going on and all this cold air just slamming in the front of the radiator in the engine bay it just eventually cools down and I remember my first jeep I ever owned coming over here the temperature gauge would almost like rock bottom out this is the coldest I've ever been up here at minus 24 so we'll see what this jeep does today and this pass too it's really famous they are they do a lot of avalanche control here so I've been watching it because I knew I had to drive over two days ago and closed for about four or five hours they basically shoot cannons at the mountains and that causes them all to avalanche which cover the road and then they spend the next however long plowing and pushing all that snow off the road and then they reopen it again and they basically do that after every significant snowfall for the entire winter so usually it's closed for a couple of hours every like three or four or five days basically just depending on yeah they really have to fire rockets at the mountain to make it avalanche otherwise the risk is it will avalanche when there's cars and people up here you can see everyone's riding their brake on the right way down trying to not let the speed get away from us and the surface still is pretty good so I don't feel too sketched about it but it never does feel like nice to have to put your foot on the brake when you're coming down a hill like this if I start sliding I do not have many options best case is take your foot off the brake stop sliding and then maybe try again or maybe steer to a different part of the road and then try again but of course with oncoming traffic that's a thing and obviously if you had a choice you're gonna go to the right and go into the ditch going to the left and eat on but it's one of those not very good uh choices you don't really want to do either so slow and steady definitely is the way to go on the way up people were basically treating it like a racetrack I was kind of surprised I haven't seen that before but on the way down here you can see everyone's being pretty sensible and conservative there's no one overtaking and just going like as fast as your car will roll in the summer you can do that and you can be doing 140 down here pretty so there we have it that has been the mighty Kootenay Pass the mighty drive uh I've been driving for eight and a half hours today and uh I don't even know what it's been since I left Australia four days four and a half I have completely lost count I've had about two days of sleep in that time so I'm about ready to arrive these Yokama tyres have certainly done their job not once today have I slid or slipped or felt the least bit unconfident that's been really nice considering I'm a little bit out of practice driving in the snow and in the winter so there we go that is just under nine hours of driving and it is very much winter here I was just in four-wheel drive sliding a little bit going uphill it's uh cold and winter and even minus 20 oh my god it's been I don't know four or five days since I left Australia and I've maybe had one or two nights of sleep I'm really happy to be here this has been epic I hope everyone has a really merry Christmas I'm gonna go and see Katie you