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About Live on the Sunshine Coast

Paul and Val at Roberts Creek Beach. March 2018.

We think life is too short to live someplace you don’t want to be and doing work you don’t want to do. We’re Paul and Val and that philosophy is why we moved to Gibsons, BC from Edmonton, AB waaaay back in 2014.

We had solid jobs in Edmonton. Val worked as a pharmacy technician for 13 years at the University of Alberta hospital. Paul worked in Fort McMurray for 6 years before spending the next 8 years in Edmonton’s busy radio market. Our families were either in Edmonton or within a few hours’ drive and we had lots of friends that we loved spending time with.

Despite living good lives, we weren’t happy with where we were at, both physically and occupationally. Edmonton’s long, cold winters were grinding us down and while we had good jobs, we knew we didn’t want to keep doing the same things for the next 30 years.

Somewhere around 2011, we hatched an escape plan. We promised ourselves that by January 1st, 2016, we’d be living someplace warm and spending our days at the beach. We first set our sights on Hawaii but quickly decided that wasn’t for us. Then we thought we head to the Okanagan but a less-than-inspiring trip to Osoyoos in January of 2014 put us off making the move. We came home more than a little forlorn and frustrated.

Val and Paul at Roberts Creek Falls. February 2019.

Back in Edmonton, Paul found a story about a town in BC that had the best drinking water in the world. Val didn’t like the strong taste of chlorine in Edmonton’s water so this piqued her interest. We dropped what we were doing and, in April of 2014, we spent a week on BC’s Sunshine Coast.

Our fates were sealed as soon as we drove off the ferry. We instantly fell in love with the weather, the surroundings, and the charming towns of Gibsons and Sechelt. When our week was up, we returned to Edmonton knowing that we’d spent our last winter shoveling snow.

We spent a hectic summer getting our lives in order and 4 months later, we rented a home in Gibsons sight unseen. In September of 2014, we loaded a truck full of furniture onto the ferry and the the Sunshine Coast has been our home since.

Paul and Val at Sechelt Inlet. July 2017.

That same month, we launched a hyperlocal news website which ultimately became LiveOnTheSunshineCoast.ca. We LOVE telling stories and have been proclaiming our love for the Sunshine Coast since we arrived in BC.

Taking photos, making videos, and writing overly wordy blog posts soothes the soul, it unfortunately doesn’t pay the bills. That’s why when we’re not working on Live on the Sunshine Coast, we shoot real estate photos (Val) and videos (Paul).

“How do you guys know each other?”

People often ask what our association is. We’re married (to each other!) and we work together. We originally thought married couples that worked side-by-side were nuts but we discovered we love it! Maybe that says a little something about us! 🤪

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Life and lifestyle on BC's BEAUTIFUL Sunshine Coast!

People

We’re Paul and Val, a husband-and-wife team that moved to Gibsons, BC from Edmonton, AB in 2014. We LOVE telling stories and have been sharing what life is like on BC’s Sunshine Coast since we arrived.