Your Country, Your Story: How did Stacy Ross’ family arrive in Victoria?

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“I knew that my grandfather had roots that started in Scotland” Stacy Ross’s mother, Sharie Epp explained.

“So I was googling around, and I eventually found my great, great, great grandfather had come to Nova Scotia in the late 1700s.”

“But my grandfather” she adds “moved out to Alberta, and that’s where that end of the family started.”

Sherie met her husband Al in a town east of Edmonton.

“Al was in the RCMP at the time, and I think he saw this crazy woman driving a convertible with the top down in November, and that kinda started it…”

Al and Sherie married, and lived, with their baby daughter Stacy, in a small cabin with no insulation.

“We got our water out of the lake,” Sherie said. 

“We didn’t have indoor plumbing, and life just got kinda hard!

“Stacy was little, and we thought we’d never leave Alberta, but then my mother came out here [to Victoria] on a holiday, came back – it was November – and she was talking about how green and lush it was out here, and how wonderful! Within about three weeks, we went from imagining we’d never leave Alberta to packing up and moving.”

“And off we set at the end of November! Great time to drive through [the] Rockies!” she adds with a laugh.

Her husband Al picks up the story at that point.

“It was terrible. Snow, and all kinds of stuff. We got to the ferry, and the guy on the ferry just went like this” Al admits while he shrugged both shoulders and held up his hands in defeat.

“‘More immigrants coming to British Columbia, or to Victoria!'”

And what was Al’s first impression of the West Coast? It was rainy and cold!

“The cold is so much different than it is in the Prairies. I’ve never been so cold in my life! But it was just beautiful” he admits.

Stacy Ross was just four when the family made the journey.

“And all I remember about that trip was driving through the snow, and all I could see was thetail lightss of my grandmother’s car ahead of us.”

So are they glad they made the move?

“I can’t imagine living anywhere else” Stacy said, glowing with happiness.

“I feel like the luckiest person ever, and so lucky to have managed to buy the property next door to Mum and Dad’s place here.”

Sharie agrees, adding that “we’ve never just taken it for granted – this beautiful place we live in – it’s just like living inside a postcard.”

Veronica CooperVeronica Cooper

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