Three years ago Vikki Freckelton, her husband Alan Freckelton and their six kids decided they were going to move from Canberra, Australia to somewhere.
After two years spent scrutinizing dozens of cities and towns in the Northern Hemisphere finding out which ones fit her list of "the ideal place to live," the family decided Squamish, more than 12,000 kilometres from home, would be perfect.
"We kind of stumbled on it when looking at temperate areas and then when we looked more closely, we found we just kept ticking off boxes of things we wanted in a town - a number of schools to choose from, affordable housing, close enough to a big city but still a small town, a new university - Squamish had it all," said Vikki.
Vikki said such extensive planning is necessary when bringing six kids around the world.
"We have Heather who's 19, Michael who's 11, David who's nine, Declan who's seven, Jasmine who's five and Xavier who's 19 months," she said.
Their seventh child, Katherine, is 22 and living in New Zealand so she won't be following the family to their new home.
The family is free to move about the world since Alan Freckelton brings special qualifications. He is a lawyer with a background in migration law, which also helped immensely when applying to come to Canada, said Vikki.
A key incentive to moving north, said Vikki, is the family's keen dislike for the Australian heat.
"Anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere was out because it's too hot, the UK was out because it rains too much, Europe was out because we wanted an English speaking country and America was out because it's America," she said.
"That left us with Canada."
After perusing Canadian cities and towns online for almost a year, Vikki came across Squamish and it quickly beat out their other potential new home in Ontario.
It must have been fate because she had previously (and unknowingly) fallen in love with Squamish after seeing it in a television show.
"About a year ago, we were watching an episode of Supernatural and the town that they went to they called Concrete in Washington. I remember looking at all the scenery and said 'There, that's where I want to live - except it's in the States. Do you think it's real? It's so beautiful.'"
Curiosity over the gorgeous locale overcame her so she Googled Concrete, Washington.
"It was kind of nice but didn't look the same so I thought, 'I knew it couldn't be real, they must have CG'd [computer imaged] the mountains.'"
But the disappointment did not last long. A few months later while virtually visiting Squamish through Google Maps, she realized what she was looking at.
"What did I see but the very town that I saw in that episode!" she said. "Imagine how excited I was to not only find that this beautiful place did in fact exist but it turned out to be the place that we were seriously looking at to live."
Since then Vikki has taken advantage of every type of technology there is to discover everything about her hometown to be, and even to make some friends.
"It's not like it used to be when you would move somewhere new and you had no idea what it was going to look like," she said.
"I've Google Street-viewed my entire way around Squamish and I feel as though I completely know the layout - it will be so strange and exciting to see it for real."
She even made some friends by joining a few Facebook Squamish groups.
Lois Sokolan, who has lived in Squamish her whole life, is one of Vikki's new Facebook friends.
"She was so excited to be coming here, she said she wasn't sure at first and that's why we bonded," said Sokolan.
After the Freckeltons bought their Valleycliffe house, Sokolan sent photos of the new home and of Valleycliffe Elementary School, which their kids will be attending.
"I think she was more excited once she saw where they were going to be coming to," said Sokolan.
Alan, who is currently an online lecturer in migration law for Australian National University, is applying to University of British Columbia, which means he would live in Canada on a student permit.
He said Canada and Australia have very similar immigration systems.
"Basically the two countries have the same structure - there are skilled independent migration, employment-based migration, student visas, visitor visas and temporary business visas in both countries.
"Canada is generally considered to have a more relaxed approach to the Refugees Convention than Australia - not that this applies to us - and allows visa-free entry for up to six months from certain countries, including Australia. Australia has a universal visa requirement - all non-Australians coming to Australia must have a visa."
Vikki said they should arrive in the beginning of November and see the town and meet the people she's come to know outside the virtual realm.
"I think they'll love it here," said Sokolan. "It's gonna be really fun."
