When it comes to immigration, there is often a stigma that people leave their homes because they have to.
For Jana, that was never the case.
Jana started her immigration journey because she wanted to see what was out there. She grew up in the Czech Republic, surrounded by family and the familiarity of the place she had always known. She describes her childhood simply: it was safe, peaceful, and happy. There was no political or religious reason that forced her to leave. No crisis she was escaping.
She just, simply, had an adventurous soul.
“I think that kind of also ignited my passion for traveling and exploring,” she says.
A few years before coming to Canada, Jana moved to Northern Ireland. She loved the experience of living somewhere new, but after two years, she found herself ready for another change.
Then, one day, while sitting in a pub in Belfast, she came across a magazine featuring the Canadian Rockies.
“I was like, oh, that looks fantastic. I want to go to Canada!”
So she bought a one-way ticket.
She arrived in Canada as a tourist, not knowing exactly what would happen next. She was fortunate enough to obtain a work permit, allowing her to stay and work; but, what began as another adventure, slowly became a new life.
Her first home in Canada was Nelson, BC, where she spent two years and met her husband. But, building a life in a new country, instead of just visiting, wasn't always a straightforward or easy process. When her permanent residency application was cancelled, Jana had to leave Canada and return to the Czech Republic with her husband.
Then, COVID happened.
After a year in Prague, she and her husband made the decision to return to Canada together. When he found a job in Kelowna, the two of them weren't exactly sure what they were getting themselves into. To Jana, Kelowna was simply a city on a highway. A place with an airport, a lake, and access to the outdoors.
That was enough for them, so they decided to try it.
And, like many of us who live here, they fell in love with it.
“Since then, we just love it more and more,” Jana says.
For someone who has always been drawn to exploring, Kelowna offered a pretty perfect place to land. There is the lake in summer, the mountains, skiing and snowboarding in winter, cross-country skiing, hiking, and endless places to explore.
“You’re never bored here.”
But somewhere along the way, Jana's adventures became about more than simply seeing new places. She and her husband decided to bring new life into the world as well, and now, almost two years ago, she became a mother.
It changed life completely.
“I never thought I could love someone so much,” she says of her son.
And now, one of the things that matters most to her is making sure he carries a piece of where she came from with him. Jana speaks Czech to him, while his father speaks English. Her son is already beginning to understand the difference between the two, sometimes asking his mother for help in Czech and his father for help in English.
For Jana, giving him the gift of being bilingual is a way of keeping a connection to the family he has thousands of kilometres away.
She misses birthday parties with her family. She misses watching her nephew grow up. She misses the ordinary moments that are easy to take for granted when the people you love live close by.
But she also understands that this is part of choosing a life somewhere new.
“It’s just different, and that’s what it is.”
Jana also understands that starting over involves more than finding a job or a home. It means building an entire life from scratch. She mentions the journey of having to find a grocery store, a hair dresser, and building new routines and finding new favourite places. Most importantly, finding your people.
“You basically have to build up your city, your circle,” she explains.
And friendships can be the hardest part.
Jana mentions how the new friends you make become wonderful people in your life, but there is something difficult about knowing that they don't carry the same history as the friends who knew when you were growing up. She sometimes finds herself wishing she could simply call her best friend and meet for coffee, but that’s never possible when that friend lives 6,000 kilometres away.
Still, she has built a life here.
She studied architecture in Europe and was able to bring that profession with her to Canada. When she first arrived, she worked housekeeping jobs before finding drafting work in Nelson. Eventually, she began working in an architectural office in Kelowna, where she has now been for four years.
She has also found ways to fill her life with the things she loves: pottery, yoga, hiking, skiing, snowboarding, and cross-country skiing.
And perhaps, most importantly, she has found a place where her son can grow up surrounded by something she didn't experience as much growing up in Central Europe: diversity. Jana is struck by the number of different cultures and religions she encounters in everyday life in Canada.
At her son's daycare, she sees people from many different backgrounds living alongside one another. In her workplace, she sees the same thing.
She loves it.
Growing up, she says, Central Europe felt much less diverse. Religion was not something people talked about openly in the same way, partly because of the legacy of communism.
Here, however, she sees people bringing their cultures and beliefs with them, sharing openly, and diversity being celebrated.
“I just love to see that,” she says. “How other cultures and other religions can just live in one country in peace and celebrate each other.”
That perspective has also made Jana more aware of the different experiences immigrants can have.
She knows she has been fortunate.
As a white woman with a profession that transferred relatively easily to Canada, she recognizes that she has experienced privileges that other newcomers may not have. That realization has stayed with her.
“I’m just in awe of everyone who decides to move to a different country,” she says.
Because even when immigration begins with adventure, it still asks a person to rebuild almost everything. A career. A community. Friendships. Familiar places. Family traditions. A sense of belonging.
Jana came to Canada because she wanted to explore. She stayed because, somewhere along the way, she found a life worth building.
Today, she is no longer simply the adventurous woman who bought a one-way ticket after seeing a picture of the Canadian Rockies in a pub in Belfast.
She is an architect, a wife, a mother, a Czech woman raising a bilingual son, and someone who has built a home thousands of kilometres from where she started.
And if there is one thing she hopes for other people beginning their own journey, it is simple:
“Don’t be hard on yourself. It takes time to feel familiar in a new city. It takes even longer to build a community. And, don’t be afraid to explore.”
After all, that adventurous soul is what brought her here in the first place.