Dr. Izanne Nel and her family moved up from South Africa in 2022

Meet Dr. Izanne Nel, 50, her husband Chris, 51, and her children Anina, 9, and Christophe, 6. Dr. Nel and her family moved up from South Africa. She is now a doctor in Manning.

When the COVID pandemic hit South Africa in 2020, and a hard lockdown was enforced by the government, we had the opportunity to pause and consider our dreams and future.

We decided to immigrate to Canada. We talked with expats and immigration agents. We renewed our passports, took language proficiency tests and ensured other qualifications were verified. I also needed to take two medical exams.

The toughest part was certainly sharing the news with our families and friends.

This may sound materialistic, but it was like a grieving process going through my belongings—deciding which ones to keep and which to let go of. I wanted to feel at home in my new country. Each month I was able to decrease the amount of stuff I felt I had to bring with us. It was a happy day when our container arrived just after our first Christmas in Canada.

After passing the first medical exam, conversations with AHS recruiters started. It was a challenge to decide where to relocate to, especially since site visits were not an option due to travel restrictions.

Manning sounded like a dusty little town from a western movie with a tumbleweed rolling down the street, but we decided to take the leap, and we never looked back.

Approximately two years after we made the decision to immigrate, we found ourselves facing the immigration agent at the Calgary airport on Monday, April 18, 2022.

We stayed with fellow South Africans in Okotoks for a few days before heading north on an adventurous nine-hour drive on the right side of the road in snowy conditions. We filled the vehicle’s tank ourselves, and we discovered Tim Hortons’ lovely donuts and A&W’s juicy burgers.

We had a warm welcome in Manning with a hearty meal, a fridge stocked with local produce and gifts for our children.

I had to work under supervision for three months before starting to work as a family physician in Manning. Under the guidance of Dr. Niazee in High Prairie, I became familiar with the way medicine is practiced in Alberta, and I was able to start working in Manning in September 2022.

Our kids were three- and six-years-old when we arrived. We had started communicating with the principal and teachers at the elementary school and daycare before arriving in Canada.

Armed with a basic Paw Patrol vocabulary, the kids settled in well and learned the English language at an amazing pace.

I love hearing them speak English and embracing the language. I often hear my daughter say “literally,” and our son loves telling silly jokes in English. We do still speak Afrikaans in our house.

In summertime we love camping at local lakes and going on road trips with the camper truck. We visited the Rocky Mountains, Southern BC, and Vancouver Island.

Our kids both play ice hockey, and that sure makes the winter fly by fast. Snowshoeing and snowmobiling are our fun winter activities. We still need to become skilled at skiing.

The quiet sound of snowflakes finding their way to the ground where they become frozen onto vehicle windows and the frozen trees on the banks of the Mighty Peace River at Dunvegan are pieces of art that no human being can replicate.

During spring and fall, we are often blessed with beautiful shows of the Aurora Borealis—something travellers pay large amounts of money and travel great distances, just to leave without seeing. May we always remember how fortunate we are when we watch them from our back door.

We recently had a moose visit our garden. We often see bears, coyotes and smaller wildlife along the roads. I love the noisy conversation of the geese leaving for winter, and when they return it is music to our ears.

We miss our family and friends daily, and I miss our language, especially on Sundays in church. Hearing Afrikaans in a random place when we travel is always a lovely surprise and leads to sharing experiences in the language of my heart.

We are so grateful that our road led to Manning—a community with caring hearts where people look out for one another.

We have settled into a nice routine. I work during the day, and my husband works online at night because we’re eight hours behind South African time. He is very resilient. For years he travelled the world for work, and pleasure, before I was fortunate to meet and marry him.

He surely made this immigration easier for our family. We are forever grateful to God who opened the necessary doors in a timely manner and shut the ones that were not part of his plan for us very tightly.