Lethbridge the Bhutanese capital of Canada
About 1,300 people from Himalayan nation have found welcoming home in Alberta city
This windy Prairie city is a world away from Sunita Rai’s mountainous South Asian birthplace and the crowded refugee camp where she grew up.
But it’s here that 23-year-old Rai feels at home.
It’s here she can build a life for herself while celebrating the culture of her native Bhutan. And she’s far from alone. At about 1,300 strong, Lethbridge is home to the largest Bhutanese community in Canada.
Rai was just a baby when her parents were expelled from the tiny, landlocked Himalayan country of Bhutan in the 1990s amid religious and cultural tensions.
Alongside thousands of others, the Rais fled their home, livelihood and country, and sought protection in one of seven U.N.-established refugee camps in eastern Nepal.
More than 100,000 expelled Bhutanese lived in the camps for two seemingly interminable decades before a handful of countries, including Canada, finally agreed to accept the stateless refugees in 2007.
By the end of 2015, nearly 6,600 Bhutanese refugees had settled in communities across Canada and, today, about 20 per cent of those newcomers are living in Lethbridge.
While some landed in Alberta’s fourth-largest city straight from the camps, many others, including Rai, her sister, brother and parents have relocated from larger Canadian centres after hearing friends or relatives gush about the friendly southern Alberta community.
Rai’s family boarded a plane for Vancouver in 2010, but they felt isolated in the bustling city and her parents struggled to learn English and find work.
“We almost forgot our culture because we didn’t see the Bhutanese people (in Vancouver),” Rai said. “My parents, they said if we forget our culture, we will forget ourselves ... I believe that’s true.”
Lethbridge, with a population of just under 100,000, offered something different.
Rai’s family arrived in 2012 and, like many others, quickly found jobs and a strong network of support.
Lethbridge Family Services has helped ease the transition since the first group of Bhutanese refugees came to Lethbridge in 2009.
The non-profit has also assisted the hundreds of Bhutanese who settled elsewhere in Canada before relocating to southern Alberta.
“We had the largest secondary migration influx from Vancouver to Lethbridge,” said Bozana Sljuka, manager of settlement programs at Lethbridge Family Services Immigrant Services.
“It was word of mouth that spread it across the country.”
Purna Adhikari, president and co-founder of the Canadian Bhutanese Association, said Lethbridge’s popularity among Bhutanese refugees has been studied by other countries, including Australia.
“We find Lethbridge to be an ideal city,” said Adhikari, who immigrated to the city in 2009 after two decades in a camp in Nepal.
The high-school students who spend their lunch break slurping large bowls of noodle soup in Namaste Nepali, a restaurant that serves a taste of home and features walls covered floor-to-ceiling in photographs of Bhutan, agree.
“Here, we can be independent; we get jobs easily and everything like that,” said 17-year-old Samjana Gurung, who moved to Alberta from Nepal five years ago.
“My mom and dad wanted a better future for their kids, so they came here.”
In Lethbridge, Bhutanese people of all ages are free to simply be themselves.
“We want to keep our identity, culture, language, everything ... because we didn’t have that. We had to leave the country because we were not allowed to do those things in Bhutan,” Adhikari said.
“In Nepal, we could practise those things, but not so openly because we were restricted to the camps.
“We are here in an open country, and we can preserve our culture, traditions, language and everything that actually shows our identity.”
Many of the refugees belong to the Hindu community, a religion that’s rife with ritual, and Adhikari said the fact Lethbridge has a priest who can conduct Hindu ceremonies is one of many factors attracting Bhutanese people to the city.
Lethbridge’s size — not too large but not too small — also plays a role. Newcomers can easily navigate the city and access amenities such as grocery stores and English classes without spending hours on public transit.
Then, there’s the weather. Lethbridge is sunny and its summers are warm. Winters are mild compared with other parts of Canada.
Though immigrants admit the city’s wind takes some getting used to — one newcomer watched her father get sick “because it was so windy” — the climate is welcomed by people used to a hot, humid, tropical region.
A lack of English-language skills has stopped Bhutanese in other parts of the country from securing work, but newcomers to Lethbridge often find employment quickly on nearby farms or food processing plants where strong English skills aren’t a requirement, Adhikari said.
Once newcomers get jobs, cars and home purchases follow.
“People started buying houses when they lived here for two years, or three years. Because they got the job immediately, they could manage to buy houses, they could get the mortgages,” Adhikari explained. “When people started buying the houses, others thought, ‘Oh, yes, we also need to do that.’ ”
The Canadian Bhutanese Society was initially founded with the intention of raising funds for a temple, but over time that goal has been modified to a multi-purpose community hall where Lethbridge’s Bhutanese can celebrate holidays, gather as a community and worship.
In recent years, Bhutanese residents have opened at least four businesses in Lethbridge, including the cosy restaurant in a northside strip mall and two general stores that sell traditional clothing and food — Bharat Store and Gorkha Department Store.
It’s a sign the community is thriving, said Sljuka of Lethbridge Family Services, who acknowledged opening a business requires knowledge and sacrifices, especially in a “new environment that operates on a quite different basis than back where they’re coming from.”
Vic Rizal, a newcomer who stayed 12 days in Winnipeg before heading south for warmer weather, said the businesses are good news for both Lethbridge’s Bhutanese community and native Canadians.
“It’s really important for Canadians to understand our culture, to know where people are coming from,” he said.
Along with her sister and brother, Rai recently joined the ranks of Bhutanese entrepreneurs in Lethbridge.
Gorkha Department Store is crammed with traditional spices, clothing, jewelry, music, beauty products and other goods, and the siblings are eager to show customers around.
Rai, who spent 16 years in a refugee camp, used to worry she would forget the songs, dress and food of her homeland.
But, as Lethbridge’s Bhutanese community continues to grow, she’s confident the culture will be saved and taught to future generations for decades to come.
“It’s really a strong community we have,” she said.