“We swapped our East York rental for a Scandinavian sanctuary in Sweden”
When Toronto-born writer Mandy Pipher met her Swedish husband, Per, she never imagined following him to his tiny hometown. Then pregnancy, the pandemic and the housing crisis changed her mind
I met my husband, Per, in 2015, when we were both students at Oxford. I was doing a master’s in English while he was studying philosophy, politics and economics. I felt an immediate connection with this smart, kind Swedish man, but we didn’t get together right away: I had a boyfriend of many years back home in Toronto, where I was born and raised. It wasn’t until 2018, at an Oxford reunion, when we were both newly single, that we became more than friends.
While I was in Toronto, we did long-distance for over a year before he moved here from Stockholm in January of 2020. We got married that February—right before the pandemic, just in time for his Swedish family to attend the wedding. Per was finishing his master’s thesis virtually, through a Stockholm-area university, and I was working as a writing instructor at U of T. His student stipend from the Swedish government plus my monthly paycheque didn’t go far, but we were able to rent a one-bedroom apartment in a low-rise at Coxwell and Gerrard, in the Woodbine Corridor, for $1,675 a month plus hydro. Our place had no air conditioning or balcony, so being stuck at home during Toronto’s hot, humid lockdown summer was a lot. Still, we felt grateful that we were married and on the same side of the Atlantic when Covid struck.
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By Christmas, I was pregnant and Per had found a remote job with a Toronto-based non-profit consultancy. We both worked in our living room, with computers facing each other. But, since my job entailed being on camera talking with students all day, it wasn’t ideal. We figured we could budget enough to afford a bigger place, so we started hunting. In April of 2021, we signed a lease for a post-war bungalow in East York for $2,700 a month plus roughly $350 in utilities. It was a few streets over from the house I had lived in as a teenager. At first I thought that would feel strange, but our new street quickly felt like its own little neighbourhood. I also loved taking our newborn daughter for walks in Taylor Creek Park, where I’d grown up cycling with my brothers.
Initially, Per and I were happy there. The house was detached, with a small yard and a deck, and we loved the community feel. A big bonus was my mom being close by. But costs kept rising, and our paycheques couldn’t keep up, especially now that we had our daughter. It seemed like every time we masked up and went to the store, diapers and baby food had gotten more expensive. We were also afraid of being evicted. Our landlord was kind, but she had lived in the house with her kids for over a decade before renting it to us. If she ever wanted it back for her family, we would be out. Worse still, Toronto rents had shot up so much by 2022 that we wouldn’t be able to stay in the city without renting something far too small for our family. It felt like maybe it was time to leave.
We had always talked about the possibility of living in Sweden, but now it seemed real. Per is from Umeå, a peaceful university town with a population of 130,000, about 500 kilometres north of Stockholm, easily accessible by train. There, locals are relaxed and culture is abundant. Most importantly, real estate prices are more affordable. If we moved, we could find a secure apartment and be close to at least one side of our family. In the summer of 2022, when our daughter was nine months old, we travelled to Umeå to visit Per’s parents—and to see what it might be like to live there.
Stepping out of the airport, I couldn’t believe how fresh the air was. I’d visited before, when Per and I were dating, but this was my first time as a potential resident and as a parent. Even though it was cold and rainy in July, I turned to Per and said, “We have to move here.” He smiled. I knew he missed home.
But moving to Sweden wasn’t simple. Europe had clamped down its borders after the 2015 refugee crisis, so even though I was married to a native Swede, we couldn’t immigrate until my forms were approved. We applied in October and heard nothing until a year later, when I was called to an interview at the Swedish embassy in Ottawa. In November of 2023, I received permission to legally reside in Sweden.
We would move as soon as the academic year was up. I had returned to my U of T job after an eight-month maternity leave. Per quit his job a few months earlier than I left mine, to look after our toddler full time and to lay the groundwork for our trans-Atlantic move.
Per and I had been looking at rentals in Umeå online when a perfect apartment down the street from my in-laws came up for sale. It was a corner unit on the top floor of a communally owned low-rise brick building (sort of like a co-op, except the units themselves were privately owned) at the intersection of two side streets. It was the best of both worlds: we could keep costs down while retaining control over our living space. The apartment had three bedrooms, a big traditional Swedish kitchen with long stainless steel counters, a large living room with tall windows, and a balcony overlooking trees and a cheery elementary school playground. The monthly mortgage payments plus interest and utilities came to $1,700 Canadian—roughly half of what we were paying for rent in Toronto. Per’s parents offered to cover the down payment and sign on as co-owners until we could afford to buy them out.
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There were a tense few days while we waited across the six-hour time difference to hear if our offer had been accepted. Another buyer had offered more, but the selling realtor pitched us as the more secure option, and the seller accepted. My mother-in-law sent me the news while I was teaching: when the message popped up on my phone, I nearly squealed with joy. In May of 2024, we said goodbye to my mom at Pearson. When we landed in Umeå, Per’s parents were there waiting for us. Some days later, we were shopping for our new beds at IKEA.
Those first few months felt like a Scandinavian vacation. We’d arrived in time to celebrate the Midsummer holiday, which in Sweden is nearly as big as Christmas. Being so far north, Umeå gets daylight around the clock at that time of year. It’s a magical experience, living somewhere that never gets dark. And after years of muggy, polluted Toronto summers, the clean air was a luxury. We took full advantage of being outside all summer, cycling to a nearby lake to go swimming and to the town’s riverside central park for picnics.
Our daughter adjusted. She already knew her Swedish grandparents from visits and video calls and was thrilled to spend more time with them. Still, she had some tough moments. Per had been speaking to her in Swedish since she was born, so she understood the language perfectly, but English was her go-to for speaking. So when she spoke with kids from our building or children at playgrounds, they would just stare at her and walk away. But, after a few weeks of preschool, she was speaking Swedish well. Then she started speaking it at home. That’s when my Swedish became the problem.
I had enrolled in Swedish classes as a beginner, and I figured I could get by on English in the meantime since most Swedes are adept at it. Now, the need to learn was urgent: I needed to understand my own child.
Learning Swedish is challenging for an English speaker. All those Scandinavian diacritics represent whole other letters. The language also has eighteen vowels, many of which don’t have English equivalents. The hardest part of my first year was feeling like I had missed out on key parts of my daughter’s life. I studied hard, but a 40-year-old’s brain has nothing on a three-year-old’s when it comes to learning a new language.
Umeå’s winter was also harsher than I expected—not because of the darkness, which I found cozy and peaceful, but because, to my astonishment, northern Swedes don’t shovel or salt the sidewalks. They just shrug the weather off. Meanwhile, I was slipping like crazy, desperately trying not to break a hip.
Our town is on the same latitude as Iqaluit. It rarely gets hot here, and winters barely have any sun: it rises mid-morning, just above the horizon, begins setting around noon, and is gone by early afternoon. But I love it. I’ve wrapped myself in a wool blanket and watched the Northern Lights from my balcony more than once this winter. I love the quiet streets with more bikes than cars; the bright midsummer nights; and the matter-of-fact Scandinavian approach to life, where acknowledging that things are hard is not to admit failure. Rather, talking about life’s challenges is an acknowledgment of being human—and probably means it’s time to leave work early for a glass of wine or a cozy fika with friends.
The whole atmosphere here is so peaceful that I often feel like I’m living in Ontario cottage country, except I can take a 10-minute bike ride along the river to our city centre, with its cafés, bars and Bildmuseet, a world-class contemporary art museum overlooking the river.
Sometimes I miss Toronto—the diversity, the vibrancy and, of course, my family. My mom and dad have been to visit, though, and they’re also great at keeping my daughter entertained over video calls. One of my brothers visited last summer; we had a wonderful time showing Umeå to him, his wife and my young nieces.
I think what Per and I miss about Toronto most is its food culture. Sweden is much less diverse (although it’s getting better), so I catch myself daydreaming about dim sum, pho or a table full of Koreatown banchan. I also miss Ontario produce. Not a lot grows here, so most fruit is imported unripe from southern Europe. Umeå’s grocery store peaches are barely edible, even in peak August.
But, if I ever start feeling too bummed about hard, mealy, flavourless fruit, I open the window. One blast of the fresh air reminds me that I made the right choice. Then I head out for the five-minute walk to pick up my four-year-old from preschool. I usually find her outside, playing in her favourite corner of the school’s forest, pretending she lives in the trees. Sometimes, when I pick her up during winter, I’ll see her sliding down a snowy hill with her friends. On the walk over, I practice my vowels. I have to now. Because my child has a new favourite language—and it’s not English.
Did you leave Toronto with no regrets? Send your story to realestate@torontolife.com.
