I'm sure there are places equally as stunning in the Northern European countries.
Normally that wouldn't be so bad, but I've just set off on two years around Africa, which means it's going to be a long, long time before I have 5 continuous years in Canada. Oh well, at least I can remain a permanent resident essentially forever.
That really sucks man!
I think so. It seems much easier to build things to handle the cold vs handle the heat.
You really just need fuel and insulation (for you and the house), and you can be quite comfortable.
Scorching heat though - there's really not a whole lot you can do except find shade and not move.
The harder something is, the more rewarding it is.
Also Canada has reliably much better snow, and way, way more wilderness.
It would definitely be harder to tour Africa in an old, beat-up Honda Civic than in a jeep, and it would be even harder to tour all of Africa without a vehicle, or without supplies entirely, blindfolded, and with your hands tied behind your back.
I'm driving a nice Jeep, which for me, is as challenging as I personally can handle, without it being painful and not enjoyable. At the end of the day I'm doing this for enjoyment, not for punishment.
People tougher than me ride motorbikes.
People tougher than that ride bicycles.
People tougher than that walk (yes, it's been done).
etc. etc.
There will always be someone doing something more daring than me, but I'm not interested in what other people are doing, I'm finding my own personal balance / limit of difficult yet enjoyable.
The rewards that come from challenges and difficulty are not often correlated with the amount or intensity of the difficulty, and even when they are, they are often inversely correlated. You need to take into account the type of difficulty (e.g. mastering a musical instrument vs enduring an abusive parent) and the predilections of the person trying to overcome the difficulty (e.g. many people who enjoy difficult challenges may not enjoy the challenge of living in a freezing climate). The challenges that you enjoy are what make you an interesting person, and so the simple statement that “the harder something is, the more rewarding it is” is not only completely false on its face, but it tells us nothing about you other than the possibility that you might be a masochist.
So one might say that they think that New Zealand provides the benefits with less of the challenges, but you could say back to them that the types of challenges that New Zealand lessens are for the most part the exact kind of challenges that you enjoy. An answer like that would better help people understand where you're coming from, which is good because you seem like a genuinely interesting person.