“The population of Winnipeg is six hundred thousand, a fairly large city, with people who tend to stay put. Families overlap with families, neighborhoods with neighborhoods. You can’t escape it. Generations interweave so that your mother’s friends … formed sort of a squadron of secondary aunts. You were always running into someone you’d gone to school with or someone whose uncle worked with someone else’s father. The tentacles of connection were long, complex, and full of bitter or amusing ironies that characterize blood families. …

Some days, she can wait anonymously in the bus shelter at River and Osborne and speak to no one, and the next day she’ll run into any number of acquaintances. These surprises used to drive Peter crazy, the oppressive clannishness they implied and the embarrassments, but Fay again and again is reassured and comforted to be a part of a knowable network.”

This very passage is one I read ten years ago and decided that Winnipeg was a place I’d like very much live. And although when I moved here I had only one close friend in the city, I had behind me many generations of Manitobans: a vast array of aunts, uncles, cousins and a couple surviving grandparents.  Once I started dating my future husband, Michel, there would be many more opportunities for our families’ stories to intersect. The connections started presenting themselves at a somewhat alarmingly frequent rate.  For instance, we discovered that my sister-in-law’s brother had taught my cousins at Collège Jeanne-Sauvé. It also turned out those same cousins had once visited Michel’s family farm on a school field trip, and indeed eaten a meal with his parents! Another two sets of crossed paths are detailed in Aaron’s post “All Roads Lead to Portage and Main“.

Although a little less tangible, perhaps my favourite Winnipeg coincidence involves my late  maternal grandfather, who owned a successful Winnipeg dance school back in the day. When I happened to mention his name to Michel, he couldn’t believe it — he’d grown up seeing commercials for his dance studio on TV. In fact, he said, he was sure he’d written about Ken Mathews in a short story in school. A few weeks later, we happened to be cleaning his apartment and amazingly, came across the story he’d written some fifteen years earlier. And sure enough, he described his protagonist as being able to “play hockey like Wayne Gretzky, play tennis like Pete Sampras, and dance like Ken Mathews.” I found it incredibly endearing. (More recently, he found out that one of my uncles used to play for the Jets, and pronounced that he didn’t know he’d married “Winnipeg Royalty”. Ha!)

I’ve never really been able to explain why I felt that Winnipeg was home. I don’t know what it was that made me think this city — a city that I had no real adult experience with — was where I was meant to be. The prairies part was easy enough to figure out – I grew up on them, and had been away too long, I guess. But as for the city itself? My parents had met and married here, my brothers were born here, but neither of those facts really have much to do with me. Or do they? Maybe it was the fact that every major roadtrip my family took when I was growing up was to Manitoba.  Maybe it was the constant backdrop of Winnipeg references: the house on Lenore, or Marshall Crescent. The Christmas tree at King’s Drive. Or my personal favourite: The Fort Richmond Zellers cafeteria, where, in the 70s, my mum and her best friend would smoke cigarettes and get French fries for the kids.

But it worked out. All these funny coincidences, these random connections, they seem to serve as some sort of proof that I was here even when I wasn’t here. And I like that feeling a lot. Perhaps it’s as simple as what Carol Shields wrote: geography is destiny.  In The Republic of Love, when Fay and Tom finally meet, they realise there’s actually an intricate web of connections between them. That’s how I think of my life here: not just because of the connections my husband and I had before we knew each other, but because how else explain my decision to move here?

Anyway, what got me to thinking about all this was was Kyla Roma’s recent post, “Moments from a Prairie Winter“. Kyla writes:

“I know why people choose to leave here, because you don’t get a big city life. You don’t have hundreds of clubs to choose from, the big artists don’t come through, and the big stores tend to pass us by. You don’t have the mountains of Vancouver or the city chic of Toronto. And it can be claustrophobic. Live here for a while, and when you talk to almost anyone long enough you will find a connection to them through ex-employers, friends, hockey teams, or distant aunts and uncles. Sometimes that can be hard, and people want to define themselves without having to run into their entire graduating class when they’re grocery shopping.

But the wonderful thing is that if you choose to stay, you can be known. You can run into friends everywhere and meet people easily. You can take the time that you are sealed in under sheets of ice to get your passions off the ground and into flight. You can go to underground shows, and know who’s who. You can line dry your clothes and have raspberry bushes in the middle of the city.”

I think this is the blessing and the curse of Winnipeg. I didn’t go to school here, so there’s no risk of me running into my entire graduating class while I’m grocery shopping. In fact, the very idea of that is probably what motivated me to leave my hometown eight years ago.  Now, bumping into someone I know is a pleasure, a small reminder of this little big city and my place within it. No matter how I wound up here, I’m glad I did.

Very cool, and also not surprising. In December ’09, the Fraser Institute’s Generosity Index ranked Manitoba as the most generous province in Canada — for the 10th year in a row! Makes me proud to call this province home.

For information on legit organizations to donate in support of disaster relief in Haiti, including ways to text donations, visit www.cbc.ca/haitirelief/.

I might be crazy, but I think I remember my parents saying that when they lived here in the 70s, the only places open on Sundays were gas stations, but they were pretty much only allowed to sell you bread and milk (and, well, gasoline).  If that’s true, then times have changed since then!

Nowadays, in Winnipeg, we have it both ways: stores are allowed to open, but only during certain hours: retail stores (which include grocery stores) are only open from 12 noon to 6pm on Sundays. There are exceptions, of course. If your store operates with fewer than four people, you are allowed to be open whenever you like on Sundays. It’s not clear to me whether smaller cities that do not have a municipal Sunday Shopping bylaw are allowed to open.

The biggest adjustment for me in this regard has been to the hours grocery stores keep on Sundays. Before moving here, I was used to stores being open whenever they pleased. I think the last Safeway I shopped at in BC was open 7am to midnight, seven days a week. This was extremely handy – you could get groceries pretty much any time it was convenient – but any time I took advantage of late-night or early-morning shopping, I felt self-conflicted. On one hand, it was like, “See, it’s a good thing you’re open! Look at all of us shopping at 8 on a Sunday night! How accommodating!” But on the other hand, it was also a bit depressing. Don’t the employees deserve some time off? Do you REALLY need anything after about 7pm on a Sunday that can’t wait until Monday — or that you couldn’t pick up from the gas station convenience store? Is nothing sacred anymore?

Now that I’ve adapted to the rules here, I think limited Sunday shopping hours are a good thing.  It’s actually nice knowing exactly when stores will open and close. It’s lovely to have Sunday mornings for lying around, doing the crossword, drinking coffee and making pancakes, going to church, whathaveyou, but not HAVING to do anything. And it’s nudged me into becoming a bit more organized, too. I now know that if we’re, say, going to make brunch on Mother’s Day, we’d better get my supplies on Saturday, or be stuck buying extreme mark-up bacon and eggs at 7-11 on Sunday morning (and we can forget about that bag of potatoes we were in charge of bringing).

So, what do you think about Sunday shopping hours? Do you like the prescribed, set hours, or do you think stores should be free to set their own hours? Do you remember a time when there was no Sunday shopping at all in Manitoba?

*I know, I know. We WoMH’ers listen to a lot of CBC.

There were so many things to consider when I was thinking about moving to a new province, but I have to be honest – tax rates never once crossed my mind. In fact, I went about my new Manitoba life blissfully unaware of what awaited me at tax time.  It turns out that the provincial tax rates in Manitoba are significantly higher than they are in BC. In this fair province, the 2008 rate for the first 30K (ish) you make was 10.9%, contrasted with 5.06% on the first 35K in BC, and they go up according to bracket from there. (2009 rates were not much different.) Since you pay provincial taxes for the province you lived in on December 31, I’d underpaid my taxes by 50% for half the year and had quite a sizeable amount owing. A bit of a rude awakening!

People might be quick to say that Manitoba’s higher tax rate is a bad thing. To be sure, Manitoba definitely has one of the higher provincial rates in Canada. But in my mind, it all balances out in the end. For one thing, you don’t have to pay health care premiums here, and you can’t say the same of Alberta and BC (when I lived in Vancouver, I was paid the mandatory $54 a month for basic provincial health care, and I remember I had to pay in Alberta, too).  I’m not upset that Manitoba has a higher tax rate–that doesn’t bother me at all. I’m just peeved that I didn’t catch my oversight earlier and pay a little extra tax throughout the rest of the year to make up for it.

I now know that in a perfect world, you should move in the wintertime. If you’re moving to a province with a higher tax rate, you should wait to move after December 31. And if you’re moving to a province with a lower tax rate, you should plan your arrival for just before December 31! If this isn’t possible and you wind up moving mid-year like I did, try to plan to set aside money to pay that big tax bill – or on the flip side, start thinking about how you’d like to use your refund

Now, unfortunately, the middle of the year really is the ideal time to move to Manitoba. Arriving in late June or early July puts you smack dab in the middle of Manitoba’s most glorious season: summer. Any earlier, and it could still be winter, and same goes for any later. As Laurel can attest, February is not a great time to voluntarily move to Winnipeg. So, decide what matters most to you and make your move based on that. Or, just follow your heart and move whenever it makes sense for you!

On another more positive tax-related note, something else to consider when contemplating a move to this province is the fabulous Manitoba Tuition Fee Income Tax Rebate. This program was designed to encourage college and university grads to bring their skills to/keep their skills in Manitoba. In a nutshell, if you graduated from an accredited Canadian post-secondary institution on or after January 1, 2007 and start paying taxes in Manitoba, you can get a 60% income tax rebate on your eligible tuition fees paid after December 31, 2003. Pretty sweet deal! (More deets on the program are available at the Government of Manitoba website.)

Incidentally, I graduated way before 2007, so this was of no use to me. But I still think it’s an amazing incentive for recent grads to come and work here or forego a move to another province, as it can seriously reduce the amount of income tax you pay.

Those are just a couple things to keep in mind when planning a move to (I hope!) or from (I hope not!) Manitoba.

What do you think of our provincial taxes? Do you know of any other great tax credits or rebates?

Laurel and I introduced a visiting friend from Nanaimo, BC, to the exciting world of Sunday morning breakfast at the Don Restaurant in downtown Winnipeg. Located on the ground level at 120 Donald Street, this joint is always busy and yet we still usually have our pick of table. The crowd tends to be eclectic and includes everyone from young hipsters to young families, mature couples and singletons. We definitely started our morning off right with a pre-Pride breakfast that included frequent coffee refills and pleasant conversation with our friendly server.

Following our meal, Laurel and I dropped our visiting friend off at church before heading to Memorial Park to meet up with the crew from the Rainbow Harmony Project (RHP), Winnipeg’s only Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Two-Spirit (and their allies) choir. Since mid-April I have been the choir’s administrative assistant, and the welcoming spirit of each choir member – as well as the entire Board of Directors – has made me feel like I’ve always been part of the gang. My experience working with the RHP (although it has only been two months) reminds me that contributing to a cause that’s larger than me is the best way to make a difference first in our community, and then the rest of society.

The RHP booth at the Lambda Business Fair and Market was looking great, and after saying hello to everyone, Laurel and I headed toward the Legislature grounds for the Pride Rally. The RHP kicked off the rally in harmonious style and I must say their singing is a lovely tradition that I hope continues for years to come. A moving speech outlining the unbelievable sacrifices made during the Stonewall Riots (1969) followed the Rainbow Harmony Project performance. To commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots (June 28th, 2009), a local Winnipeg lawyer gave the onlookers a much needed history lesson on the gay rights movement in North America.

Despite the fact that Laurel had to leave following the pride rally, she and I had some time to discuss how our first Pride Festival in Winnipeg compares to others we’ve attended. In Vancouver, the Pride Festival (and especially the Pride Parade) literally overtakes the West End. Although there are a lot of gay people living in downtown Vancouver and the West End, Pride is a time of the year enjoyed by everyone. It may sound clichéd, but it’s true. I have attended much smaller Pride celebrations in both Calgary and Victoria (BC), and my conclusion is that Pride in Winnipeg falls somewhere in-between the large scale events of Vancouver, and the quaint “togetherness” of Calgary or Victoria. Not yet a huge corporate venture, and not quite “your mother’s” Pride celebration.

There was an announcement during the Pride Rally that next year events will kick-off at The Forks. After inquiring throughout the day I learned this was a “big announcement” for the 2009 Pride Committee, and I have to wonder: why the secrecy? What will change once Pride is moved to The Forks in 2010? Is this a political/economic move driven by the capitalist interests of vendors at The Forks, or does this move actually make sense logistically? Will it be easier to direct traffic into and out of The Forks as compared to the effective stoppage of traffic along Portage, Main, and Broadway during the parade? What will be the parade route for 2010, and won’t The Forks be a little crowded with thousands of Pride attendees PLUS the regular amount of shopping and tourism that can be expected on a Sunday in June? Do you know something I don’t? Please share your information and insight!

With pride,
Aaron

A side-note about the Rainbow Harmony Project (@RainbowHarmony):
Although this will seem like a shameless plug, that’s okay. In 2010 the Rainbow Harmony Project will invite hundreds of members of North America’s GLBTT community to Winnipeg! Our humble choir is hosting the fourth Canadian Unison Festival; a celebration of GLBTT persons and their allies through voice, song, and companionship. Following in the footsteps of Edmonton (1998), Toronto (2002), and most recently Vancouver (2006), we hope to generate a lot of buzz about this exciting, affirming, and utterly amazing event. For more information please visit the official Unison 2010 website, or follow the updates on twitter: @UnisonFestival.

Also…a note from Emma! Despite the fact that she’s in Washington, DC for a work-related conference (and what we hope will be at least a little pleasure), she was disappointed not to join me and Laurel for Pride in the ‘Peg. It turns out, however, that she had her own Pride adventure in DC! Here’s an excerpt from her email to me on Sunday, June 14th:

“Oh! I wanted to text you last night (but didn’t because roaming texts are 60 cents apiece!) – On our way to the restaurant, we got caught in Gay Pride!! Had no idea it was this weekend – so, we’re Pridin’ it up, too! It’s so cute – it’s called Capital Pride. Almost didn’t make it to the restaurant because we had to get across the parade…but we finally did. It was a happy surprise. If you ever get a chance to do Capital Pride (maybe combined with a trip to New York?) you should. It’s hot here and the mood is very festive.”

-Thanks for the update, Ems! Capital Pride in Washington, DC

WO’MH-isms:

Fancy Place (from the post Roadtrippin’): A bar or pub that has more than one draught beer available. These are typically public houses in larger centres where beer drinkers enjoy selections beyond Coors Light. Ergo, if there’s only one type of beer on tap, it’s not a fancy place.

Manitoba street cred (from the post Curling): The valuating system by which new Winnipeggers (and in our cases, new Manitobans, too) are judged as integrating into the local culture. In joining a curling league, drinking slurpees in the wintertime, or apologizing to newcomers about the weather (despite the fact that you can’t control it), you raise your Manitoba street cred. You’re becoming an authentic Manitoban.

‘Pegiversary (from the post Roadtrippin’): The anniversary of a new Winnipeggers’ arrival in the city. Emma’s 1st ‘Pegiversary is quickly approaching on July 8th; for Aaron it will be January 5th, 2010; and Laurel just likes to celebrate hers on the 2nd of every month.

Social Time (a comment to the post Socials): Submitted by regular commenter, Michel, “Social Time is the acceptable time at which you should arrive at a social” and it directly correlates to the attendees’ age. The social arrival approximation scale is available in graph form, and strict adherence to these guidelines will prevent one from decreasing her or his Manitoba street cred.

Water-peg (from the post Water-peg): In the springtime, melting snow and swelling rivers transform Winnipeg into its always latent, ulterior character, Water-peg. The sidewalks are wet, the potholes are filled to the brim (and deceptively deep), and every story on CBC radio is somehow (magically?) spun to include a flooding-related angle.

Weatherpeg (a Winnipeg O’ My Heart post category): So much of Winnipeg’s mystique involves the extremes of weather at this geographic location of the continent. In this way, whenever a post includes significant content relating to the weather in Winnipeg, it will be categorized as a Weatherpeg post.

A sloppy Winnipeg Wrap

Winnipeg Wrap (from the post Wrap it Up): You know when people use lame clichés like: “If I opened the dictionary to the definition of goofball I’d see a picture of your face”? Well in this instance I will simply provide a visual example of the Winnipeg Wrap, and for a more detailed explanation you really should read all about it in the original post. Sadly (for fans of the Winnipeg Wrap), sightings of WWs around town reduce during warm seasons when it’s less likely that a Winnipegger will need an extension cord to plug-in the car while at work all day.

WO’MH-er (from the post Roadtrippin’): A Winnipegomyhearter is a member of the Winnipeg O’ My Heart blogging team. Although we haven’t yet invited guests to post their reflections about Winnipeg or Manitoba (we will), these persons would be considered honorary WO’MH-ers.

Terms unique to Winnipeg or Manitoba:

Caribou: The deliciously potent fortified wine that is intrinsically linked to the Festival du Voyageur. If you’re lucky enough to enjoy this drink at Festival, be sure to try it from an ice cup. We did. It’s a reeeeal good time.

Dainty: A small, sweet treat that is typically made in a large baking pan, then cut into squares or rectangles. In other parts of the country these are referred to as “squares”; however, in Manitoba the general term for a tray of assorted squares is “dainties”. When referencing a specific item on the tray, you should call the dainty by its appropriate name. Usage: “Just look at the fancy dainties at this bridal shower!” “I know…delish! I think I’ll have a Nanaimo bar.” A note about shape: in our limited experience, dainties are square; yet, we cannot corroborate that dainties are always square. This requires further (mmm…tasty) exploration.

Social: A traditional Manitoba fundraiser, usually held by friends (and sometimes family) of the engaged couple, meant to offset the costs of establishing a family home or farm. The social may have extended from this province into north-western Ontario and parts of Saskatchewan. “Classic” or “Traditional” socials feature a midnight buffet that always includes rye bread, cheddar cheese, and mustard (NB do not lick the knife). Some modern “Fancy” socials are catered, have professional DJs, and offer a combination of conventional auction items (the lottery tree) alongside new favourites (the spa package).

Social Table: So far as we can decipher, the rest of the country simply refers to this as a table with folding legs. These tables are aptly named according to their frequent use at socials held in community halls. The tables are rectangular in shape (probably 8’ x 3’?) and most likely either wood- or plastic-topped with folding metal legs. Usage: “I’m wondering if there’ll be enough seating at the social this Saturday.” “Oh yes, there will be. The hall provides 25 social tables.”

“LC”, the: An abbreviated slang term for the Manitoba Liquor Control Commission (MLCC). This phrase omits the “M” and last first “C” from the initialism (“LC” stands for “Liquor Commission”). Not to be confused with the initials of Lauren Conrad, star of the popular MTV show The Hills. She has probably never been to Winnipeg or Manitoba in general; what a pity. Usage: “I’m going to stop by the LC on the way home from work. Would you like anything?”

Of course this list is but the tip of an iceberg floating down the Red River following an ice jam breakup in April. Our goal is to keep the glossary updated with our own terms as well as those submitted by our readers. We surely welcome your feedback about our list and additions to what will become the Glossary of Terms Unique to Winnipeg or Manitoba. We appreciate attributions whenever they are available (in order that credit is given where due), and we also strongly discourage plagiarism. Let’s have some fun developing the glossary to define our shared Winnipeg and Manitoba experiences.

Please submit a comment to this post if you have a term to add. We are currently creating the glossary and will tweet (@winnipego) with a link once it’s up and running!

ALSO: Listen to CBC Manitoba Information Radio this upcoming Monday and Tuesday mornings (May 18 & 19, 2009) around 6:40AM (Central time) in order to hear the WO’MH blogging team in our very first discussions about blogging in Winnipeg and our distinct outlook on moving to this fair city from Vancouver. There is a link to live streaming of the broadcast on the CBC website, and we hope against all odds that our friends at Information Radio will consider podcasting these segments!

When I was younger, I couldn’t wait to get out of Lethbridge, the medium-sized town where Aaron and I grew up. I hated how conservative and “small-town” it was. I hated what I perceived was its lack of cultural activity. I hated having to drive to Calgary to see a decent concert.  I thought to myself, “It’s too bad this is where my family is, because I will never live here voluntarily.”

I wound up going to school in Calgary and after that, I decided, more or less on a whim, that Vancouver would be a great place to live and made the big move. I was born in that neck of the woods, and longed for its humid and temperate climate; its liberal attitudes; its acceptance of people who don’t like red meat.  I spent five years in Vancouver, made some good friends, and enjoyed my work enormously. I lived in many different neighbourhoods, and was exposed to the wonderful things that big cities have to offer. I’d never tried shawarma until I lived downtown, I’d never shopped at a green grocer until I lived in Kitsilano, and I’d never been on a culture crawl until I lived on the east side.  There is nothing quite like jogging along the ocean! I worked downtown at what I felt was an enviably Good Job.  I felt quite cosmopolitan.

But living in a big, desirable city like Vancouver has its costs. When people talk about BC being the “best place on earth”, visions of snowboarding and windsurfing and eating sustainably-harvested wild salmon come to mind. But here’s the thing: very few people in my age bracket could enjoy any of those things with any regularity unless they had a Really, Really, Really Good Job.

Or unless they racked up a lot of debt, trying to keep up appearances.

Housing costs in the Lower Mainland are prohibitively expensive.  I was a renter the whole time I was in Vancouver, and when I look at all the money I was spending on rent, it’s no wonder I was just scraping by. According to Century 21, the average home price in Vancouver in March 2009 was $636,785; in Winnipeg, it was $209,628. That’s a third of the price. Now, I know I’m making less here than I made in Vancouver, but I can tell you I’m making significantly more than 1/3 my old salary.

People might be surprised to know that Vancouver’s liberalism extends to their tolerance of marijuana, but that might be about it. The focus on consumerism in the name of wholesome living — green consumerism, baby consumerism, local foodie consumerism, fitness consumerism — was fundamentally paradoxical.  Only in Vancouver could a company make millions by selling $100 pants and other gear for a 1000-year old practice that actually requires nothing more than a body and a mind (I’m talking about yoga, in case that wasn’t apparent!). It felt like everything was a competition. Who can be greener? Who has the biggest and most ridiculous mortgage? It felt like a rat race. In ways that I still can’t explain, it didn’t feel like I was living in Canada anymore.

I became increasingly aware of the superficiality and pretense of it all. Yoga-mania. Dogs wearing human clothes. Starbucks literally steps apart from each other.   This isn’t an exaggeration:  that’s Yaletown (ask Laurel, who lived and worked there for some time). But it was bigger than that: in contrast, the divide between rich and poor was becoming more and more perceptible and harder and harder to bear (Canada’s richest and poorest postal codes are just across the Burrard Inlet from each other, but you see evidence of it almost everywhere you go).

After all those years of thinking I’d never live in a small town, a funny thing happened. I started noticing that in the Lower Mainland, parents had to camp out overnight to get their kids into French immersion. This was somewhat of an epiphany for me.  I started the think that maybe a place like Lethbridge wouldn’t be such a bad place to raise a family. Then, the friend who I’d moved to Vancouver with and her fiancé decided to move back to Alberta. They realised that they’d never be able to afford the kind of house they dreamed of as long as they lived in Vancouver, and wanted to be closer to family once they started their own. That was another eye-opener for me.  Around me, my friends were making decisions about their quality of life, and increasingly, staying in Vancouver wasn’t a part of those decisions.

Ultimately, these were the things that made me realise I did not want to settle in Vancouver. If  I had grown up in that area, and had immediate family there; if I’d grown up with those strange contradictions as my reality, I might have felt differently. But I grew up in a small city where the biggest difference I could perceive between someone like me and someone whose family was significantly wealthy, was that I didn’t have a Club Monaco sweatshirt or Guess jeans in junior high. Maybe what I was really longing for was the homogeneity of my childhood.

My fondness for my new city, Winnipeg, is a result of many things. Almost all of my relatives live here, and a close girlfriend of mine had moved here a few years ago to be with her fiancé.  But much like my decision to move to Vancouver five years prior, my move to Winnipeg was based on a gut instinct and an indescribable desire: I’d been to Winnipeg many times, I liked the province’s philosophy on summer vacation (read: lake life), and I knew the cost of living was significantly lower. I’d heard that almost anyone could afford to buy a house (my girlfriend told me that virtually everyone she’d met since moving to the ‘Peg owned their own home).  But it was sentimental, too. My parents lived here as children, and it was here that they met and married. My two brothers were born here. Sure, the family had moved away by the time I was born, but I’d always felt somehow that my roots were in Manitoba, despite never having spent more than two weeks at a time here. In the pit of my stomach; in my heart of hearts, I’d always felt that I would someday wind up in Winnipeg.

Yes, Winnipeg has its own set of problems. The issue of poverty is extremely evident in the downtown core. The car culture is entirely too alive and well and the public transit system leaves a fair amount to be desired.  I hear people say that there’s nothing to do here. Nothing going on. We all know that’s not true.  I’ve now lived in three major cities, and it’s the same everywhere you go. A town is what you make of it. Winnipeg does have a vibrant arts scene – but I don’t think it’s particularly better than any other large city’s arts scene.  Conversely, Winnipeg has a big problem with crime – but so does every other major city in Canada.

I guess what I like about this city is that here, I don’t feel the need to be anyone other than me. People here don’t glorify workaholism.  People wear BlackBerrys but they seem to know when to turn them off. It feels like a small town with the conveniences of a big city, which is the best of both worlds. Strangers talk to each other in grocery stores. Neighbours keep an eye out for each other. And that’s pretty awesome, in my books. (The last one especially, because I just signed the mortgage papers for my very first house.)

All this is to say, I understand feeling like you hate your hometown. That was me, once, too.   I’m not writing this post to be critical of Vancouver. It’s a wonderful city with amazing variety. There is a lot going on, and it’s very hard to ever be bored there. I think it’s important for all young people to live away from home at some point before they get too settled. Vancouver was a great place for me to have that experience. It’s a place I look forward to visiting twenty years from now — I know I will love revising my old stomping grounds.

When I hear people saying how much they hate Winnipeg – and it’s never a mild dislike, it’s always a hatred – I think to myself, “What’s keeping  you here?” I understand that everyone’s situation is different, but let’s get serious: once you’re an adult, you can do anything you want. If you hate a place so much, why don’t you leave? But if people truly realised what the quality of life is like here, relative to other cities, I think they might feel differently about Winnipeg.

Like any place, I think you really need to get away from it to be able to appreciate it.