Canadian Citizenship
Yes, what you get after dropping the code phrase is full Canadian citizenship. Besides of course the ability to vote, we'd love to give you the ability to vote, but, you know, bureaucracy. It's in our power so why the hell not. You don't need any of the society skills, you don't need any family here, you don't need to be a refugee. Turns out you've already been living here and paying taxes for three years, you've already aced the what's a Canada test, you've never had a criminal record. I have no idea how that happened but all of the paper work seems to be in order.
Finding a Home
Yes, I know how you freaks operate. Those of lesser intelligence may think "Oh it's a hippie migration, I'll sleep outside in the summer... In winter I guess I can just find a place, bring lots of blankets." No you're not going to be doing that. I mean... Some of you are going to be doing that but in doing that 40% of you will become dead. We're going to make finding a home in Winnipeg easy for you, luckily for you it's already a pretty cheap place to live and we're going to make sure it stays that way, somehow it's going to get even cheaper.
Finding a Job
Obviously, certain corporations are going to need to be made aware of the top secret accurate population statistics of Winnipeg. Only those who need to know will need to know, a lot of businesses will be opening up in Winnipeg unofficially off the record but reasonably legally. Does that mean your paycheque is under the table? Well, not technically, everything about it is still within the normal legal framework, but, something about it doesn't quite add up, oh well I don't think anybody will be needing to look into it.
Municipal Weather Preparedness
Winnipeg, obviously, is pretty much prepared for anything winter can do to us to the standard of Winnipeggers. However our snow plow budget is not up to snuff with, say, North Dakota. The drainage of the streets is not all it could be. The bus shelters are most certainly often not what you would want them to be, if it isn't a major bus stop waiting for the bus in winter becomes a bit of a physical and emotional task. It's a money problem, it should solve itself the legal way once Winnipeg becomes more populated. However we will insure that they are to be way more considerate of wusses like you who are not used to navigating a proper Canadian winter.
Rapid Transit
Our public transit is not great, like with many donuts we prefer cars, however it is considerably better than most donuts. It's functional, if you're travelling from one heavily populated area of town to another it's like a ten minute wait at most for a bus, just sub that you may be waiting twenty minutes, any more of an obscure area of town than that you could easily wind up waiting forty minutes to an hour. They do sometimes get their own roads, so, they're better than you would expect of Winnipeg. All we have is busses and we know we're being idiots about it. "I don't think we can really push light rail transit, our populace would likely deem it too expensive, let's make... GONDALLAS... Over... The river... To the university." No we didn't end up doing it, I believe it was deemed a little too abstract. Turns out we're going to push light rail, and we're going to do it now.
Marijuana Laws
As you likely know, marijuana is legal in Canada. There are certain technical limits, such as you can carry no more than thirty grams at a time in public, buy no more than thirty grams at a time... We're just gonna suspend this in Winnipeg. The goal was to tame the black market, make it more difficult for children to get their hands on it, I don't really think it was working anyway. If you want to be both a head shop and a dispensary simultaneously you can be both a head shop and a dispensary simultaneously, we'll just bypass the licensing glitch for you. We don't have Amsterdam red-light district coffeeshops, however we are about to. In Osborne Village, The Exchange District and downtown, we will have Amsterdam red-light district coffeeshops.
Liquor Laws
We have socialist liquor laws in Manitoba, all of the hard liquor is purchased at local government run liquor stores. For the people, this is beneficial, it lowers the cost of liquor. However it can make things a little less convenient, it's more difficult to find a liquor store and after 9:00 or 10:00 in the evening you can't go out and find any more hard liquor. Beer stores and some wine stores are open until 2:00 in the morning, however. You won't have to worry about it, liquor stores are about to become more prominent and open 24/7, beer and wine stores will be able to stay open as long as they want. People will not hear about this new development on the local news, nobody is going to tattle on them, one day they'll just look and say "...Why the hell is the liquor store still open?"
Tobacco Laws
The nanny state of Canada has pushed the price of cigarettes to levels you never would have thought possible... Thirty dollars a pack. Also half of the pack is an image of the disgusting things that happen in your body when you smoke, but, you don't need to worry about that stuff you can't even actually see it it's happening inside of you and if you can't see it in a lot of ways it isn't even real. Obviously there is nothing we can do at the storefront level to the price of cigarettes, however I think all of the Canadian tobacco companies would be capable of seeing the logic behind... It wouldn't be the worst thing if most of your cigarettes were falling out of the truck, I think we could make you very happy with the idea of your cigarettes falling out of the truck.
...And What the Hell as Long as We're Ordering Everyone Around
Old Dutch Foods Ltd... In Winnipeg, you are to bring back the Rave series of potato chips. As a child you introduced me to Xtra Salt & Vinegar. Enough vinegar to make the inside of my mouth begin to peel. Culinary genius. Then you just take it away. Also I'm going to be requiring you to do to ketchup chips what you have done to salt and vinegar, we need a bag full of that one special ketchup chip in a bag of lightly seasoned ketchup chips.
I was going to have a discussion before declaring this one, but, I realize everyone who is coming to Winnipeg don't so much give no fucks, they'll all be with me. In Winnipeg fast food establishments are going to suddenly have access to their precious hydrogenated fats again.
Tim Hortons... In Winnipeg, you are to sell the donuts with cake frosting in the middle all year round. They don't need to be celebrating anything or supporting anything, they only need to be cake frosting donuts. We want vanilla, chocolate and strawberry, we want all three of them being sold all the time. GIMMIE WE WANT IT. GIMMIE.
Every 7/11 in Winnipeg... You are to accidentally break your slurpee machines in order to slightly increase the syrup to ice ratio. How far you go with this is up to the mischievous 7/11 employees, I won't set a format, but I encourage some of you to remember yourself as a child with the slush puppie machines that allow you to do it yourself and you adding more syrup than ice. However I also encourage you to remember everyone who called you a weird child for doing this.
A&W... Whatever it is you did to your onion rings, in Winnipeg you're going back to the way they were before.
Preparing for the Climate and Area
You're probably thinking "I'm sure I'll get used to the cold" so I feel I should probably warn you: You will not. We've all been here for centuries and not one of us have ever gotten used to it.
However once you're, we won't call it "used to it" we'll just call it hardened, once you're hardened you can walk longer distances in the winter and stay outside longer without getting overwhelmed to the point of needing to stop like you would in the summer. You just have to get used to the idea that you're in pain the entire time, you don't get used to the pain but you eventually accept that outside brings pain and it's a little whatever. I don't think most of you will be able to hit this plane of existence that we currently reside in but some of you will. I've done, like, two hours walking around the city in -40°C and while it did take me a few hours to unfreeze my extremities it's a thing that's more achievable than two hours walking around in +40°C. But no you can't really move your fingers so much for awhile afterwards and it's... Really... Probably a better idea to stop and warm yourself up. While you're not risking passing out if you're not dressed properly you are risking DEATH. And even if you are dressed properly death does come for you eventually. People do say the heat is worse because there's only so much clothing you can take off but in the cold you can always add clothing, and this is true to a point, but the people who came up with this existed in a less ridiculous climate.
A walk in freezer is about half way to Winnipeg winters, in those rare moments possibly down to about a third of the way to Winnipeg winters. And that's when the wind is not blowing on you, though when I calculated a third of the way that was factoring wind chill, but, well, you'll see. When the wind is blowing on you it feels about twice as painful. Don't panic at what I'm about to say, but grabbing a cold object from the freezer for a long time is a good way to understand the nature of the pain, but don't worry when it's the air it isn't quite as painful as that, or at least differently painful I find it easier to take but not everyone will agree. I'm pretty sure most will agree. No there is most certainly not a point where further cold doesn't make much difference, but I can see why somebody would think that in a less ridiculous climate, as there is a point where further cold becomes easier to accept, whatever level of cold you are used to more cold becomes a little easier to accept. Every year the first time it hits -30°C it is NOT. Easy to accept. It's a little new every time. You will find the entire time it is NOT easy to accept, however when it dips into a -50°C wind chill it's a minor whatever within the not easy to accept. It feels like "OH holy fuck oh well."
Broken bone pain equals four times severe leg cramp pain. Bullet wound equals one point six times severe leg cramp. Stab wound equals one point seven times severe leg cramp. Winnipeg cold pain, at the absolute top of it's limits, equals three fifths severe leg cramp pain. However, once you are used to this is just life, it is much easier to dissociate than a severe leg cramp. It isn't the same dull thud pain, it's a lot sharper, I find it easier to tolerate. It's easier to dissociate until frostbite, at which point... Research states, the same. I personally state easier... As a person who grew up with frostbite. It does not stay that bad the entire time you have frostbite, however until it heals you do always feel that you have frostbite. I've had the type of sunburn that basically cooks you and leaves semi-permanent tan lines, on my legs, they've now pretty much vanished but it took about fifteen years, I label that more painful however general frostbite is obviously a lot more painful than general sunburn. Because you all want to be me, you will all choose dissociatives as your drugs of choice, and therefor you will manage.
I have never seen anybody be cranky from the cold like people who get cranky from the heat, however you may feel a little emotionally hopeless from the cold. I label it a much more comfortable emotional state. And certainly a less outwardly annoying state to the rest of us you whinny bitch. To us it isn't an overwhelming feeling, I wouldn't call it a very dramatic feeling, I kinda like it but you know I'm empty inside anyway.
If you've experienced winter, particularly somewhere around a New York winter, you'll probably be fine. If you're from a hot climate you are about to get OBLITERATED. I had a conversation with a nice new immigrant from India at a bus stop once, he absolutely couldn't believe how incredibly cold it gets when we were somewhere around... +10°C. "Ahh... Ohh... You're in for a surprise man."
I don't need to tell you buy winter gear, go all out, buy the best you can find. I'm going to go ahead and declare the ski pants unnecessary, long underwear under jeans is about as effective and you're not dealing with incredibly annoying preparations before you go outside and present yourself looking like an idiot. On the really cold days I like to do the thin tight long underwear under the thicker looser long underwear under jeans. I will sometimes do khakis however I wouldn't recommend it. You may get called a dork if you admit you wear long underwear to a local but unlike with the ski pants you don't need to admit anything. Oh and really thick socks over really thin socks is another good one. When looking for socks the level of fluffiness is generally a good indicator of cozy warm winter socks. Some of you can get away with wearing more stylish looking jackets rather than the big bulky parkas if you're good enough with cold but you'll need to limit outside time. It can be done, you can still dress nice but you're making a sacrifice. Jen says being so committed to your sluttiness that you wear your short skirts outside in the winter is doable but don't do it. Especially if you're not a local. But you won't die. A lot of you will be screaming in agony whether you're wearing a stylish jacket or bulky parka. As I said, the "you can always add more clothes" mentality is only... Well, it isn't ENTIRELY valid. My ex-roommate Daryl, and remember something about this guy was not quite right, would say he doesn't like parkas, shrug, I'm just walking around in my t-shirt. You'll find a small subsection of Winnipeggers will go... Shrug, endless epitome pain one way or another, impending death one way or another, I'm wearing my shorts in winter, I'm drinking my slurpees and eating my ice cream outside in winter. Yes, there is a masochism in drinking your slurpees outside in a Winnipeg winter, yes, it does prove something to the other Winnipeggers. It's just a higher degree of constant pain than nine tenths of the world could ever imagine, it's not like it's a thing that means anything in any way significant, it's only physical. You will never never never pull it off, but, always remember the mindset of the people born here when you bitch about the cold.
And... I thought this was kinda funny and annoying and enlightening. I had an argument about the weather that will probably put it into perspective for those of you unaware. I also need to note that I am aware of the fact that they do not need a fleet of snow plows, all I was saying was you should probably take measures to keep pipes from freezing, I had a snide comment about his all or nothing thinking prepared but then he changed the subject and I didn't want to look like an asshole. "Your approach isn't totally sound." Oh, you mean my imaginary approach that you just made up? Also my deleted comments were a snide mockery of the absurdity of him getting all emotional over weather preparedness. I also had another angry comment prepared in case I got one more "Get over yourself." You only see one but I saw one other before he deleted it. Oh YOU weren't expecting to get back what you got back okay. He's usually a pretty good guy he is, he really is. But this is a good example of naivete towards the significance of the weather, it's not that important I just really like what I said and I kinda wanna spite this guy, I blurred his name but part of my motivation in blurring his name was additional spite.
Also I just need to point out that only an American would ever clue into the structure of the Canadian psyche in the sense that we're really laid back until the topic is the weather, because Americans assume casual conversation is a series of jabs and Canadians are all chill until you start jabbing at the weather, then what they become is "triggered." That is why it is a thing only known in American culture, no other culture in the world would have ever found this within the Canadian psyche. A British person would see that Canadians take the weather seriously and think "I'll bet they would that's some serious business." An American would see that Canadians take the weather seriously and think "HUHUHUH IS LIKE NOT EVEN SIMILAR TO THE THINGS IN MY BUBBLE OH MY GOD EVERYTHING OUTSIDE OF THE BUBBLE IS SO FUCKING RIDICULOUS HUHUHUHUH. Jab jab. Jab jab. Jab jab. You triggered?" But, we'll go into this kind of thing further a little down the page. By the time you've finished this page, you will understand about 30% of the horror show that is the American collective psyche.
Black ice is another thing you're going to need to learn to navigate. An untrained eye cannot see it, so all I can tell you is look for vague glossy sparkles on the street, but even then you likely won't be able to see it. It's possible only those familiar from childhood will ever really fully crack the awareness, where you can just kind of... Feel. This street has black ice. Your subconscious has learned to process things nearly invisible and you are fully living in the knowledge that it could strike at any moment. If you hit black ice and you're not expecting it, you are down. You're pretty much hard Family Guy gag fall down. You don't even have enough time to form the thought "oh shit" before you find yourself on the ground. Obviously driving on it is incredibly dangerous.
One thing people unfamiliar with winter need to learn before coming here or quickly after getting here is learn to fall. Every winter you will have a fall, it is inevitable. You need to learn to go limp, but don't get lost in going limp, you need to know... Guard the face. Go limp except for what's guarding the face. When you're really experienced with ice, yes, you learn instinctually how to spaz dance your way out of falling, but don't even try it until you know what you're doing. Some of us, especially if we've practiced under intoxication, know how to do it and somewhat maintain looking cool, but you won't be ready for this level of awareness for years and years. You're not going to look cool on black ice, though, that's not going to happen. You're either down or you're in safety walk mode, you're never in normal walk mode. If you can pull off adorable there are ways to vaguely maintain cool on black ice.
The ice, the snow, to a lot of you I would recommend not even bringing your car, we'll get you rapid transit, sometimes you can get rides from people more experienced with driving in the winter. Situations where cities even a little more experienced with winter will call in the military, invoke a state of emergency, mass panic and hysteria, to us these situations are an every day whatever, like the very bottom end of super easy every day whatever. If you're going to be a person within this degree of panic over winter conditions, stay the hell off our roads, unless you wish to draw all attention to the asshole in the snowbank. No I am in no way exaggerating for the purposes of comedy or hardcore image. Growing up in Winnipeg we all had a school snow day exactly once, the great blizzard of '97.
Things like earbuds were not designed for our winters, walking around with your earbuds out of the case in the very worst ends of our winter will severely damage the batteries. Walking around with your iPhone in your pocket is perfectly safe, those batteries were designed a lot better. Listen to absolutely no promotional tools that state "Designed for any winter." Winnipeg winters do not fall under any winter. We can only assume it isn't long for wired earbuds, but if you can find wired earbuds you can still plug them into your iPhone with a separate adapter that goes into the charger slot. So until they decide to force convenience on us to the point of removing the charger slot you can still do it. I do support streamlining our technology, and it is understandable that people in this kind of climate would be overlooked, however they're about to learn that the perfection of the technology must come BEFORE they force us to use it. They'll probably realize pretty early on when they go "How come there more purchases of our products in Winnipeg than there are population of Winnipeg?"
The wind in the Canadian prairies is about the most consistently harsh in the populated world. About. At the absolute worst it'll touch on the bottom end of tropical storm force winds, but that's at the absolute worst and that's pretty rare, about once every five years. In winter the average sustained wind is 20 to 30 km/h gusts to 40 to 60 km/h, in spring the average sustained wind is 25 to 35 km/h gusts to 60 to 80 km/h, in summer the average sustained wind is 15 to 25 km/h and storms can but won't often bring brief intense gusts up to 110 km/h, in autumn the average sustained wind is 20 to 30 km/h gusts to 50 to 70 km/h. We do get tornados however a lot less of them than the southern United States. There was a moment where I was biking to work one night and the wind actually made it impossible for Kit Carruthers' sexy elegant auto speed walk legs to move against the wind in any way whatsoever, dead stop, all I could do was scream at the heavens and wait. But no it isn't like this all the time, most of the time things are very still, however when it blows it blows.
Sunrise and sunset in Winnipeg may upset some of you, pretty much if you're not from the UK or Scandinavia it's going to hit you really fucked up. In the summer it's bright around 4:00 AM and dark around 11:00 PM. In the winter it's bright around 8:00 AM and dark around 5:00 PM. That's straight 100% night time darkness at 5:00 PM right up until 8:00 AM. Unfortunately at higher latitudes you have much less time to take in the sunset and sunrise, there is time to look at it however to a lot of you it's going to feel like UP DOWN. Our essays will teach you how to fuck up and scramble your circadian rhythms and not give a shit about what you're doing to them, after you've read our essays the time day will become a bit of a meaningless concept.
In winter you're probably best off taking vitamin D. It isn't really such a big deal to us but it can be a big deal to people who didn't grow up here. It probably should be a big deal to us but meh.
Now the summer may surprise you. It also gets uncomfortably hot and sticky in the summer, but there's a good possibility this is not a more dramatic thing than you have experienced. It does go +30°C very frequently, it can even go as high as +40°C, I'm sure you can handle it, a good chunk of Americans are used to worse. A lot of the world a little less so, a lot of the world so dramatically more so. It is a very humid heat, it is not a dry heat, so if you're used to desert high temperatures there's a certain grossness to this heat that you are not used to. The inside world in Winnipeg is generally always air conditioned. Generally. Some cheap apartments make it a little hard on you, I've done it, it's no fun.
If you're thinking "Well at least there's still the in-between the extreme temperature points" I hate to disappoint you but there isn't. They last about three and a half seconds it's mostly back and forth between extremes. Fall and spring are about two months each at most. Summer is a little over two. The rest is winter.
But don't worry we've pretty well taken care of the mosquitoes. Nothing we can do about the cold but we've done a pretty good job genocide-ing the mosquitoes, you're only going to get swarmed by gigantic mosquitoes if you go out into rural areas. But no I say it isn't so bad there either, pretty bad but tolerable. As somebody who grew up in a cloud of mosquitoes I say it isn't all that bad most of the time in rural areas but you're always running a risk. Don't... Don't go too much farther north than Winnipeg or the air is about 80% mosquitoes and wasps and black flies. Pretty much when you're beyond the point of the southern tips of the big giant lakes.
Gigantic mosquitos... To put it in perspective, when I was camping as a child I went to the campground bathroom and when I got to the sink I spotted a mother mosquito and realized "...What I am looking at... Is an insect... Larger... Than a rat. Keep it all inside, don't think about it. Nothing in this life will ever be the same for me again."
In the summer, yes, the outside world is more full of bugs than you are generally used to, and they're scary massive bugs. As you know, it isn't as bad as it used to be with the mosquitos. However I really do not think we have done enough in the war on wasps. Hanging around outside in the summer means wasps in your face, some will get used to it or are already used to it, some such as myself will never get used to it. It isn't swarms but they make themselves known. There's diseases and pain but the bugs aren't generally so much dangerous, you probably won't get West Nile but you're more likely to get West Nile than most anywhere else in North America. But you won't. Well I bet one or two of you will.
There are moments in Winnipeg where you can look at the bugs as raw living nature, however I am afraid there are moments in Winnipeg where you must look at the bugs as "The planet is wrong. It's not supposed to do this it's wrong." We're going to teach you about a certain hidden ancient mystical yogic martial arts practice in the state of sleep deprivation that permanently alters your mind into acceptance, it rewires your adenosine receptors. It will make the experience easier for you. This means moments of being able to look at the bugs as raw living nature, and... Moments... Of angry ape in darkness locked into the feelings of not being defeated. It may help a little with the cold, but... It isn't going to help with the cold. It makes you feel a little deeper, some of you a lot deeper, what is significant, and I'm afraid the cold will always be significant.
Don't worry, you can still open the windows in your home. A lot of the world doesn't know it, but we figured it out we figured out how to have windows that open in a climate with a lot of bugs. Our windows have screens.
It appears as though from now on every year in the summer, in addition to sticky unpleasant heat and monstrous bugs, Winnipeg is going to be lightly blanketed in forest fire smoke. It isn't any more dangerous than any of the other things you're putting in your body. It will never encroach upon the city, it's all up north. Think of it as the reality of what we are doing to the planet coming to get you as an individual.
We do have good lakes and stuff but lakes are not oceans. Some of them have leeches, I'd say don't even bother with the ones with leeches fucking go to another one we have, like, 100 000 of them. It's brisk. Even in summer jumping into a larger Manitoba lake is brisk. It can either be instantly refreshing or instantly painful and then refreshing in about 30 seconds. The beaches are not all exactly infested with bugs, it's manageable. There are a few small lakes where the water is clear enough to see the bottom, however if I told you which ones they were they would become too crowded too fast so I'm going to leave finding them up to you.
Apparently my definition of "brisk" is slightly more extreme than the Swedish definition of "brisk" so that is a thing you can take over this entire essay.
As you know, Canada is all open land and stuff. It's forty minutes or more between towns on the highway not like what you're used to in most of the United States and, well, anywhere. It's all flat and bleak. I like it. There's more than flatness and bleakness, it is possible to find places within driving distance of Winnipeg that are not flat and bleak, but you're not going to find anything overly majestic. Hopefully you're good at picking up on subtle beauty. If so you'll find a lot of it. There is a lot of forest, it isn't all crops, there's a lot a lot a lot of forest. Go north about an hour or two and you hit the Canadian Shield which is very rocky and stuff it's pretty neat. There's all sorts of very hilly areas all over Manitoba it isn't total boredom.
In that region, remember the risk you're taking in certain areas, take a good look at the air before you open your car door. When I was a kid my family travelled north, my parents thought it would be a good idea to go to the beach. We park, look outside, it's clearly more insect than oxygen. I said "Don't open that door." They said "It's fine it's nothing when we get in the water they won't bother us." "Don't open that door." They open their doors, in less than a second the entire inside of the car is infested with literally hundreds of mosquitos, wasps and black flies. They never really did learn their lesson, you should probably listen to me, your twelve year old son is a lot smarter than you.
An important part of appreciating the natural beauty of this region is the sky, learn to appreciate the sky. It feels a lot bigger, the cloud formations, particularly in a thunder storm, get a lot larger and more dramatic. Only central Asia and the depths of Russia, the Australian outback, the Sahara, can really compete with the size of the sky in central North America, however they do not get the dramatic storm formation like we do. At higher latitudes you are a lot more likely to see the moon during the day.
In the winter you won't see much of the dramatic cloud formation, pretty much all you see is blue. The rest of the world likely doesn't know of this natural phenomenon, you always picture the north pole as blanketed in blizzards... No, at -30°C there is so little water vapour in the air that clouds generally do not form. You're pretty much looking at the snow that fell in November and December until March.
And, yes, because of that in the winter sensitive skin is in a lot of trouble, you'll be wanting lotion, you won't be wanting electric heaters however a lot of you won't have a choice. Is it... Painful? All of our women say yes, all of our men say not really. It's no worse than the desert.
Don't sacrifice your warmth for your skin in your apartment, you could DIE. If your heat goes out while you're asleep in your apartment, you could DIE. You won't. But you could.
It's true the weather does affect your psychology. You'll notice New Yorkers are very hardcore and it's more than just the crime ridden streets and a hell of a lot of people around them, their winters make them go !. Well, our winters make us go a grammatical character that doesn't exist, an exponential !. It snaps into your core. It emotionally paralyzes you a little. You'll see there was a reason for Winnipeg, why the movement had to be thought up by Winnipeggers. The cold doesn't necessarily make you an asshole, though all of us who write the rulebook for the movement are assholes. I must go back to the word "hardened." It is a more complicated feeling than simply "tough." We are not all "tough" in Winnipeg, we are all "hardened."
A settlement of this size in this climate. Winnipeg is not supposed to happen. Winnipeg is not supposed to happen. This is an anomaly that opposes our very biology.
Preparing for the City and the Culture
I know a lot of you are thinking "After we win, can we just rename the city?" I hear you, but no we're not going to be doing that, that's lame, it is Winnipeg forever and ever. Plus, if you strip all stereotypical Canadian accent vibes when you say it and a little bit remove yourself from North American sensibilities it's actually not that horrible a sound. That Canadian accent doesn't really even exist by the way I'm pretty sure only the Maritimes have ever really sounded like that. It's a good example of we like to put noises from our noises on our noises to confirm the stupidity of our noises, or in this case the stupidity of the noises we accidentally gave another culture's noises relating to our noises to help them pretend to make fun of our noises that now we can't get out of our head, or worse yet, and the one we gave our false noises pretty much only does this one though they will do this to other noises within their collective noises but the ones who do this are only ever doing it to all noises, take the noises from our noises and put them on every other culture's noises to confirm the stupidity of their noises. Because that's something we really need to flatten out.
One way or the other Winnipeg is probably not what you're expecting. If you're expecting somewhat average Canadian levels of wealth, cleanliness and crime rate you'll probably be disappointed. If you're expecting complete dirt murder poverty abandoned buildings you'll probably be pleasantly surprised. Winnipeg gained most of it's reputation in the 1970s through 1990s, it's a lot better now.
If you're from one of the more downtrodden urban areas of the United States you will consider it happy rich safe Canada. If you're from standard suburban United States you'll consider it horrifyingly abnormal unordinary atypical irregular uncustomary unconventional idiosyncratic unorthodox. From nicer, wealthier areas of the world you'll likely consider it somewhere between total dirt and acceptably charmingly dirt. If you're from a poorer country you will do well here, it's a very rich country and it still shows in Winnipeg you'll live very comfortably and the people will not annoy you nearly as much as the people would annoy you in many other rich parts of the world.
It is getting quite diverse here, like the rest of Canada. You don't need to expect drowning in white people. Canadian culture isn't what it looks like on TV. Especially in Winnipeg you're not going to see a whole lot of people floating around being unnecessarily polite. You really don't hear "eh" very often at all, I would imagine only like 15% more often than you would hear it in the United States. It's a pretty reasonably grounded, flat culture... Like, base of American but with a populace considerably less fucked up, just more comfortable in themselves and happy. It's a multicultural country, so it's the best country to host the centre point of the movement, we'll just take any culture and add it to the pile, you can keep your culture. You may encounter racism from the very bottom of our stupid but it will be nothing like American racism, it's incredibly unlikely anybody will tell you "Turn Canadian or GEEET OUT!" It won't be long before these people understand their brain type was not meant to form opinions. And it's supposed to be the smart people putting the opinions in them not the other stupid people. Black people will not get what they get in America, very very little of it anyway, we choose to turn that hostility on natives. Most of our racism is focused on natives, so they'll be absorbing most of that for you.
Canada is one of the best places to live, but, no, it isn't perfect. We have absorbed a lot of what sucks about America. We can go way too soft, especially on crime. You'll find Winnipeg less soft than the rest of Canada, however. Like I said, ridiculously racist towards natives, especially in Winnipeg. We look very enlightened on matters of race to the rest of the world, but only because we choose to unleash all of it on the native population so you don't really see it. In Winnipeg it goes to really horrible places, "I'm not a racist person because it's only natives" places, total cultural isolation places, even worse than what America does to black people. No I'm not racist for saying this the end of the sentence will prove it, but it make scary their culture up real good in Winnipeg, I'm not racist for saying it because I find it incredibly beautiful. The average Winnipegger, engaging with a native person, sometimes even a perfectly white person dressed and mannered native person, is trembling, thinking only about the fact that they may well die right here and now. I've felt it, after returning from Brandon for a few years I noticed my brain doing this. All of us but Bolt Remming have felt it, none of us liked that our conditioning told us to feel it and we most certainly did not project to the receiver of our auto racism that this was happening inside of us. About a third of Winnipeggers who feel this do not want to feel this, it just... Happens. The other two thirds want it, it keeps them safe.
When I lived in Winnipeg, in the St. James area, poor end of middle class part of town, until about four months into high school things did feel reasonably colour blind, the natives were permitted to live amongst the normals. It was when I moved to Brandon for the last three and a half years of high school that I realized it goes holy shit deep. I was in the rich kid high school, obviously the worst high school for this kind of behaviour, so I was able to see the very limits. Like, ten to fifteen of them in the school, they get edged out they need to go to one of the other high schools. Even the smart kids would go all the way on the natives, even the kids with the certain type of mind I explain in the essays. You would hear things like "...What the hell is a native doing in pre calculus? I'm a little uncomfortable." I said, looking at the person who forgot to log out of the computer I was using "Firebird Sky that's a cool last name" "...Dude... That's a native last name..." It was then when I realized this is underlying in Winnipeg as well and a lot worse than every other major Canadian city, it isn't the "Some of the kids appear to be a little browner" that I pretty much thought it was up until I moved to Brandon, there's severe underlying racism, but it isn't as bad as the rich kid high school in Brandon. Bolt Remming moved away from me in St. James early elementary school to the north end, the lower class part of town, he says there it isn't so bad either however it does go to racially based gang places so that's not great, St. James is probably the most racially tolerant area of town. We were sheltered.
Americans will need to adjust their standards, as I've stated, our essays will help. We're not going to tolerate your behaviours as well as you think we are, we don't like you. We're not the place to go if you're thinking "Now nobody is going to shoot me for being rampant unstoppable asshole for no reason to everyone I see like I've always wanted" you're going to feel even more isolated here than you do down there. We put up a civility shield, but not what you expect of a civility shield, not a... Hide our inner rage until snap point shield like you assume a civility shield operates. It's just more of a "Why on Earth would anybody be anything short of courteous to strangers? It just feels right."
I was at a coffee shop having lunch, people were standing by me talking to people at the table beside me. I notice there's an empty single table not far from me so I tell them "You can have this table I can move over there" and I got a very dramatic "Oh my god you Canadians are so nice" and I'm all like "...It's just... It's just moving over to another table it's barely a gesture whatsoever but okay I get to be the ambassador of Canadian politeness yay." Americans never expect anybody to be thinking about anything other than the individual, no matter the cost, even if it means suffering for thirty other individuals, no, you only think of yourself. The rest of the world does not operate in this manner and I'm pretty sure it does not take a Canadian to volunteer switching tables. Yes, America, to the things you say and do, rest of the world does a lot of "...Ahhh... 'Kay?"
"This man is dying and the only thing that can save him is your table." "...Well, this is my table asshole. Fucking piece of shit have the nerve to think you would ever have the right to steal my table from me you wanna know what the barrel of my pistol tastes like mother fucking asshole piece of shit mother fucker?" (casual tone) "Fuck you asshole I fucked your mother she was fucking ugly fucking piece of shit?" "Oh... Ass fuck pile of garbage I'll fucking kill your family." "Yeah, yeah... Fucking eat shit fly up your own ass you mother fucker." "Oh that guy's dead." "Okay? It's not like I'm the one who's dead I don't know why you think this information would ever be relevant to me I'm going to go over to your house and kill your dog and feed it to your mother."
Our reputation of being polite is based a lot in how America perceives us, and how the rest of the world perceives us in relation to America. Somebody coming from, say, Japan, Scandinavia, finds us pretty averagely polite. Maybe ever so slightly more polite than the rest of Europe. It's not really a dramatic thing, Canadian politeness, it just looks that way comparatively. It's just a surface thing, in public your engagements with people run a lot smoother, everything is kept in order by the overbearing not wanting to look like a big public asshole, once you're no longer in public with these people you find it isn't a thing that firmly driven into our psyche. More deeply driven in private conversation than Americans, but compared to the rest of the world once we're no longer in public we're basically equivalent. You don't know it because, obviously, when you visit us all you see is the surface, when we visit you all you see is the surface. For us it is a comfortable drop, we don't try to maintain it in private it just goes away and we're just comfortable with that. That's your problem Americans, one of them, you still try to maintain your shaky emotional society barriers in private conversation, it fucks you up. We keep a little of what you keep, if you are to lose your temper at work or at school we'd look at it similarly to you, that being the rest of the world would go "Oh someone's losing their shit" and we would go "Oh my g-g-g-g-GOD. OH MY-EYUGGHHH!!!! WHAT!!!! I'm just... I can't... I'm... I saw someone yell I'm going to need therapy... Oh my god... Oh my god... Oh my god I think I have PTSD oh my god I saw somebody yelling... Oh my god I just witnessed somebody obliterating everything that is them for the rest of their lives oh my god..." However we are just a tinge less persona invested, we also maintain the persona beyond the point of appropriateness but we generally don't maintain the persona at our close friends and family. We do full public persona also known as generic blank Canadian, sub public persona, self. You do... Confused conglarbaflarp persona self, try to ram the persona into the self until the self can become to it's core what people want to see. Some of us Canadians can be a little influenced by this, but we generally do not take it as pathologically far.
We're a little America Jr. but not the way you like to frame it, our culture is pretty damn America influenced but, no, we in no way look up to you, we in no way wish for your overbearing protection racket, we have no respect for you whatsoever and we fucking hate that we're a lot like you. Coming from America will be comfortable in a lot of aspects, once we've... Removed a little... Quirk.
The populace is similar to you in a lot of other ways, though most of it revolves around the previously mentioned persona investment, the barriers, the passive aggressiveness that develops underneath the barriers. We're pretty damn culturally flattened as well, some of us think underneath the persona we might possibly be our favourite celebrity but not as bad as you, we will go to the store and purchase pre-packaged rebellion, we do enjoy engaging in pop psychology self help programs that reward self delusion but we don't take it nearly as far, bad tripping at a party will trigger the same internal feelings of everyone giggling at you and whispering to each other about how you are psychotic, people who are actually psychotic will get the same empathetic head pat followed by the person giggling with the others and whispering to each other about how you are psychotic, in a lot of ways we're similar, mellowed American basically.
We don't have all of your fast food chains, we're missing a few good ones, the ones we do have we often do differently but not overly differently, sometimes better sometimes worse. Our McDonald's BBQ sauce is better, yours is just... Regular BBQ sauce. You're going to find that cheese and chocolate can go to places you never would have dreamed, and we're not even Europe, you just suck that bad. You're going to find beer is a lot better and stronger, and we're not even Europe, you just suck that bad. You're about to learn of honey dill sauce, obviously my entire life I assumed this was a North American standard possibly global standard, it wasn't until early adulthood I realized this only exists in Manitoba... And that makes absolutely no sense it is inconceivable, it's, like, the standard chicken finger sauce, it's obviously the base chicken finger sauce, I... It... It makes no sense to me I will never understand it. Literally 80% of Manitobans who one day learn honey dill only exists in Manitoba respond with "...? *blink*" Nobody ever learns it only exists in Manitoba until they're in their twenties or thirties, 40% of us go to our graves never knowing the only place honey dill sauce exists is Manitoba. I'm afraid seafood in the prairies is garbage and there's nothing we can do about it. We have this incredibly stinky fish called goldeye... I've never dared and all I know about it is it stinks and most Manitobans dislike it. If you like your experimental avant garde fishes like catfish, you may like it, but it's even more off the wall than catfish. Mr. Browning grew up in New Orleans and loves catfish and he could not stomach goldeye. There's some good fresh water fish but you will not get good shrimp or lobster or calamari. Remember a lot of "Canadians are weird" things such as our more liberal use of white vinegar are actually "Rest of the world is weird" things, white vinegar is more liberally used in quite a large portion of "rest of the world." You can still get your American cheese, but we call it processed cheese... product. Our labelling laws don't allow us to call it cheese we have to call it cheese product. And it's also better. And it's also British. Not American you never had anything to do with American cheese, you just took something pre-existing and labeled it American. Mhmm. There's a few more of those too, it goes a little beyond food products.
As for the rest of the world, you all have a much better understanding of and comfort with the idea that other countries is different, and so I will not be outlining for you any intimate details about how Canada is also not France or Japan or what have you. We know the bulk of the people coming are American, we know deep down you pine for the days of your long defeated hippie movement, we know you're the only ones who after reading our essays need to do an instantaneous "OUT. Gone."
Winnipeg Folk Festival, or folk fest, is our hippie festival where everyone lives in tents on magic mushrooms, you can go for free if you manage to snag a position as a volunteer. The line up can be pretty hit or miss, but yes it can be pretty good, Iron & Wine has played it. We also have the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival, or fringe festival, which is a big alternative theatre festival which will produce either high admiration or high cringe depending on what play you're seeing, after we have realigned your perception and even before you're probably more likely to cringe. Cringe festival... Cringe festival. I think I'm the first person to think of that. I don't really like that I thought of it. But hopefully their new name will keep these people in line. There's quite a few festivals that happen in Winnipeg.
Downtown, expect grit but not as much grit as you get out of the average American donut city. It's just a subtle underlying vaguely cultured grit... Which may murder you. There is always the possibility the factors that turn it grit could murder you. It's reasonably safe Canada but it's not very safe Canada. Outside of downtown, the residential areas can actually be pretty varying levels of beautiful, the older parts of the city, the middle class parts of the city. The poor residential portions are pretty gross, but there are ways to look at them, no it isn't just appreciation of grit, you kind of have to like, look at the sky behind the blank empty house with crap in the yard, take enough psychedelics you'll probably get it, no it is most certainly not a representation of hope, it's a tiny bit anemoia. The new rich residential portions are... Identical in substance to every other new rich part of town in every other North American city, you've seen them, it's that. The old rich area, Wolseley, and the trendy rich area, the Exchange District, are really quite stunning. People are often surprised by the number of beautiful turn of the century buildings in Winnipeg. Where you'll likely be living, the urban hippie area, Osborne Village, is pretty reasonably cool, however it kind of has a being gentrified from a base of somewhat crime ridden poverty thing going on, you know how those go, that's okay we'll fix it. It is the coolest place in Winnipeg, I only state reasonably to assert my standards for hippie villages. Every single hipster just agreed and gratified me and themselves. It. Uh. I don't know what to do with cool feelings I have no idea. The donut is not exactly the same as the standard American donut, where it's just plastic and vinyl and parking lots and Wal-Mart, however it most certainly touches on it in certain areas. It's getting a hell of a lot less donut, unless it's 2:00 in the morning you wouldn't even notice we're donut when you're downtown. By the time you get here there's a pretty good chance the... Timbit... Is... Back... In the... Hole... It. It wrote itself but I didn't care for it.
The streets will never fully be repaired. We keep trying we can't do it. The temperature fluctuates so dramatically and the soil base is all clay due to it being an ancient lake bed. So, no, you're not getting high class socialist Canadian streets, we'll never be able to pull it off no matter how wealthy we get. It's the bottom of North America in terms of streets, basically tied with Detroit and New Orleans. Summer time is street repair time, and so summer time means you'll be running into construction pretty much no matter where you're going, likely at least twice.
The layout is a chaotic disorganized clusterfuck, streets fly off all over the place and change names three or four times. "Wait where the hell am I-DAMMIT pot hole." The layout of the city was designed... Basically what we're going for is attempting to figure out how to make sense from a base of thirteen different communities with different definitions of makes sense that all flow into a single point, unfortunately most of us assume we'll figure it out later, there's no need for planning it's not like this city is really going to go anywhere... But it just keeps growing, doesn't it? We keep realizing "Oh, if we had done this twenty years ago maybe by now we would almost make sense. OH WELL one day we'll find makes sense I'm sure I don't think we need to think about it at the moment."
You can put those feelings with the Winnipeg is very haunted feelings, hopefully mush it together all psychedelic like with the feelings that it is always hinting at deep culture in a manner that is somewhat dark. We'll turn Winnipeg feelings into a big beautiful dark pretentious spiraling incorrectly intersecting incomprehensible xbpt! Like in a lot of ways it has always been.
Most of you don't even really need to worry about it, eventually we label ourselves an entirely distinct culture, the majority of what made Winnipeg what it used to be is gone. A certain imprint remains, but, all that is undesirable to the movement has fled.