Completely random brain droppings about Winnipeg

[Blitz]

Winnipeg and London are two of the worst Canadian cities for traffic. They are the two largest metros in North America without any type of crosstown expressway.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

In the summer sky, this is what the paths of the sun look like (roughly) between Kansas City and Winnipeg:



When you start getting this far north, the sun in the summer is lower (as it is all year), but its path is longer. That's why you get such early sunrises and late sunsets this far north in the summer.

But the key issue is that it's lower in the sky.

Yesterday I was driving out of the airport, and it was only 3pm and already there were very long shadows as if it were sunset. Yet, there was still more than 6 hours until it actually got dark! As I write this it's 8:45 and still fairly light out. In KC at this time of year it's just about dark.

Even today when I was driving around at 12 noon, the shadows were still somewhat long. I'd say they were similar to what you'd get in KC at around 4 pm.

Think about that: This far north, almost the entire (summer) day consists of light quality that looks like "sunrise" or "sunset."

Most people find sunrises and sunsets to be relaxing. My guess is that's at least partly to do with melatonin production. When you get all these big patches of semi-dark (shadows), it encourages melatonin production, which makes people relaxed.

In KC at this time of year, the sun is very high in the sky and beating down hard on you. There's not as much shade. At least for me, that makes me stressed. I've always found darkness to be relaxing. In my home, once the sun goes down I turn most of the lights off in my house because it relaxes me for a while before I go to bed.

Yesterday while driving from the airport, I found myself much more relaxed than usual for no particular reason (especially since I had just gotten off 6 hours of being in a plane or airports). I was observing all the long shadows, and it occurred to me that all these long shadows were what was making me feel relaxed.

Everything simply looked different than the same time of day in KC. And more relaxing.

My theory is that people living this far north will tend to be more relaxed than ones living farther south, for all these reasons (maybe it doesn't apply to everyone). I also suspect that people like Canadians and others who live this far north don't notice it, it's just "normal" to them.

I kinda noticed this when I was living in Seattle and, especially, Spokane but didn't think much of it. In Seattle, the Cascades block some of the sunrise, and the Olympics block some of the sunset, so even though it's pretty far north, the sunrises and sunsets are blocked off prematurely. Spokane doesn't have nearly the same kind of mountains so it didn't affect the sun as much.

But right now I'm about 2-3 degrees latitude farther north than either Seattle or Spokane, and it's flat as a pancake with no mountains to block either the sunrise or sunset.

Yes. I was in Anchorage a few weeks ago and the sun was never as high in the sky like it is here in Houston at this time of year but the sun was out MUCH longer.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Mr Tall Forehead

A lot of the residents in the newer developments in the south end of Winnipeg are new Canadians who immigrated from countries where lawns aren’t a thing or aren’t as important as they are to North Americans that grew up watching their parents and grandparents water the grass and mow the lawn every weekend.

It's not just immigrants though. A manicured, fastidiously maintained lawn just isn't a part of the Canadian psyche. People of all backgrounds & classes are more inclined to just let gardens or lawns grow out a bit more naturally (there also aren't any HOAs to enforce rules around this either).

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by JManc

Yes. I was in Anchorage a few weeks ago and the sun was never as high in the sky like it is here in Houston at this time of year but the sun was out MUCH longer.

JManc, how many times have you been to Alaska now? I've wanted to visit Anchorage since I was a kid. I think I saw a photo in an encyclopedia. Remember pre Wikipedia days? Microsoft Encarta seemed like a big deal transitioning away from heavy paper encyclopedias

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by Mr Tall Forehead

A lot of the residents in the newer developments in the south end of Winnipeg are new Canadians who immigrated from countries where lawns aren’t a thing or aren’t as important as they are to North Americans that grew up watching their parents and grandparents water the grass and mow the lawn every weekend.

Funny you should say that. It seemed the new developments on the far north end had higher concentrations of immigrants than the southern ones, and their lawns were much worse.

In fact, first thing I did today was check out this new development here, which was definitely the nicest of the new developments I've seen so far, well-planned with a mix of uses and the whole bit. Unmistakably, the lawns were nicer than in the other developments. And also unmistakably, it looked like it was majority white people.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by JManc

Yes. I was in Anchorage a few weeks ago and the sun was never as high in the sky like it is here in Houston at this time of year but the sun was out MUCH longer.

It's 7:18 as I type this, and it's looked like "sunset" for about the last 5 hours.

Another weird experience I've had is the mornings. Both mornings so far I've been woken up sometime early in the morning but didn't look at the clock, figuring it was maybe 6am or something, then went back to sleep. Then I would wake up some hours later, thinking it was at least 9am but I had set my alarm for 8:30 just to make sure I got up reasonably early, but the alarm hadn't rung yet so I was wondering what was going on. Then I finally looked at the clock and it's like 7am. So the sun rising early is really messing with my internal clock.

I always had that problem in Seattle and got annoyed by it after a while. But it's worse here.

[James Bond Agent 007]

OK some more completely random brain droppings. I spent 3 hours walking in and around downtown today, and did some more driving around as well. Right now I'm pretty damn tired.

16. All the old houses here, in addition to being on narrower lots than in KC or elsewhere in the US, also seem narrower themselves, and ... somehow taller. It's like everything looks squished in, or something. I don't know if each floor is actually a bit taller than in the US, but on some houses I did notice the basements seem a bit higher up out of the ground than I'd see in KC. And maybe the roofs are a bit steeper? Hard to tell. I drove east on Academy Ave from Rt 90 and drove through some of the neighborhoods along that street. They're sort of like the neighborhoods in KC around The Plaza, but still different. Actually, they really reminded me of the neighborhood in Orlando here. Sans the palm trees of course, and with narrower lots. Winnipeg has no tudors that I could see, which are ubiquitous in that area of KC.

17. The east outer belt highway looks like it's only a few years old, but each of the concrete sections on it are already frayed at the edges and they've already started having to fill them in with asphalt pothole patches. The pothole-fixing expenses of Winnipeg and Manitoba must be astronomical.

18. This empty lot here between the Structube and Bass Pro, and the parking lot in front of it, would be a good spot for another apartment building or two, similar to the others being built in the area. I doubt there'll be any more big-box stores taking up that lot.

19. I went into the Polo Park mall, just for the heck of it. It was nice, about the same as the Oak Park mall in Overland Park, maybe even a bit nicer, and there were about as many vacant stores as in Oak Park - some, but not too many. But there was an EQ3 store which was interesting. It reminded me of a Dania, but I'd never heard of it before nor seen it anywhere else. It is a Canadian company?

Thoughts on downtown next ...

[James Bond Agent 007]

20. Downtown in 9 words: The waterfront is nice, the rest, not so much.

21. The Exchange District reminded me a lot of Pioneer Square in Seattle (though bigger): A collection of turn-of-the-century brick buildings that want to be all nice and fixed up, and in a few cases are, or at least are trying, but it's also the city's "Skid Row" and unfortunately, the "Skid Row" aspect of it has the upper hand. So trying to get it fixed up is very difficult because not a whole lot of businesses or people are particularly interested in hanging out there for long. I think Seattle has had some better luck with Pioneer Square than Winnipeg has had with the Exchange District, but not only is Seattle a wealthier city, which helps a lot, but Pioneer Square is smaller which makes it a smaller problem to tackle.

22. I walked up and down Portage Ave quite a bit, and even went into Portage Place (which is a downtown mall that's recently started reconstruction). All I can say is, it reminded me of much of downtown Newark in the 80's, except for the fact I didn't see any wig shops.

23. The waterfront was great! I parked next to Union Station, walked up Waterfront Drive up to what I call the Darth Vader building, then I did my "adventures" in the Exchange District and Portage Ave and environs, then came back to the waterfront. I went on the foot bridge across the river, wandered a couple blocks up Provencher Blvd, went around the block through another nifty old neighborhood, went back over the bridge and explored The Forks Market a bit. The Forks Market is somewhat like the River Front Market in KC, but it's right on the river and is more spread out. This is clearly the highlight of downtown.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Almost forgot ...

24. This is a very bicycle-friendly city. I've seen bicyclists just about everywhere, and a lot of the apartment balconies have bicycles stored on them. Even the suburb-y areas have lots of bicycle paths with people on them. It occurred to me that, in the winter, they should encourage people to use all those paths for cross-country skiing. Winnipeg could be the cross-country skiing capital of the world!

25. There are power transmission lines everywhere. Big, huge ones. Everywhere. Did I say everywhere? Well, everywhere! I've never seen so many power transmission lines for such a relatively small population. Do they ship power to Ontario as well, or something?

[dam_well]

Originally Posted by [B

12. There are two good bookstore chains:[/B] Chapters and Indigo. In the US we've long ago been reduced to just one: Barnes & Noble.

Another option for a larger bookstore, check out McNally Robinson. They have one main location in Winnipeg plus a smaller outlet at the forks. I find they have about the same selection as Chapters/Indigo, but a much nicer atmosphere.

[James Bond Agent 007]

I went into the Chapters next to Polo Park today and indeed they also had an Indigo sign on the building next to the Chapters sign.

It seemed like the Chapters had a little better book selection than the Indigo did, while the Indigo I went to yesterday had a little more non-book selection than Chapters.

One sad thing about both stores was ... probably at least 90% of the magazines in the magazine section were American ones. I get that a lot of topics are non-geographic specific, but some of them still are, and a lot of the latter were still found in the magazine section. There only appeared to be a few "Canadian" magazines (largely outdoors-oriented ones, like "Canadian Prairie Hunting" or stuff like that).

Though at least they didn't have Southern Living magazine. It always freaked me out that I could find Southern Living magazine in Seattle.

[Wigs]

Canadian Geographic is usually worth picking up if you want a Canadian magazine as a souvenir.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by Wigs

Canadian Geographic is usually worth picking up if you want a Canadian magazine as a souvenir.

I actually looked for that in Chapters but didn't see it.

They did, however, have a large selection of National Geographic.

[niwell]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

16. All the old houses here, in addition to being on narrower lots than in KC or elsewhere in the US, also seem narrower themselves, and ... somehow taller. It's like everything looks squished in, or something. I don't know if each floor is actually a bit taller than in the US, but on some houses I did notice the basements seem a bit higher up out of the ground than I'd see in KC. And maybe the roofs are a bit steeper? Hard to tell. I drove east on Academy Ave from Rt 90 and drove through some of the neighborhoods along that street. They're sort of like the neighborhoods in KC around The Plaza, but still different. Actually, they really reminded me of the neighborhood in Orlando here. Sans the palm trees of course, and with narrower lots. Winnipeg has no tudors that I could see, which are ubiquitous in that area of KC.

If you think those are narrow you need to visit Toronto! Typical house widths in the older parts of the city are 20 ft are less and 3 storeys is common. Very tall and narrow. Basements usually are a bit above ground and many have been underpinned to allow for basement apartments. The closest analogue in the US is probably Pittsburgh but ours are closer together, and a lot more semi-detached and small rows.

[James Bond Agent 007]

I would expect that with a much older city like Toronto.

But Winnipeg is pretty much the same age as KC. Most of both those cities were built at least since the early days of the automobile. Even with that, in Winnipeg still has narrower houses and smaller lots.

Winnipeg:
https://www.google.com/maps/@49.8721...oASAFQAw%3D%3D

Similar kind of neighborhood in KC:
https://www.google.com/maps/@39.0192...oASAFQAw%3D%3D

EDIT: Though I just noticed Winnipeg has allys while KC doesn't.

[James Bond Agent 007]

In fact it looks like ALL the old neighborhoods in Winnipeg have allys.

Some of the oldest neighborhoods in KC have them, but most don't. It looks like after about 1910 or so they stopped making them in KC.

[zoomer]

Bob Odenkirk summed up Winnipeg very elequently - what a classy man.

[IluvATX]

Originally Posted by JManc

Yes. I was in Anchorage a few weeks ago and the sun was never as high in the sky like it is here in Houston at this time of year but the sun was out MUCH longer.

The effect of the sun being lower in the sky is that you get hot much quicker as the sun is shining on your whole body instead of just your head. I saw something that the actual body feel of the temperature can be like 15-20 degrees warmer at higher latitudes.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by IluvATX

The effect of the sun being lower in the sky is that you get hot much quicker as the sun is shining on your whole body instead of just your head. I saw something that the actual body feel of the temperature can be like 15-20 degrees warmer at higher latitudes.

I haven't noticed that. But then, it's been fairly cool while I was here.

On Thursday there were thunderstorms early in the morning and it was muggy with on and off cloudiness, but that's been the only day with relatively bad weather.

Anyway, it's nice out again today and I'm headed to Whiteshell Provincial Park. Will probably take up most of the day. I wanna see a moose!!!

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

23. The waterfront was great! I parked next to Union Station, walked up Waterfront Drive up to what I call the Darth Vader building, then I did my "adventures" in the Exchange District and Portage Ave and environs, then came back to the waterfront. I went on the foot bridge across the river, wandered a couple blocks up Provencher Blvd, went around the block through another nifty old neighborhood, went back over the bridge and explored The Forks Market a bit. The Forks Market is somewhat like the River Front Market in KC, but it's right on the river and is more spread out. This is clearly the highlight of downtown.

Did you cross over the river to Osborne Village and Corydon Ave. as well? If not, you definitely should when you get a chance. Osborne is, I believe, the densest neighbourhood on the Prairies (unless Calgary's Beltline has since eclipsed it), and seems like one of Winnipeg's more vibrant parts.

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

25. There are power transmission lines everywhere. Big, huge ones. Everywhere. Did I say everywhere? Well, everywhere! I've never seen so many power transmission lines for such a relatively small population. Do they ship power to Ontario as well, or something?

Most likely to the US.