Why Winnipeg should be on your radar

by Alex Robertson Textor on


When I first visited Winnipeg, in 2005, I did so on the advice of an art world acquaintance in New York who spent a lot of professional time in Canada. I asked him which Canadian city he deemed to be coolest. After a perfunctory nod to Montreal, he zeroed in on Winnipeg. He cited the city’s high culture, its dynamic contemporary creative figures, its prairie sunsets, and its very undiscovered status as reasons to visit.

When I got to Winnipeg I found a city teeming with good cultural, architectural, and culinary stuff. I also found a city that seemed to know itself. There are countless cities in North America obsessed with their relationship to New York or Los Angeles. Winnipeg is not one of these. If Winnipeg has an inferiority complex, it is tempered by the recognition that quality of life is high and opportunities feel boundless here.

There is quite simply something very special about Winnipeg. It’s a bit of a Grand Old Dame, with a genteel spirit at play across charming residential and commercial neighborhoods. It’s not always the prettiest city. The city’s downtown lacks a unified scale, and a clutch of Brutalist buildings make a dramatic claim on the urban landscape. (The latter always strike me as desperately beautiful, though anecdotal evidence suggests that I’m in the minority in this respect.) There are parks and monuments and unexpected corners. There is also The Forks, an enormous multipurpose entertainment area, which organizes a lot of leisure time in the city.Winnipeg’s strong creative scene is partially attributable to its deep winter freeze, which has fostered a creative atmosphere. The city has a deep artistic tradition that has produced a bevy of contemporary filmmakers and artists. Ponder the work of local filmmakers Guy Maddin and Noam Gonick and you gain some real insight into Winnipeg, a city bound to its many idiosyncrasies, the harsh climate, and its varied ethnic diversity.

There’s also the question of the city’s population in relation to the surrounding territory. There are 1.2 million people in Manitoba; around 650,000 of them live in Winnipeg. Winnipeg is the only metropolis of note for a great distance. The prairie is just outside the city, and it is vast. Winnipeg draws the country refugees in magnetically.

Winnipeg has a number of major projects underway; the most notable of these, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, is scheduled to be finished in 2012. The museum is is a very ambitious and very heady undertaking. In architectural terms alone, it will be a tour de force. There is already talk in Winnipeg about a future Bilbao Effect.

By the end of my second visit to Winnipeg last week I’d discovered more delightful Manitoban quirks: the phenomenon of the wedding social; the local appetite for Slurpees, even in the dead of winter; the fact that, in early August, I saw leaves that had already turned color; the genuine friendliness of completely random people.

Over the next few days, I’ll post reports on Winnipeg’s Folklorama cultural festival, Winnipeg’s museum scene, the city’s locavore wave, The Forks, and some other dimensions of this exciting city.

See my entire road trip to Winnipeg series here.

Some media support for my stay in Winnipeg was provided by Tourism Winnipeg and Travel Manitoba. All opinions expressed are my own.

Canadian prairie road trip day three: Regina-Winnipeg

by Alex Robertson Textor on

On the third and sadly final full day of our Canadian prairie road trip adventure, we wake up slowly in Regina. We race around the city before taking off for our long journey to Winnipeg, first stopping at a bakery and convenience store in the Cathedral Village neighborhood, and then dashing over to the bustling Atlantis Coffee at Hamilton and Victoria, where the espresso is good and the cashier sports stylishly thick plastic frames.

From here we set out along Provincial Highway 44. Our first planned stop is the village of Labret, a small village with the Stations of the Cross erected across its hillside. Somehow, due to my navigational distractedness, we miss the turnoff for Highway 10 in the town of Balgonie and end up on a minor road, mesmerized by the fields of wheat, mustard, rapeseed, and flax. The last of these is a bluish violet.

We keep driving. The clouds became more dramatic and we have to stop to take more photos. Here the dragonflies are thick and eager and the stillness is profound.

Once we’ve sorted out our path we end up in Fort Qu’Appelle and check in at the visitors’ center, which doubles as an art gallery. Some of the accents here are deeply Saskatchewanian, and I have trouble for the first time trying to understand a local. We are given a tour of the galleries, which showcase the work of area artists.

We pass on to the tiny village of Labret. The village is beautiful in an epic manner, completely worth the detour. SK Books & Collectibles, a vintage bookshop, is stocked with 17,000 books, including tons of first editions and rare books. The shop has an especially strong collection of Western Canadian history and culture titles. “How could you ever get tired of this terrain?” I ask the bookstore’s owner. “I never do,” he responds.Labret boasts an enormous stone church and a hillside Stations of the Cross. We walk up and check out the incredible views from up top.

Following Labret we drive through lakeside cottage country. One settlement, Sandy Beach, is so charming that I’m suddenly beset by cottage envy.

From there it’s a long, straight shot to the visitors’ center at the Saskatchewan/Manitoba border, where we pick up a photocopied map of Brandon, Manitoba’s second biggest city. Later we circle downtown Brandon before stopping for a late lunch at Lady of the Lake, an enormous boutique/restaurant. My sandwich is delicious. The boutique side of the Lady features a table devoted to Manitoban body care products. We drive on for another 90 minutes to Portage La Prairie.

Our penultimate stop is here, at the very fine Horfrost Restaurant. That this restaurant is located in Portage La Prairie, a town with fewer than 15,000 residents, is a wonder. Horfost is an outstanding restaurant with a strong locavore focus, a place so exciting that it merits inclusion in another post. But here’s a teaser trio: fried pig’s ears, bison spring rolls, maple fries.

From Horfrost we speed through the night to West Gate Manor, a bed and breakfast in a leafy Winnipeg neighborhood, where we spend the final night of our road trip. Portage Avenue’s lights and traffic roll out to greet us. This is not Winnipeg at its most charming, granted, but it serves as a dramatic narrative bookend to our journey, a goodbye to the vast prairie behind us.

Read the entire road trip series here.

Some media support for this road trip was provided by Tourism Saskatchewan. All opinions belong to the author.

Canadian prairie road trip day two: Saskatoon-Regina

by Alex Robertson Textor on


Our proper road trip begins early at Saskatoon John G. Diefenbaker International Airport. We are headed to Regina via Moose Jaw, and not a moment too soon. We’re stir crazy and we can’t wait to get on the road. We pick up our rental from a grinning car rental company employee and we’re off. As we round Saskatoon, not yet into the suburbs, we can already see flat prairie fields.

About a half hour outside of Saskatoon we see the sign for Blackstrap Provincial Park (see above) and decide to take a detour. The entrance for a single car is C$7. The park centers on Blackstrap Lake, a long finger of a body of water. The park is on one side and a handful of houses cluster on the other. It is so picturesque and serene, even with a few motorboats puttering along. A family swims in the swimming area and a group of retirees settles down for a picnic. We wade around in the blissfully cool water before moving on.

Fields of wheat, mustard, and rapeseed alternate across much of our journey. It’s difficult to convey just how beautiful these fields are in mid-summer. They’re not showy or dramatic. They’re straight-forward, and while no field is identical to the last, the color palate does not vary much. Their beauty is nonetheless striking. We wondered out loud over and over why the highways weren’t full of summer visitors eager to see the fields in their fullness.

Later the landscape changes quickly as we pass through Buffalo Pound Lake. Here, another long finger of a lake disrupts the terrain. That there is a Provincial Park nearby is not surprising.

Moose Jaw, 226 kilometers (140 miles) southeast of Saskatoon, is hot and bright and dry in the mid-afternoon. We wander into a downtown tea house called Renate’s Tea Time with a refreshing drink in mind, but the dessert menu looks so inviting that I order an apple strudel. I ask the distinguished-looking server if she is Renate and she replies in the affirmative, and in German no less. It turns out that Renate of Renate’s Tea Time is a Liechtensteiner! The probability scale crashes. Who knew how far and wide Liechtenstein’s diaspora had expanded? Perhaps it goes without saying that Renate’s strudel was terribly, ridiculously good.
Mac the Moose, about to get his ass kicked by your faithful correspondent.

On our way out of town we stop at the tourism center and meet Mac the Moose, the enormous moose replica that serves as the city’s icon, just off the Trans-Canada Highway. We also meet Henri-Philippe Lamothe, an avid bicyclist currently biking from British Columbia to Montréal. Henri is taking just two months to cross Canada by bike.


Henri-Philippe Lamothe, trans-Canadian bicyclist.

After arriving in Regina, we scurry on to Crave, a restaurant and bar located on the ground floor of the storied downtown building that housed the Assiniboia Club, an elite men’s club, until 1994. Crave is subdivided into a number of dining and recreation rooms of varying sizes. It’s a very appealing concept, and its execution works so well due to a careful renovation job. Owner Craig Perrault joins us for a beer and several small courses. The kitchen’s offerings are all very tasty and fresh. This isn’t bar grub by a long shot.

After dinner we walk through Regina’s downtown and Cathedral Village neighborhoods. The crowning glory of the former is Victoria Park, a huge block of dense trees organized around a Cenotaph commemorating fallen military heroes from the city. Cathedral Village, named after the imposing Holy Rosary Cathedral at its heart, is Regina’s funkiest central ‘hood. It’s home to a number of quirky small businesses and the annual Cathedral Village Arts Festival, which is held in May.

Upcoming events in Regina include the Regina Folk Festival (August 6-8) and the Great Saskatchewan Mustard Festival (August 8). Be sure to pick up a copy of the independent fortnightly prairie dog newspaper for a blast of principled local political irreverence and cultural listings.

Read the entire road trip series here.

Some media support for this road trip was provided by Tourism Saskatchewan. All opinions belong to the author.

Canadian prairie road trip day one: Calgary-Saskatoon

by Alex Robertson Textor on

The first day of our three-day road trip had to be reworked when we discovered that it is impossible to arrange a one-way car rental from Calgary to Winnipeg. After a half-day spent checking out the appealing Boho mish-mash of Calgary’s Inglewood neighborhood, we nabbed a ride to the airport and checked in for our almost completely full flight to Saskatoon.

The Calgary airport, much like Calgary itself, is bold and busy, with remarkably low-stress security lines. Note to the TSA: please take a look at Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) protocol. Thank you.

The flight was very short, so short in fact that it left me unable to come to any sort of pithy summation of the airline, but I can fairly claim that WestJet flight attendants are unquestionably cheery. WestJet, for the uninitiated, is sort of a Canadian cross between Southwest and JetBlue.

The airport in Saskatoon is bright. It smells fresh and new, and there are hanging plants that give the gleaming space a ribbon of color. Saskatoon’s cab drivers talk about the oil, potash, and uranium resource wealth of the province. That the population is also increasing is a fact so obvious that it comes into conversation almost as an afterthought. We had the good luck of meeting two chatty cab drivers, one a hilariously sardonic fellow who lamented the Disneyfication of Times Square; the other a transplant from Toronto who told us that we had to see the Bollywood film My Name is Khan. The prairie’s legendary friendliness is real, and it’s also catchy.

Saskatoon’s downtown is well-serviced with shops and businesses, though it is utilitarian. The city’s trump card is the South Saskatchewan River, which bisects it. The park along the river is absolutely gorgeous, so idyllic it overwhelms the senses. During our stroll, joggers, bikers, and loungers were taking advantage of the riverside park.


University Bridge across the South Saskatchewan River.
Saskatoon centennial monument.

In the evening we walked across the Broadway Bridge, with its dramatic views of the river and downtown. Our goal: Calories Bakery & Restaurant, a Saskatoon institution that sources much of its menu locally. Our evening there was lovely, with a fantastic menu and a disarmingly charming waiter. The Caprese salad, organized into a tower, was brilliant, as were the courses that followed: duck confit over polenta and slices of cake served to share.

Calories is located in the funky and appealing Broadway neighborhood, which centers on the relaxed and wide avenue of the same name. Stand out Broadway retailers include the Bulk Cheese Warehouse delicatessen (732 Broadway Avenue), a free trade shop called The Better Good (640 Broadway Avenue), and the Vinyl Diner (628B Broadway Avenue), a music shop.

The walk back to downtown, just past sundown, was everything one could want from a summer prairie sky: glorious streaks of red across an enormous expanse of fading blue.

Saskatoon is fresh. As Saskatchewan thrives economically and its biggest city continues to grow, Saskatoon will continue to be a city to watch.

Upcoming events include the Saskatoon Fringe Theater Festival through August 7 and Folkfest (August 19-21).

Read the entire road trip series here.

Some media support for this road trip was provided by Travel Alberta and Tourism Saskatchewan. All opinions belong to the author.

Neighborhood watch: Inglewood, Calgary

by Alex Robertson Textor on


Inglewood street scene.

A little neighborhood adjacent to downtown, Inglewood has emerged over the last several years as one of Calgary’s most dynamic ‘hoods. Inglewood is the oldest neighborhood in a city full of new builds financed by oil revenue. Happily, the neighborhood carefully safeguards its buildings, and the façades of Ninth Avenue SE, its main strip, are in no danger of being smashed by a wrecking ball. Inglewood’s old-fashioned core is a world apart from Calgary’s go-go downtown skyline.

Inglewood is also an important neighborhood in Calgary’s cultural calculus. It is home to the Calgary Sunfest and the Calgary Fringe Festival, and sits adjacent to the Calgary Stampede, the enormous rodeo and exhibition that takes place every July. It’s also close to the Calgary Zoo and the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary.

Inglewood’s contemporary retail profile is a fascinating tangle of old-school antiques stores, new upscale home furnishings shops, and quirky outlier businesses. The area has gentrified slowly and unevenly. Many locals cite the most recent oil boom and the migration of street prostitution away from the ‘hood as essential to Inglewood’s more recent transformations.

Inglewood is home to Rouge (1240 Eighth Avenue SE), which came in at Number 60 this year in the S. Pellegrino World’s 100 Best Restaurants List. That I did not have time to have lunch at Rouge on Wednesday will haunt me for quite some time. Rouge ranked higher than any other Canadian restaurant on the 2010 Best Restaurants List.

There are other culinary delights in Inglewood. There’s the simple, organic-minded WilderNest Dream Café (1209 Ninth Avenue SE), which serves delicious breakfasts of farm fresh eggs and drip coffee delivered in little French presses. There’s also Choklat (1327A Ninth Avenue), which does a thrilling trade in chocolate and other cocoa products. The one-stop shop does everything in house, from bean to final product. The caramel and chocolate shortbread is ridiculous, as is its line of exquisite chocolate bars.


There are anarchists in Calgary, too.
Savour (1331 Ninth Avenue SE) is a lovingly curated kitchenware and food shop, opened in 2008. The kitchenware products are all of very high quality, with a handful of whimsical objects, though the shop really sets itself apart with its carefully selected edibles. The food selection prioritizes Canadian provenance, and includes a line of Alberta-based Brassica mustards.

Moonstone Creation (1416 Ninth Avenue SE) is a lovely Native art gallery and gift shop, with a range of art and practical objects created in an in-house workshop as well as by artists in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Yukon Territory, and the US. Like many of the fresher shops in the neighborhood, Moonstone Creation is a recent addition to the Ninth Avenue scene. It opened in 2009.

Inglewood’s old-school antiques legacy can be sighted at Inglewood Antiques (1221B Ninth Avenue SE), with its eclectic hodgepodge of classic decorative items, pop culture objects, and fresh, dried, and silk flowers. Inglewood Antiques, founded in 1987, sources much of its inventory from individual sellers.

Across the street there’s Circa (1226A Ninth Avenue SE), a top-notch art glass shop with vintage and contemporary offerings. Opened in 2004 by Brian Imeson, it contains mostly European mid-century glassware, originating in the Czech Republic, Italy, Sweden, and Belgium, among other places. Whether or not the astounding price tags are within your budget, this is a great place to engage in home furnishing fantasies.

Lastly, Pro Line Shooters II (1426 Ninth Avenue) is a gun shop and barbershop. Such an enterprise might appear in the abstract to be out of place on a street increasingly lined with stylish shops, yet Pro Line Shooters feels as though it fully belongs on funky Ninth Avenue. During my recent visit, the resident barber had his hands full.

Accommodations tip: Inglewood Bed & Breakfast, 1006 Eighth Avenue SE. A grand Victorian replica of house sits just a block from Inglewood’s main artery. Rooms are spic-and-span, the owners are chattily personable, and the décor is comfy with a bit of Mitteleuropa flair. On this last count, it may be no surprise that co-proprietor Helmut Schoderbock hails from Austria.

Read the entire road trip series here.

Some media support for this visit was provided by Travel Alberta. All opinions belong to the author.