Americans seem to have an idea that Canada is "Utopia"

[Canadian Socialist]

Okay, I can work with that... except for the winter part. Discuss...

[strategery blunder]

1. Winter is my favourite season!

How can you say that!?

(And yes, I have to grovel to the Canucks and spell properly ;))

[Canadian Socialist]

5. I love you, strategery blunder

but you know shit about winter. You live in Missouri. Try a winter in Winnipeg. That is winter. Just sayin'. 'Course, Winnipeg also has very very nice summers (except for the mosquitoes). Great fishing, sandy, clean beaches. Good times, my friend. Good times.

[hfojvt]

7. RU in Winnipeg?

your profile says Alberta.
What is your current temp?

[Canadian Socialist]

8. I live in Calgary

my heart is in Winnipeg. Or on cold days, Peru. Or Vancouver. Take your pick!

[hfojvt]

10. that's kinda funny

in my road atlas, Vancouver, Washington is at L-7
Vancouver, BC is also at L-7
I cannot find a Peru that is not in Indiana or South America.

[Canadian Socialist]

11. Peru, South America

Vancouver, B.C. For a Canadian girl, in winter, those are the best picks. 'Course, Peru, S.A. in winter here, is summer there. But I can do with the rain in Vancouver, B.C. As long as there is no SNOW AND WIND CHILL. I hates the wind chill.

[NorthernSpy]

13. there's a Peru, Maine...

... FWIW.

[strategery blunder]

9. Yeah, I'm in Missouri for college.

I lived in Chicago for the last eight or so years for my life...

...Oh, yeah, and I still remember the twenty-six inch Thanksgiving Day Blizzard from when I lived in the Arizona Mountains.*** Ah, memories.:)

I'd love to live in Canada. I don't care how cold it is, I just want my snow and hockey!:evilgrin:

Oh, and you might be interested to know I follow the Alaskan "Nothing heavier than a T-shirt when the temperature's above 40 Rule." (That's what, 3 degrees Celsius for you crazy Canucks?)

*pleads for under-the-table immigration smuggling scheme to get me into Canada because I don't have enough skills for the Skills Test yet;)*

***Now don't go making fun of me for quoting Arizona snowfall, 26 inches of snow in Arizona will bury everything just as well as 26 inches of snow in Winnipeg will.

[JVS]

2. Americans need a good dose of Pierre Vallieres to set the record straight!

[Canadian Socialist]

3. Tabernac!

Un Quebecois! Dive! Dive!


<I'm just kidding, mon frere!>

[JVS]

4. There is something glorious about a writer who can take one of the...

most pleasant countries on Earth and turn it into a depressing dystopian hellhole by describing his life in it.

[Canadian Socialist]

6. JVS, mon frere....

I love Quebec. Truly and deeply. I spent many times in old Montreal. I speak your language. I read French. But lighten up. In St. Boniface (Winnipeg), there is much to enjoy. Oui?
edited to add: who was that woman author that lived in Winnipeg? I remember reading her works over 30 years ago. There was one about a flute? Please help with remembering. And how about Mordecai Richler? He was an excellent Canadian writer that lived in Montreal. "Duddy Kravitz" comes to mind. And do not hit me with the pur laine shit.

[Parrcrow]

33. I believe the writer you are thinking of is

Gabrielle Roy.

from wikipedia
Selected bibliography
Bonheur d'occasion (1945) - (The Tin Flute)
La Petite Poule d'Eau (1950) - (Where Nests the Water Hen)
Alexandre Chenevert (1954) - (The Cashier)
Rue Deschambault (1955) - (Street of Riches)
La Montagne secrète (1961) - (The Hidden Mountain)
La Route d'Altamont (1966) - (The Road Past Altamont)
La Rivière sans repos (1970) - (Windflower)
Cet été qui chantait (1972) - (Enchanted Summer)
Un jardin au bout du monde (1975) - (Garden in the Wind)
Ces Enfants de ma vie (1977) - (Children of my Heart)
Fragiles lumières de la terre (1978) - (The Fragile Lights of Earth)
Ma vache Bossie (1976) - (My Cow Bossie)
Courte-Queue (1979) - (Cliptail)
L'Espagnole et le Pékinoise (1987) - (The Tortoiseshell and the Pekinese)
La Détresse et l'enchantement (1984) - (Enchantment and Sorrow)

[Ellen Forradalom]

12. In an objective sense

perhaps not, but compared to what we're up to here, hell yeah.

[NorthernSpy]

14. I don't.

I guess I live a little too close to Canada to idealize it like that.

:think:

[achtung_circus]

15. Calgary doesn't have winter.

They just have periods when there is no chinook blowing.

My big issue with Calgary is the pressure change during a chinook.

[Canadian Socialist]

16. So, you've been here?

I never had a headache until I moved to Calgary. I shit you not. The incredible change in pressure puts (I guess) half the city out. Chinook headaches are a recognized health risk here. Unfortunately, it also brings the temp up to a livable range. i.e. above freezing.

[achtung_circus]

17. I spent 7 years in Saskatchewan

and 16 in Alberta. I mostly lived in Edmonton and Lamont.

Left in 2002.

[Canadian Socialist]

19. I am so sorry.

I had no idea. <heee>. I spent a week, one afternoon in Regina.

[achtung_circus]

20. Regina is Hell

Saskatoon, however is a nice little town. Not much to DO, but, well, nice.

[Canadian Socialist]

21. Agree re: Saskatoon

very pretty city. Regina? Not so much. And I used to live in Winnipeg, so I know from ugly cities.

[achtung_circus]

22. If you lived in the 'peg,

you also know from winter.

Night, night, gotta sleep.

[u4ic]

23. I used to live in Lethbridge

and am all too familiar with those headaches. Frig, I should have put boards over my eyes, it used to feel like the wind would blow my brains out of them (taking a tip from the hurricane'd south).

They are a sight to behold, however - violent winds, and a cloud that doesn't move. It's like water running uphill.

Now I'm in Deadmonton, where the heck is that 'dry' cold? It's been very damp here of late. :shrug:

[Canadian Socialist]

24. Too right, bud

I'm getting one of those headaches right now. It was -11 here today. Overnight a chinook is coming in. Going up to +16 tomorrow. My eyes are starting to not function. People that don't live here, have no idea. I didn't when I lived in Winnipeg. I actually loved the weather there... it was so predictable. Summer - hot, humid, mosquitoes; Fall - hot, mosquitoes; Winter - snow, snow, snow, snow, blinding snow; snow, cold, cold, blinding fucking cold snow; white out; lather rinse repeat; Spring - cold, cold, rain, mosquitoes. Bloody summer again. Now, there is a weather pattern you could rely on!

[u4ic]

25. Whoa!

Now there's quite the change...parka today, shorts tomorrow!

I remember one night in Lethbridge it got down to -37...the next day, by noon it was +4. I was sick for days after that one. I picked up every bug going around, the changes were too much for my system.

The weather's getting more unpredictable here, sans Chinook...it used to be much more predictable when I first came here in 1990, just like how you described the Peg...the past 2 Xmases have been warmer here than at a friend's in England.

[Canadian Socialist]

31. You know what really kills me?

I moved to Calgary because I couldn't deal with the winters in Winnipeg. Now, they're practically the same! So, if I move back to Winnipeg, I get the shitty cold winters (like in Calgary) but, I have very nice summers, it's cheap like borscht to live there, I can go fishing, and have a much better apartment. Hmmm... maybe I should move back. Oh, plus! I have rich relatives with cottages at Lake Winnipeg. Bonus.

[GrumpyGreg]

18. Not me. My mother was from Canada and loved the USA.

Lots of former Canadians in my area.

[DainBramaged]

26. Doesn't cold beer run from the springs and rivers?

http://www.canadianbeerdrinkersalliance.ca/bscope.htm

Scorpio - Oct. 23 - Nov. 21 - "the scorpion"

Scorpios are accustomed to a harsh, parched desert habitat and as a consequence are voracious drinkers. This unquenchable thirst extends to things other than beer and everyone is aware of Scorpios' passions. Scorpios are unselfish and often credit their beer farts to unsuspecting Leos.

[Canadian Socialist]

28. Yes. Yes it does... all beer. All the time.

Beer. Beer. Hockey. Beer. Hockey....Beer. Hockey... we are a simple people. Beer.... Hockey... Fights (oops) we meant more Beer... etc.

[u4ic]

29. And the forests consist primarily of

[DainBramaged]

37. OOH, OOH, OOH, that plant, is that the cause of the lumber embargo

preventing Fundies from getting wood? And more beer?:beer::yoiks:

[Seabiscuit]

27. Living with BushCo makes Stalin's Siberia look like Utopia.

Canada's just so much more convenient to move to.

[tuvor]

30. The difference is bush.

What Amercan actually envied Canada during the Clinton years?

[Canadian Socialist]

32. tuvor, I think we need some sort of militia

to beat back these heathen Americans. We will only let in the young, strong, good looking boys. For free. Everyone else... cough up the bling. Are you with me!

[Hardrada]

34. That's the way I think it is anyway.

I was up in Canada during the V Nam war to escape the draft. My best friends stayed (Ontario, BC, Nova Scotia). I didn't know what to do and took a train from Toronto to Saskatoon but the commune I was supposed to stay at in Saskatoon was Maoist and I was an anarchist. I decided to go back to the States to carry on the struggle here and I escaped the war by doing CO work in a hospital. I often wonder what my life would have been like had I stayed. In one part of my Canadian trek, a Mountie looked in my boots to see if I was carrying any illegal whiskey from the US! Loved Labatts blue.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

35. I did

Having national health care sounds WONDERFUL to a self-employed person, and not going around invading other countries sounds WONDERFUL to a decent person.

[Lilith Velkor]

36. Earth looks like Heaven when compared to Hell.

[hyphenate]

38. I wouldn't say Utopia

but I'd chance the winters anyhow--they wouldn't be much different than here in Massachusetts.

One winter we were on my grandfather's farm in Cape Breton for Christmas. The snow was piled waist high. We had to drive off the small dirt road (also piled high) and go through the snow to get to the house on the hill, where there was a small clearing. My uncle, who had the house at that time, was unable to do any clearing. The upstairs bedrooms were colder than hell. Flies were so sluggish, you could get rid of them with a vacuum hose. Once they got a kerosene heater running, though, it warmed up pretty well. The old wood stove in the front room got lit as well, and pretty soon, it was almost normal.

Toronto is also pretty cold, but being the city, it doesn't have snowpiles for long. It stays windy, though with a wind chill factor.

No, Canada isn't Utopia. But it's been my second home all my life, and I would gladly change locales if I thought I could afford it.

[EstimatedProphet]

39. I lived in Saskatoon for 2 years. Utopia it's not.

There's a lot of frustrating things going on-like closing ALL the stores down at 6:00! What the hell is up with that?

I have to be honest too-I found a lot of Canadians to be rude. I was not at all a flag-waver while I was there, but many people would start arguments with me when they found out I was American, as if I automatically had to support Reagan just because of where I was born.

The winters I didn't mind. The big snowmelts following the winters were great too. I just didn't care for being the whipping boy for being a foreigner. I don't do that and I don't care to be treated that way.

[raccoon]

40. You mean it isn't?

I'd like to be a Canadian citizen to have that national health plan. But I don't think I could adjust to the winters.

[achtung_circus]

41. It's just cold

(and snow, and white-out and so on)

You can get used to hanging,
if you hang long enough.

[Shell Beau]

42. I've never thought that!

:shrug: Although I am sure it is a nice place to live.