Thank you for visiting Winnipeg, Manitoba travel guide online
Winnipeg is an ideal destination for any type of traveler. Located in Manitoba, it has something for everyone! Our travel guide has the best information about Winnipeg regarding places to visit, things to see and do, accommodations, dining, and much more! When visiting Manitoba, you will find that the shopping, night life, and beautiful scenery has some of the top standards in the country, and will definitely leave you wanting to come visit this city again. Take a look at our Canadian listings and find all the information you need about Winnipeg, and all its surrounding cities and travel spots. So don't waste another minute, and starting planning your vacation to Winnipeg!
This little page is dedicated to the city of Winnipeg, the capital of Canadian province Manitoba located directly behind Ontario. Winnipeg is located 100 km far from the USA, directly half way along two oceans. Generally, while the Canadian area is the second largest in the world (after Russia), more than 80% of its 32-million population is concentrated on a 300 km strip along the American border. In spite of being the most southern territory of Canada, it has severe winters. Well, we have already survived in +30 heat, let’s see how it can be with minus sign.
We together with my wife haven’t seen snow for already 12 years (winters, to be more exact). Our kids just don’t know at all, how this can be – wake up in the morning, look at the window and see that everything around is covered with the first snow! Once our younger daughter watched animation where the snow was shown. I am asked her: “Is the snow cold?” She answered me that it is hot! You see, we have what to work at... The name “Manitoba” comes from Cree Indian tribe language – “Manitou bou”, which means “the strait of Great Spirit”. It is related to Lake Manitoba that later gave the name to the whole province. There is a narrow strait with an echo. The red-skinned people were not aware of laws of acoustics, they regarded echo as voices of spirits by mistake.
But spirits are not the strangest explanation to the local names. The name of the province is translated from the local dialect as dirty water (“Win nipee”), i.e. it can be simply called Dirty-Water. However, originally it was the name of the lake located in the north, and when the city was founded, people didn’t think a lot about how to name it and simply copied the lake name. Actually, lots of names are coming from the lake :-). By the way, the name of the country – Canada – is also Indian, its origin is described here. After a half year of chatting with people from there on forums (and also when meeting those who visited Manitoba), I had a certain picture of life there (I understand that it can’t be totally true, as everybody sees only a part of reality and gives its own estimation to this).
As for Winnipeg there are two points of view, and what is the most interesting a single person can support both these points of view! The first one is that it is very calm and quite city, living here is rather wealthy and measured, no one is in a hurry, people are very friendly and even strange a little (even compared with Toronto, not saying about Israel – two worlds, two lifestyles, this is why we decided to move out from the familiar spot). The roads are very boring – no one is cutting in front of your car or honks, everybody lets you to move on. The major newspaper news is about “where the birds have flown” or “a bear entered the city areas”, or even if you are totally bored, something like this – “an official was caught when taking a bride”.
I heard from different people that Winnipeg residents are glad to help in any possible way, and this will be really whole-heartedly. For example, one of our Israel couples came there for exploratory visit to the Jewish community and tries to study a map near a bus stop with sad faces. A car stops and a driver offers his help! Even on the number plates in this province there is an inscription “Friendly Manitoba” – not very modestly but the people who were there say that it is really the truth. But there is also another point of view. Many people just think it is a big village, provincial godforsaken hole, boredom.
No famous world theatres’ guest performance, almost no nightlife. So if you can’t live without traditional city entertainments, you should better go to Toronto or Vancouver (however, some people say that Winnipeg has all this). It is really hard for me to judge, I am far from such theme as night entertainments, I didn’t even tried them in my native Tel Aviv). And if you prefer hikes and picnics with fishing and barbeque, fresh air and lakes – it is a real paradise! Though both sides admit that the general standard of life is quite good from the one hand – people have all they need fully legal and without any violations. But from the other hand – you should overcome a long way to this, and it is rather difficult to find a normal job at the beginning (until our poor immigrant English will become m
ore or less normal), so it will be necessary to work hard! In the downtown there are high modern buildings, and the rest of the city is classic two-floor America. As the land is quite cheap here building has no sense here. Almost all 700-thousand population of the city lives in private houses, the prices are more than affordable – many immigrants by villas only after a few months after arrival. In this sense Toronto is much less advantageous, and Vancouver either. I heard that Winnipeg peoples pay off their bank debts in 7 – 15 years (but I won’t believe till I come there by myself). The most important thing there is to find a job, and this is exactly the hardest – the jobsite marketplace here is much less than in Toronto. That is why the situation is not definitely good.
