Ah, those love/hate relationships we’ve all become accustomed to over the years. The reason for it of course, being the inevitable love/hate relationship we have with our city, Winnipeg. Let’s say it’s all based on passion. You artists know what I’m talking about.

I asked around to see what was at the top of people’s love and hate lists for our city. The number one thing everybody loved was the people. We have such a vibrant crowd within our 700,000 plus population. For one, you’ve gotta be tough to live here - a city doesn’t rank as the murder capital 16 times without a few tough guys/gals. It’s an unfortunate fact that we can’t say we’re proud of. Slurpee capital? Sure! But let’s just all try to get along.

We have everything your standard big city has. We’ve got a CFL team that never wins and an NHL team that never wins, but our city is full of die hard fans anyways. For we are Winnipeggers and we just like to yell about something. We’ve got a downtown full of wide buildings (sorry guys, we can’t have high buildings here) but they’re still big. And that’s something to be proud of. We flourish with beautiful architecture. Especially the Exchange District, which of course is why everyone takes their wedding photos there. But why can’t we enjoy our architecture more?

As it’s been said a billion hundred times, we can’t deny the fact that we live in a brutally cold city. These frigid temperatures lock us inside and when we have to leave the house, we wander the dark empty streets toward our destination, stopping for nothing along the way. The truth is though, behind so many of those doors are live music, exhibits and other phenomenas of art. Our great people are packed full of great talent and we never seem to run out of new and inspiring acts. Unfortunately it isn’t uncommon to miss out on a lot of this fun because of that cold. And of course our transit system is far from reliable. I’ve simply never heard someone say “hey, that Winnipeg Transit is great!” But we’re tough remember? We deal with it anyways. It’s not like we’ve got a choice if we’re going to stay here.

So do we love it? Do we hate it? I think what it really boils down to is, and we probably don’t want to admit it, but who are we kidding? We love to have something to complain about, and maybe that’s what makes us tough - that drive to make it better.

Published in Volume 68, Number 19 of The Uniter (February 5, 2014)