Winnipeg in the News

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Belgian Culture, Archery & Dancing at this year's Folklorama

We Blog the World: September 8, 2012

What do you think of when you hear Belgium? Four things immediately came to mind for me: lace, chocolate, beer and waffles. Of course, there’s a whole lot more but the Belgians do all four extremely well.

At Folkorama in August, they had a fascinating cultural pavilion in addition to a number of folk dance performances, some of which were performed by children.

The BARBECUE in Winnipeg's BBQ & Blues Festival

We Blog the World: September 8, 2012

I arrived at Winnipeg’s BBQ & Blues Festival late, not too late to take in a night of fabulous blues from renowned singers, but too late to taste the award-winning barbecue recipes from participating contestants. They were shutting down their trucks when I arrived; where were the leftovers I wondered and asked since I was on a mission to taste.

The History Behind Winnipeg Free Press and Cafe

We Blog the World: September 8, 2012

Nestled on a corner in Winnipeg’s Exchange District, is the renowned Winnipeg Free Press Cafe on McDermot Avenue. It has become a social hub and meeting place where people perform, celebrities pass through and media personalities hang out.

A Late Night Picnic Table Chat with Canadian Blues Great Big Dave McLean

We Blog the World: September 7, 2012

I first met Canadian blues great Big Dave McLean with his wife sitting at a picnic table behind stage at Winnipeg’s first BBQ & Blues Festival in mid-August. He was there early as I arrived around 5 and he wasn’t on until last, taking the honor of closing the Festival at 9.

Deseo Bistro for Full Flavoured Scrumptious Dishes from a "Bad-Boy Chef"

We Blog the World: September 6, 2012

Canada’s Winnipeg has a number of surprisingly top notch restaurants. Why surprising? Winnipeg isn’t necessarily known as a foodie city in the same way San Francisco, New York and Paris is, and yet, I met a boat load of foodies, and people in the industry whose passion is food.

Cuban Dancers WOW the Audience at Manitoba's Folklorama

We Blog the World: September 6, 2012

How can you not get excited about anything Cuban? The art, the cigars, the allure of Havana, the colors, old cars from the 1960s in vivacious colors lining its streets, the food, the music and the intoxicating dance of the Caribbean.

At Folkorama in late August, an annual event held in Canada’s Winnipeg, that touts more than 40 cultures, I had an opportunity to take eight country performances in over the course of my stay.

The Carribbean & Africa Adds Vibrant Energy to Winnipeg's Folklorama

We Blog the World: September 5, 2012

Recently, I attended Winnipeg’s Folkorama and was able to take in about six or seven countries of the nearly 45 countries they show off in various pavilions around the city over a two week period. One of the pavilions that was the buzz of the younger cross was the Caribbean since they tout late nights, dancing and partying after hours long after the official performance has ended. I went to the last performance of the evening on the last day and the place was packed.

The Scots are in Full Swing in Winnipeg

We Blog the World: September 4, 2012

I was fortunate to be able to attend Winnipeg’s recent Folkorama, which is an annual event whose tagline is: celebrating diversity. Around the city, schools, community centers, churches, buildings, offices, gyms and more are set up for a specific region of the world, whereby the locals from Winnipeg who has some affiliation to that country, participate.

Tourism Winnipeg launches 2012 Photo Contest: Shaw TV Segment

Our Village is as good as it gets

Winnipeg Free Press: April 27, 2012

We don't have Toronto's bright lights or Vancouver's blue glass, but our town has something else to boast about -- the best neighbourhood in Canada.

Canada's Best Places to Live 2012

MoneySense: March 20, 2012

When we speak of Canada’s diversity we refer to the geography of the land and the ethnic background of our people. Yet when you crunch the economic data, as we have for Canada’s Best Places to Live 2012, it becomes clear that how we live defines us as much as where we live. Not only is our urban experience varied depending on whether we live in downtown Montreal or in small-town Saskatchewan, but our ability to access health care or find a job or afford a home is as diverse as our land and our climate.

Festival du Voyageur: Not just a celebration for Saint-Boniface

The Thompson Citizen: February 17, 2012

Today marks the kick-off of Saint-Boniface’s 43rd Festival du Voyageur, the largest winter carnival in Western Canada and Winnipeg’s premier winter celebration embracing Manitoba’s Métis and French-Canadian heritage.

When you get to such a size and age, you’re not just a hometown attraction for Winnipeg and area any longer, which is why every February – much like the Winnipeg Folk Festival in July – plenty of Thompsonites are making the trek south to Voyageur Park between now and Feb. 26 when the festival wraps up. The winter festival had revenues of about $2.408 million last year.

Reasons to visit Winnipeg in winter: Starchitect Frank Gehry and a spray-on igloo

thestar.com: January 26, 2012

Picture a quintessential Canadian winter: Skaters with rosy cheeks gliding along a naturally frozen river, pausing only to warm up in the spray-on igloo on the riverbank.

Well, at least that’s what winter revelers will see at Winnipeg’s The Forks, where the Red River meets the Assiniboine.

A group of Czech architects is building a group of unusual ice shells with a machine dubbed the “polar hen” after winning The Forks third annual warming hut contest.

Everybody Loves Winnipeg

Sports Illustrated: January 2012

Evander Kane has a lot of things going for him. He's young, he's good-looking, he's charismatic. He's also a very good hockey player, so last year when he was a member of the Thrashers, his status as a dashing professional athlete enabled him to run in some fairly lofty Hotlanta circles. "I met a lot of cool people, rappers, actors," he says. "Jermaine Dupri, Ludacris, Chris Tucker, T.I., Young Jeezy... ." Kane even got to go bowling with his namesake, Evander Holyfield. Not a bad life for a 19-year-old.

Flash forward to the present day. Kane is with the same organization, only now the team is called the Jets and it plays its home games about 1,500 miles to the northwest of Atlanta in Winnipeg, a city where the most notable rhymesmith is a gent named Ace Burpee. Ace is a local morning drive-time deejay. He's also a hockey fanatic who wrote the lyrics for Jet Rock Anthem, a takeoff on LMFAO's ubiquitous Party Rock Anthem. Sample lyric: "Winnipeg, back again/Holla at your boy, Evander Kane." (When rapped with an authentic Manitoba accent, it actually does rhyme quite nicely.)

Celebrate our place in the sun

Winnipeg Free Press: December 12, 2011

Apricity (pronounced ahprisswetee) is an archaic word long lost in use but I submit it be revived to give Winnipeg the unique reputation it deserves in Canada.

Apricity, listed in the English Dictionarie in 1632, means "the warmth of the sun in winter." Winnipeg is tops in apricity. We get more sunshine in winter than any other city in Canada.

Evening Treats in the 'Peg

Globe and Mail: November 17, 2011

Great fortunes were made and suddenly lost here in the crash of 1929, the end of Winnipeg’s financial heyday. But Winnipeg’s grand old buildings have been saved and revived – the downtown Exchange District a model of urban renewal – and it should be your first stop when the business of the day is done.

Winnipeg, a North American destination you probably never thought of

www.mainlinemedianews.com: November 13, 2011

The City of Winnipeg, the capital and largest city in Manitoba, a large cosmopolitan center at the geographic heart of Canada, is positioned at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, a point commonly known as the Forks. The name “Winnipeg” comes from the Cree for “muddy waters.” It was the virtual trading center for the First Nations people dating back to the 16th century when Europeans settled here to trade fur. In the 1800s grain became the main industry of the West supported by a dominant railroad network, which was routed through Winnipeg.

WAG offers food for the soul and the stomach

Winnipeg Free Press: November 9, 2011

The Winnipeg Art Gallery is introducing a program that combines dinner with food for the mind and soul.

The Art Eats program features dinner at the Storm Bistro on the WAG's penthouse level followed by a guided tour of a current major exhibition.

Cool new core

Winnipeg Free Press: Nov 4, 2011

It's the Jetsons meets Times Square as development officials flesh out their vision of what Winnipeg's new downtown will look like.

The centrepiece of CentreVenture Development's vision for the new downtown is a so-called sports, hospitality and entertainment district (SHED), which would be awash in brightly lit buildings and sidewalks, electronic billboards, overhead banners, street planters and benches.

Wild weekend in WinnipegWild weekend in Winnipeg

IIHF.com: October 10, 2011

If the NHL regular season was the IIHF World Championship, Winnipeg would be Latvia. The NHL’s smallest building, the MTS Centre, was also its loudest on Sunday, despite witnessing a 5-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens in the regular-season home ice debut of the new-look Winnipeg Jets.

The Forks lands 'rock star' architect: Frank Gehry will design warming hut

Winnipeg Free Press: September 15, 2011

In a coup for one of Winnipeg's newest creative institutions, the best-known living architect on the planet has agreed to design a warming hut at The Forks this winter. Frank Gehry, the Toronto-born designer behind Seattle's Experience Music Project, Spain's Guggenheim Museum and dozens of other architectural landmarks, has accepted an invitation to design a temporary structure that will appear alongside the Assiniboine Riverwalk.

From Winnipeg With Love

West Jet Up! Magazine: August 2011

Winnipeg is mostly famous as the Slurpee capital of the world, or perhaps the city that gave Winnie the Pooh his name. But for hard-boiled spy hunters, Winnipeg is the birth place of Bond, the real on.

The story of Bond—the real James Bond—began here, in an unassuming clapboard house in the working-class Point Douglas neighbourhood. On Syndicate Street, of all places. The man whom writer Ian Fleming based James Bond on was born in 1897. His name? Stephenson. William Stephenson.

Quick Trip to St. Boniface

En Route Magazine, August 2011

The five best ways to live la belle vie in Winnipeg’s French enclave.

Mystery just keeps building

Courier Mail: July 26, 2011

STANDING in the middle of Winnipeg's legislative building is the last place I would have expected to have one of the strangest experiences of my life. As instructed, I position myself at the centre of a star marking on the marble floor on the lower level and talk.

Portage Avenue goes to Paris

The Globe and Mail: May 24, 2011

The Centre of the World is found at the corner of Portage Avenue and Colony Street, just inside the doors of the newly opened Buhler Centre. The art installation, the full title of which is Pole to Mark the Centre of the World (At Winnipeg), is by the U.S. artist Jimmie Durham. Sitting outside Winnipeg’s Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, it seems to have accurately located the new focal point of the Canadian art scene.

University revolutionizes Winnipeg’s food scene

The Globe and Mail: May 23, 2011

It was a review that would have shuttered most restaurants. Lukewarm, tough chicken served with soggy potatoes and vegetable mush. A server who coughed onto her own arm as she presented a meal. This grim appraisal of a culinary experience appeared in the Maclean’s University Rankings of 2009, panning the food at the University of Winnipeg.

Winnipeg working to regain role as transportation ‘gateway to the West’

The Globe and Mail: May 22, 2011

Often-overlooked Winnipeg, a city that had become predominantly known for wind, bugs, crime and floods, is experiencing a quiet renaissance, reinventing itself at every level and embracing its past in an effort to shore up its future. The most visible change to the Manitoba capital’s landscape, and likely its psyche, is the imminent return of the National Hockey League. This was the news that had hundreds of people celebrating in Jets sweaters at the corner of Portage and Main last week, with the city’s True North Sports and Entertainment, owners of the MTS Centre, a recently completed downtown arena, expected to announce the purchase of the Atlanta Thrashers on Tuesday.

Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg

The Globe and Mail: May 19, 2011

An agreement to sell the National Hockey League’s Atlanta Thrashers to a Winnipeg group which plans to relocate the franchise to the Manitoba capital is done. Sources confirmed Thursday night that preparations are being made for an announcement Tuesday, confirming the sale and transfer of the Thrashers to True North Sports and Entertainment, which owns and operates the Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League and the MTS Centre arena, which would become the NHL team’s new home.

Winnipeg rethinks suburban sprawl with downtown reinvention

The Globe and Mail: May 16, 2011

It’s 5 p.m. on Portage Avenue and a parade of cars, buses and pedestrians is making its way out of the downtown as quickly as possible, speeding past shuttered storefronts and lonely side streets. But for the first time in years, the daily commuter rush is passing something new: construction.

Trust me, the locals are so very friendly

Birmingham Mail: May 3, 2011

‘CAN we have the check please' I ask after polishing off possibly the largest piece of non-dairy chocolate cake in the world.'We don't do checks, just go to the till and tell them what you had,' the waitress says cheerily. Did I hear correctly? A restaurant where they trust you to admit to everything you have consumed? Mind you, as the Mondragon Bookstore and Coffee House is a pro-peace vegetarian establishment, I guess the majority of guests would have too strong a conscience to lie about their bill.

New York, Paris, Berlin…Winnipeg? The capital of Manitoba (not T.O. or Montreal) has Canada’s second-hottest art scene

Macleans Magazine: April 27, 2011

One of Canada’s more fascinating cultural features is the spectacular international success of the Vancouver art scene. But that’s old news. More surprising is Canada’s No. 2 spot. It belongs neither to Toronto nor Montreal, but to Winnipeg. These days, when foreign art lovers talk about Canadian art, they generally mean western Canadian art. The success of the Winnipeg scene is hard to explain because it’s exceptional in so many ways. For example, as a rule, the biggest cities harbour the liveliest vanguard art communities: New York, London, Paris, Berlin…So what’s the deal with Winnipeg?