The warmth and welcome of shared yarns

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/01/2025 (300 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s a Tuesday night and the temperature is far below freezing outside, yet the bar is packed with warm bodies and a sense of anticipation.

The emcee takes the stage and prepares to announce the first act. It’ll be someone from the crowd, a name drawn from a hat, and for the next five minutes, they’ll be put on the spot to share a personal story.

Small whiteboards are distributed around the room as scorecards for the judges. At the end of the evening, one storyteller will be crowned the winner of the Winnipeg Story Slam, and will go home $200 richer.

I haven’t been to the Royal Albert Arms in more than 20 years, so seeing the Exchange District bar filled with a wide range of wholesome family folks sitting politely at tables seems a bit uncanny, as does the $8.75 price tag for my can of Bud Light and the spotless washroom.

The former punk-rock mecca is largely unrecognizable in its current tidy form.

Tonight, it’s a place where cosy strangers in the room are about to become intimately acquainted. Tables are shared, and the strangers become friends.

Through stories of survival, heartbreak and the hazards of body waxing, the sense of community in the room grows palpably.

The event is not-for-profit: the $10 entry fee covers the rental of the space, and the remainder makes up the cash prize for the winner of the slam. The only purpose of the event is to bring people together to celebrate a uniqueness that simultaneously sets us apart from one another and brings us closer.

I recognize a copy editor from the Free Press in the crowd, who also happens to be a relative of my husband’s, because this is Winnipeg after all.

At the halfway point of the evening, the host on stage asks who is attending for the first time, and hands go up from more than two-thirds of the crowd. She then asks how many people heard about the event via media, and specifically the Free Press. The hands stay in the air.

The copy editor and I raise eyebrows at one another, and make that particular expression that communicates, “not bad!”

I’m an outsider at the newspaper, filing these columns from my laptop at home. But I’ve been spending a little more time in the newsroom lately, and I’m getting to know the community of storytellers that warms up our particularly chilly building.

That night at the Albert, I’m struck by how our stories create and strengthen our community, not just on the page, but in a century-old bar on a freezing Tuesday night. Every day, we gather to showcase the stories that matter to us; the conversation pieces, the difficult truths and the celebrations in our city.

More than a vehicle of public announcements, the Free Press is its own warm refuge. Our pages are a place of welcome and solidarity from the storms and squalls of misinformation and propaganda.

In telling the stories of this frozen outpost on the Prairies, we are able to reach out across time and space to knit together communities, define togetherness and identity, and find common ground among our differences.

Back at the Albert, a woman had just finished a spectacular tale about a long-lost love and an unexpected pregnancy, which has drawn waves of laughter from the crowd.

She bows, and as the host comes back onto the stage, she remarks that while it was the third time the event has been staged, it’s the first time they’ve attracted more volunteer storytellers than they have time to showcase — and also the first time the cash prize has been this big.

Considering the majority of the attendees learned about the slam in our pages, I feel a particular sense of pride, even with my outsider status.

Our stories bring us together, and in these times of chilly weather and cold-hearted politics, spaces that keep us warm and connected are valuable, rare and worth returning to again and again.

rebecca.chambers@freepress.mb.ca