Winnipeg is not just your next ‘vaguely exotic, totally obscure’ travel destination

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/11/2016 (3254 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Strike a pose, Winnipeg. We might just have ourselves a chic new civic slogan, courtesy of Vogue.

Welcome to Winnipeg: Vaguely Exotic, Totally Obscure.

In a new travel piece up at Vogue.com, Winnipeg is heralded as both of those things, as well as an “absolutely must-visit” destination. (Saskatoon, too, but whatever.)

That Vogue headline is actually a riff on a quote from an Emmy-winning writer on the NBC sitcom The Office, who was interviewed by CBC about an episode in which a few members of the Dunder Mifflin gang are sent to Winnipeg on a business trip. “It seemed like Montreal was maybe too exotic and Vancouver also a little maybe too conventionally sexy, and Winnipeg seemed to strike the right balance between exotic and obscure.” 

The Vogue piece highlights a few usual suspects. The “architecturally spectacular” Canadian Museum for Human Rights, the Journey to Churchill exhibit, the Exchange District with its eateries and boutiques, Thermëa.

It’s a flattering city guide that makes us sound hip and up-and-coming, stopping short of calling us “the next Portland.” It’s certainly nice publicity for the establishments mentioned, and it’s a good boost for tourism — although whether this piece will actually inspire people to book trips to Winnipeg is debatable. 

But, as is local custom whenever Winnipeg is noticed or mentioned, the response on social media has been excitement. “Didja see? We got written up in Vogue!” 

Oh, Winnipeg. We’re not very chill about these kinds of things, are we? But aren’t inferiority complexes, like, so 2005? We don’t need external validation from a glossy Condé Nast publication, Columbusing our town! We’re secure in our decision to live in a mid-sized Prairie city.

We’re early adopters of Winnipeg.

We’re early adopters of Winnipeg…

We liked Winnipeg before it was cool.

 

Winnipeg is the indie band getting some buzz, but we liked Winnipeg’s first album. 

Winnipeg is the cancelled-after-one-season sitcom that has reached newfound popularity on Netflix, but we liked Winnipeg when it was a cult-favourite. 

Winnipeg is the hard-to-pull-off pant, but we were wearing Winnipeg before it hit the runway. 

Winnipeg is the over-hyped movie that underperformed at the box office, but we liked Winnipeg when it was a book. 

We liked Winnipeg before it was cool. 

Of course, we’re not that aloof of a city. The tendency to feverishly accept outside praise as somehow legitimizing while also flatly rejecting outside criticism is definitely A Winnipeg Thing. Go ahead and enjoy our hot new breakfast joints, interlopers, but don’t you dare point out our race problem. 

In that way, cities are like families. You’re allowed to complain about and criticize your own family, but as soon as someone else tries to? “They don’t know what they’re talking about.” 

But we know what we’re talking about. Whether we love Winnipeg, hate Winnipeg or feel some way in between is irrelevant. We know Winnipeg. We know it more intimately than a visiting writer ever could, or could be expected to. 

We know Winnipeg’s in-jokes about meat shoulders. We can correctly pronounce kielbasa. We know how to make Sorels look like they are intentionally part of an outfit. We know this city’s DNA is made up of many cultures and backgrounds. We know where to get the best bannock, spring rolls and perogies. We know that our insularity is the reason we produce such original art. 

We know that this can be a hard place to live, and can be an even harder place to love. We know that this is a complex place dealing with past traumas and the enduring stain of colonialism. We know how soul-destroying a daytime high of -30 C can be. 

But we love this godforsaken hockey rink, anyway. Or, at least, we try to.

Loving something means accepting it for what it is. So why do we care so much about what other people think? Sometimes, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. When one is too close to something, one can benefit from the perspective afforded by outside eyes — and it usually stings because we already know it’s true.

Maybe press from Vogue, or a mention in a line of dialogue on a TV show, elicits such excitement because, deep down, we still believe Winnipeg is a flyover city populated by unfashionable bumpkins, our civic self-esteem slashed to ribbons by everyone who has ever said “I’m sorry” when we tell them where we’re from.

But maybe we thrill at these outside mentions not because our tires need pumping, but because we’re excited that people are seeing what we see: a city with a distinct identity, with a lot of exciting things going on.

A city that belongs on Vogue.com. 

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @JenZoratti