So, what is a sou’wester, anyway?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/11/2015 (3816 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For more than four years, I’ve written a monthly column for The Sou’wester. During that time, I’ve often wondered how the paper’s name came about, but I let that question simmer on the back burner.

In October, when we spent five days in Halifax, one of our tour outings took us to Peggy’s Cove. And there, overlooking the lighthouse, the rocks and the Atlantic Ocean stood  a huge, two-storey building with a big sign  — The Sou’wester. The building housed a restaurant and gift store. It’s a family-owned restaurant with hearty, homemade food and gifts ranging from the usual tourist stuff to works by artists.

Seeing the building and the ocean brought back my question about the newspaper. In November, I decided it was time to find the answer. The responses to my question about the name differed widely: a hat, a wind coming from the southwest, the area the newspaper covers in Winnipeg, and “no idea at all.”

I considered the answers.

I knew a sou’wester is a waterproof hat most often worn at sea by those out fishing. It’s usually made from oilskin, has ties under the chin, and a broad flap to cover the neck. The wind was heavy that day at Peggy’s Cove, and the waves sent spray splashing high up on the rocks. Sou’wester  hats would have helped to keep necks and heads dry when standing near the ocean. But what does a sea-going hat have to do with a community paper on the prairies?

A wind from the northeast is called a northeaster and often contracts to nor’easter. Yet a southwesterly or southwester wind isn’t contracted to sou’wester, not even in The Canadian Oxford Dictionary. As soon as you do the contraction, you’re back at the oilskin hat.

The area The Sou’wester covers in Winnipeg could be seen as the southwest part of the city, since it spans the communities from Osborne Village to St. Norbert to Tuxedo with other old and newer areas within that wide region, such as Fort Garry and the Bridgwater trio of Forest, Lakes and Trails.

The “no idea at all” answer was easy to understand. I wasn’t certain myself.

Finally I did what I should have done in the first place. I sent John Kendle, the editor of the paper, an email asking him about the name.

His reply came back quickly. When the paper was being birthed, a reader contest to name it was held.

A former Air Canada pilot remembered flying through nor’easters and just changed the name around.

John says the pilot wasn’t connecting it to clothing worn by northeastern fishermen.

So there you have it. Mystery solved.

Jeannette Timmerman is a community correspondent for Richmond West.