Without Manitoba there’s no Winnipeg

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/05/2020 (2174 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Why aren’t they called the Manitoba Jets?

Rural Tobans feel neglected, although the Legislature gave them 900 mayors, reeves, and councilors. Peggers, with 71 per cent of the population, only got 16. This perceived neglect is called perimeteritis, meaning Peggers think the province ends at the Perimeter Highway, the road that oh so widely circles Winnipeg.

Let’s tour wonderful southern Manitoba.

The number of Manitobans living outside Winnipeg shrunk from over half the population to about a quarter. Left behind are monuments for beloved schools, churches, villages, towns, cities. Plus, municipal tax bills.

Also left are stout Tobans joyously left to bountiful, big-sky peace, or clutching petitions about dwindling services. I know I’d take it personally.

To respect hearty tillers like my determined Rorketon-area grandparents who felt and smelled promising soils, Tobans venerate bygone walking plows and position these along roads. Pierson and Elgin have prominent displays. Not to be outdone, Minnedosa exhibits one atop a cairn. On seeing that, Rathwell and Grandview sought every plow in sight and built plow parks.

Some wrestle a boulder to a quarter-section’s corner to celebrate how we tamed these beasts to make way for the world’s bread basket, and its potato, pork, and pea pot. Each rock looks its finest.

Tobans also honour leaning sheds of grey weathered wood, reminders of a treasured, formative era. Public art. Mom’s Abbotshall schoolhouse still stands, open and empty. Rueful folks like me muse, “If only it could be used. They may return. Best leave ‘er.”

I regret some scorn the derelict AMC Rambler — with three trees growing from it, or the 1927 McCormick-Deering tractor in plain view. Those are for parts.

Towering concrete regional terminals are replacing the silver-tinned grain elevators. Each community’s name is on these elevators in big green letters. Why is a middle letter missing? There’s “Cartw ight,” “Boiss vain,” “Du ald,” and “Cry tal City.” Someone has the letters REGS. Could someone please check in Saskatchewan at Reg’s Bar?

Let’s hope a windstorm doesn’t blow more letters from CARTWRIGHT for …TW..I..T. Or a rascal lifts letters from GILBERT PLAINS for GET PAINS. Or “ARBORG becomes A BOR.

But I di_ress…

Peggers should consider the good life in God’s Garden. I tell sleepy students, “Winnipeg has too many people per capita.” Most communities charm, notably those with breathing downtowns and a bakery, or tiny villages with the public service called the general store, a steeple, a tree.

Many First Nations have newer admin, health, rec, and school facilities.

Larger communities enjoy busy credit unions and the ubiquitous Co-op, with its gas bar, its agro center up the street, its home centre a block over, its food store next door. Erikson has three Co-ops on one corner. Winnipeg Co-op cards don’t always work at these — they should co-operate.

Respected restaurants include the Ho Wah, Ho Ho, and Haw’s, a Subway, and a Carman-born Chicken Chef. Many eateries rival the best, begging for discovery. They need more business in the best of times. The sign at Killarney’s Beach Hut said, “C’mon in before we both starve!” But when there’s a local fundraising dinner, I’ve seen restaurants close in support.

The gas station might open for 9 a.m. On weekends, businesses may never open. With its motto, “Always Open Except Mondays,” even Elphinstone’s Hilltop Groceteria & Gas opens 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., or 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sundays, minus lunch hour. What a relief from rampant commercialism and excessive convenience.

I’ve valued warm waves from sidewalks. From vehicles, it’s a lift of an index finger above the steering wheel, a nice change from the finger I saw in politics.

Full bike racks at schools prove secure town life for children. Some homeowners aren’t sure if they still have the housekey. For countryside safety, governments generously erect road signs for hunter target practice.

The honour system thrives. Leave $10 to camp at St. Jean, $5 for birch at Elma. Leave what’s owing at the bountiful Covenant Growers stand on Highway 3. Here’s the next place that must adopt this: Sobeys.

Helpful mottos attract tourists and New York investors. Glenella claims: Broomball Capital of Manitoba. Winnipegosis is Home of Canada’s First Pink Fire Truck. There’s Welcome to Elma. Home of Midwife Lydia Pajunen. Alonsa touts: Home of the Giant Canada Goose. Dana at the rink addressed my curiosity, “There’s no Goose. Um, the fundraising’s still going.” Winnipeg be damned because Middlebro claims: Gateway to Western Canada.

Why is Steinbach the Automobile City and not Carman?

There’s language to stump city-types like me. Signs say, Take a bite out of cleavers and kochia, More wheat. Less shatter. One reads: Be first in your corn field. If I farmed and it’s a race, and I’d get there New Year’s Day.

Try to tell a rural Toban that a PR isn’t a provincial road, it’s “public relations. An RM isn’t a Rural Municipality, it’s Rap Monster.

Hamiota must be amorous with its Canadian Centre of Gene Transfer. Oak Lake has the Southwest Bull Development Centre, I suppose a right-wing think tank.

As for perimeteritis, at public meetings don’t yell, “End perimetritis!” That’s inflammation of the uterus. On second thought, let’s end perimeteritis and perimetritis.

gordmackintosh@hotmail.com