Hi ,

A question for People who have already settled.
I feel curious what sort of activities people get involved during the long winters. Just work/TV/Time with family may be boring after sometime.

As far my lifestyle is concerned, I enjoy visiting Gym 4 days and visit Parks with my family, Eating out Dinner 1-2 times a week and these are mostly fine year round in California where I've been living for 6 years. Exception strong rainy days (again you can still go to Gym).

Though I honestly do not dream the same conditions still want to check whether I can continue visiting Gym 3-4 times in a week (Morning or Evening), and also go out for dinner atleast once a week with family. Is that Possible in Toronto/Alberta area in the Winter?

How do you guys generally arrange to go to Gym in Winters (I generally do not prefer to exercise at Home due to lack of Company), otherway I also feel it might be very helpful to exercise during Winter to keep you Warm, isn't it.

Please point out if any community level activities exist in Winter.

I am looking to start my preperation.

Regards,
Jag.

Hmm, the "Alberta area" is rather large but specifically I can comment on Calgary.

Gyms tend to be indoors here, so they are available all year round, restaurants too tend to have indoor areas so again they can be used year round. The patio areas are not so good at -25c. I suspect that gyms and restaurants are generally located indoors in Toronto too

As for Calgary it is geared for both indoor and outdoor activities with excellent facilities; Olympic Oval for skating, COP for skiing and many other winter sports, plenty of good quality leisure centres (chav free) as well as outdoor skating and cross-country skiing in many parks. Then you have "proper" winter sports an hour away in the mountains.

The Westside leisure centre is $21 for a family and there's a skating rink, wave pool and slide, swimming pool, fully equipped gym and a 400m indoor running track. It's excellent value for a family day out (or in)

As for restaurants within 5-10 mins walk of our house:

2 Indian, 2 Thai, Vietnamese, 2-3 Italian, Lebabnese, Ethiopian, Greek plus a couple of other "foodie" type restaurants frequented by various hollywood stars when they are in town.

I hope this helps.

The place doesn't shut down in Winter, you know. Anything done indoors continues to be done, plus you have an additional range of activities, if you want them - skiing, shovelling, skating, snowshoeing, shovelling, camping (if you are insane), shovelling, barbequeing, and so on. You will get used to the cold; don't worry.

I find the winter an excelent time to catch up on all that reading I meant to do in the summer. Huddled in my igloo in my freshly bludgeoned seal skin clothing, with only a whale oil powered lamp to counter the 24h darkness, just waiting for my relatives to push me out on an ice flow when I become too much of a drain on resources

Of course, in the summer we are all too busy to read, out gathering nuts and berries and hunting karibou to sustain us through the withering winter months of bleak isolation.

That was the sort of reply I wanted to write, but though "no, leave it"

Let's face it, one of us was going to do it.

Perverse to the end, I do think Toronto shuts down for the winter. Last weekend we went to the Lion Safari because it's about to close, the water park closes, next weekend we'll haul out the boats, the festivals of this and that which occur every weekend through the summer come to a halt. We still ride but otherwise there's very much a shift away from athletic activities. We go to the pub even more, we eat out even more, we hear more bands and we turn the TV on for the first time in months. We don't bicycle, kayak, swim or participate in team sports. Curiously, we look at cows much more in the winter as there's a festival of cows, pigs and poultry in a large barn downtown.

I find that I'm physically more active in Winter. I get a great upper-body and cardio workout from the shovelling and, when I walk somewhere, it's a speed-walk. Small steps but damn fast ones.

Sounds more like an Albertan smorgasboord to me

Something that is quite popular amongst downtown office workers is to go to the gym during lunch hour. During the coldest part of the winter, many downtown gym members exercise indoors. However, in the summer months several of them use the gym only to change in and out of their running shorts, and then they run on the pleasant path along the Bow River.

Another thing that some office workers do in the spring, summer and fall is cycle to and from work. The people who do that get to know the bike paths and the streets that have lighter traffic.

I clicked on your signature, and looked at some of your previous posts. If I understand one of your early posts correctly, you're from India. I don't know which part of India you come from. I've never been there, but I gather the weather ranges from very hot in some regions to very cold in the Himalayas.

If you come from one of the hotter areas, I can understand why you may not be able to visualize Canadian life in winter. California, where you apparently are now, does have a winter, but in much of the state it's a mild one.

I come from Swaziland (a small, land-locked country between South Africa and Mozambique). The area in which I grew up had very hot, humid summers.

To this day our South African relatives ask us how we cope with Canadian winters. What they don't understand is that they're comparing apples and oranges. They have a winter that is much shorter and milder than the Canadian one. Because it's short and mild, they don't find it worthwhile to insulate their houses well, install double glazing, install central heating, and so on. Although the winters are short and supposedly mild, they can be really miserable for the few weeks that they last. That's just because people aren't prepared for winter.

Canadian buildings and outdoor clothing, on the other hand, are designed with winter in mind. I have never experienced during a Canadian winter the discomfort that I've experienced in winter in South Africa, Houston and Australia.

Each Canadian city has its own adaptation to winter. In Calgary a helpful feature is the Plus Fifteen system. It's a series of overhead glass tunnels that connects downtown highrises. You can use the Plus Fifteens to walk from one end of downtown to the other without a coat and boots in winter. The reason that the tunnels are referred to as Plus Fifteens is that they have to be built a minimum of 15 feet above street level.

Whereas Calgary's tunnels are above ground, those of some other Canadian cities are underground.

Anyway, as other posters before me have said, Canada is built for winter and you'll adapt.

That said, winter is more challenging than summer. In winter you can't just pop out for a couple of minutes. Let's say I want to take a bag of garbage out to the back lane. In summer I can just pop out in sandals and a short-sleeved shirt. Even in spring and fall, when the weather is brisk, but I know I'm only going to be outside for 60 seconds, I'll still pop out in sandals and a T-shirt. All that changes in the depths of winter. When it's -25 deg C outside and our backyard is covered in snow, I have to put on boots and a jacket, even for the few steps from the back door to the back lane.

Although you certainly can stay active in winter, many winter activities cost money or require special equipment or both. It also takes time to dress up in the outdoor clothing that you need for some winter sports.

Hope that helps.

No, no, no, they're alive. It's all very odd. There are all these children from places like Alberta and Nova Scotia who have brought cows and hair driers. They wear those lesbian baggy pant things and sleep in a heap with the cows. In the morning they groom the animals to perfection. Then they, the cows, are auctioned and chopped into pieces. It's some sort of a cult, the 4H or 5H or something.

The fact that you will go anywhere near an event like that demonstrates the measure of your desperation. Toronto winters must be bleak indeed.

[your reply was hilarious and gave me a good chuckle . I wanted to write the same thing ... It is funny how other people perceive our life here living as canadians . Nothing shuts down . We just put on a warm coat and a good pair of boots . Here in quebec we go from a heated house ( no , not an igloo) to a heated garage ,to a car that has been heated for atleast 10 minutes , to a heated office . C`,mon guys , this IS the Great White North .. but life goes on . and no , hibernating for 6 months with a book is not part of the canadian lifestyle, cheers. Please consider the largest snow festival in the world www.carnaval.qc.ca for any winter activities ( a great time and highly recommended)

I would kill for a heated garage! I though that insulating the thing would let me continue using it for woodwork during the Winter. The insulation turned out to better at keeping the cold in. Sometimes, even in January, I opened the door to warm the place up. Osti de taberfuque!

Indeed. But we're hooked. This year my mother-in-common-law has timed a visit to coincide with the event and we'll be getting the "all week" passes. We may even get to the less popular exhibits, the butter carving, giant pumpkins and tractor technology displays as well as the cows, rodeo and those stupid performing dogs.

http://www.royalfair.org/