Winnipeg
 

Good day everyone, just looking for some insight please. Thinking of moving to Winnipeg with 3 children aged 12, 8 and 6. Anyone based in Winnipeg, who can tell me please how is it?

Thank you

Re: Winnipeg
 

HI

1. Very cold in the winter.

Re: Winnipeg
 

2. Portage and Main has a reputation as the windiest corner in Canada.

Re: Winnipeg
 

Carnivorous flies in numbers like you cannot imagine!
https://winnipeg.ca/publicworks/inse...ting_flies.stm
Hot and humid in summer
Cold in winter
https://climate.weather.gc.ca/climat...698&dispBack=1

Re: Winnipeg
 

Been living here since 1998, we came with 4 children, they have all successfully flown the nest and have good lives here in Canada, the girls are still in Winnipeg with their families (3 grandchildren) the boys are in Edmonton.

I was a Realtor for a few years before retiring. (sort of retiring, I'm a medical courier, and love it, no stress).

What do you want to know?

Re: Winnipeg
 

Thank you for your reply.

That's awesome that you have made your life and children and grandchildren in Winnipeg!!

If you can help me please with your knowledge as a realtor in the best places to live and bring up children?. I have heard some good and bad stuff about Winnipeng but I am sure every province has its own issues. Is there things to do to entertain the children?, we are currently in Calgary at the moment and looking into BC and Winnipeg because of work.
How is the housing market going in Winnipeg and the healthcare system?
How bad are the winters?
Apologies for a lot of questions

Re: Winnipeg
 

wow, that is interesting thanks!

Re: Winnipeg
 

We moved to Winnipeg in June 2019 with 2 young children, now 11 and 3 years old, our experience of living in Winnipeg is that it’s a nice place to bring up a family, Manitobans are by and large, friendly and we’ve made fantastic friends here. For us we like a quiet life and don’t really venture downtown too much, apart from the odd day or so in the week when I go there for work, but we aren’t really nightlife people and that suits us. There does appear to be lots of festivals and events that happen in Winnipeg, especially over the winter months.

Yeah Winnipeg does get cold in winter, and has a reputation for it too. The thing is people here kind of embrace that as part of the lifestyle, you have to since the snow can last a long time, although as I write this in November, we haven’t had and snowfall where we are yet, I just hope that means it won’t last longer into next year :fingerscrossed:. There are plenty of activities in winter for kids, we go tobogganing and snow walks, I know there is cross country skiing and walks along the frozen river. A good set of winter clothes is a must and cars have block heaters to plug in during the really cold days. It’s the wind that will get you, if the wind isn’t blowing it’s not too bad.

As mentioned there are also insects that bite and sting here, in fact a lot of them, I remember reading somewhere once, that Winnipeg had the most amount of biting / stinging insects in all of North America. I don’t know if that’s true, but I can tell you they can be a nuisance over the summer months. We just buy bug spray and wear light coloured clothes and we tend to manage, from our POV it’s not a big issue.

If you do look to settle in Winnipeg, there are some really nice areas, mainly south of the river, people will tell you avoid the north end, or downtown at night. This is probably good advice, but personally as somebody who grew up in the rough end of Birmingham I don’t find Winnipeg any worse than anywhere else. There are some new ares of the city, which are highly sought after; Bridgewater, Sage Creek & Whiteridge to name a few. There are also some older, more established areas, like Charleswood where we live and St Vital.

Be prepared for lots of… why are you moving to Winnipeg? Questions, we had them a lot on our journey, it took us aback a bit, Winnipeg has a reputation, which IMHO is not well deserved, sure there are issues like anywhere, and it’s not as exciting as Toronto, or has the mountains like Van, but we love it here and wouldn’t live anywhere else. The small city feel, the friendliness, the clear night skies & chance to see the arora, the vast tree coverage in the city, the many well maintained parks & natural areas, the nice hot summers, the cold winters (we love snow).

HTH

Re: Winnipeg
 

We've visited Winnipeg several times, have friends there, but never stayed for longer than 3 or 4 days. We even got off the train back in 1972 to go and stand at Portage and Main because we heard that it was the coldest and windiest spot. It was cold and windy even in mid-June! :nod:

But I wonder if the reason for the comments that Luke mentions are due to the general news that we here in Canada most often hear ................ the reasons for many of the problems found in the downtown area that has led to the "don't go downtown at night". It sounds so much like "don't got to Downtown East Side in Vancouver" ....................... and for many of the same root problems that a lot of people have.

There are nice areas to live, one particular friend has lived for about 20 or so years, moving from Brandon where he had lived for close to 30 years.

The other thing that I've heard is the general complaint from some people .................... it is too vast, no mountains to break the skyline, only vast stretches out to the horizon. The same complaint that Saskatchewan gets. People love or hate that.

Re: Winnipeg
 

It's vast to the west and south, but as soon as you go north you're into the trees and lakes, and a couple of hours drive east puts you in the Canadian Shield before you even hit the Ontario border.

Re: Winnipeg
 

I'm no longer a Realtor, Retired in 2010, so I'm out of date on market conditions.

Really the only area to avoid (and this is really generalising as there are nice parts) is the area within:

East of Arlington
South of Burrows Ave
North of Portage
West of Henderson Hwy.


Crime in Winnipeg is fueled by drugs and gangs, generally if your not buying or selling drugs or in a gang them you really reduce your chances of being involved in a crime.

Weather, It can be very cold, this is balanced by the sunshine, the coldest days tend to be the sunniest.

Most of the people are really very nice and friendly.

Re: Winnipeg
 

Windypeg has extreme weather. In Winnipeg, the summers are long and warm; the winters are frigid, snowy, and windy; and it is partly cloudy year round. Over the course of the year, the temperature typically varies from -19 °C to 27 °C and is rarely below -30 °C or above 31 °C. On November 8, the temperature in Winnipeg typically ranges from -2 °C to 2 °C and is rarely below -10 °C or above 11 °C.

For reference, on July 24, the hottest day of the year, temperatures in Winnipeg typically range from 17 °C to 27 °C, while on January 15, the coldest day of the year, they range from -19 °C to -11 °C.

Re: Winnipeg
 

But there aren't really too many people up there!

As in every other province, the majority of the population lives within a narrow band close to the US border.

Personally I love crossing the Canadian Shield in both Manitoba & Ontario in the train, but it is very sparsely populated! It takes about a day and a half to do that crossing, on the lines originally built back in the 1880s, and the majority still only single track.

Most of the roads crossing the train tracks are also unpaved :nod:

Re: Winnipeg
 

When I visited Winnipeg it seemed really nice, lots of history around (by Canadian standards) and the Exchange District is a bit of an underrated gem.

Also Manitoba has a good PNP process if you don’t have an immigration path figured out.

Re: Winnipeg
 

I took the Nonsuch tour at the Manitoba Museum back in the day and it was very interesting, but at today's prices I probably wouldn't be there. While fishing for channel cats in the Red River on several trips and driving back and forth to Selkirk I couldn't miss Lower Fort Garry, and the big limestone steps on the riverbank where they loaded and unloaded the York Boats are still there. By no means does Canadian history begin with the arrival of Europeans though. In the timeline of occupation, colonisation is a recent development, and there was a complex culture here with a continental trade network while the Picts were still roasting each other over peat fires. :lol:
Scilly, just as in the prairies or the mountains, there are more people now living along the highways going through the Canadian Shield than there are along the railway lines. In the 60's they'd stop the passenger train to let trappers and hunters get on and off in the middle of nowhere and they'd put their canoes and furs or moose meat in the baggage car. In normal times, people fly in from all over the world to camp near Kenora and fish Lake of the Woods, and it's an easy drive from Winnipeg, but there is world class fishing very close to Winnipeg. We get record book Walleye here in Saskatchewan, but it's common knowledge belief among anglers that bigger ones are caught in Manitoba and not reported.