Zellers and Walmart can have decent jackets too if you look.

I'm quite hot blooded and can go the whole winter in Calgary without gloves and hat going to and from work.

If you're hot, in the Canadian sense of the word, and you really want the job, get those layers off sharpish.

R.

We buy all our kids winter gear at Zellers - they do a kidurable thing where if they wear them out before they outgrow them, they will replace them (assuming you have kept the receipt of course!)... but with 4 kids all 2 yrs apart this has never happened and we just hand the stuff down the line as it is outgrown... beyond grubby marks on white parts nothing has worn out and it seems plenty warm enough - I even passed the Zellers bought stuff I got for youngest DD when we first moved here on to someone on Freecycle the other week - worn for 2 winters straight and it was still fine beyond the "dora the explorer" transfer comming off the jacket!

I agree about the warm coat with a hood, snowpants, padded gloves, insulated boots etc.... Mittenclips are something I have never used... mean mummy that I am, I put all my kids mittens on strings that go up one arm and down the other... it isn't cool but it stops the younger ones mislaying their mittens! I doubt that any kid old enough to protest about the mitten-strings would accept mitten clips either!

We have coathooks in our entrance way for hanging up wet coats/snowpants (they play in the snow on the way home from the bus!) wet gloves/hats etc go on a half-divider/wall type thing to dry out somewhat.... and all hats, scarves and gloves/mittens are stored in plastic box in the closet in the hall - everyone just rumages for what they need - there is all sorts in there - at least a dozen scarves (for 6 ppl), a good 10 hats in various sizes and styles, the thick padded gloves/mittens for every member plus several spares (cos they do leave them at school despite the strings that go up the arms!) and also several "emergency" hand knitted mittens too in various sizes (I figure that in desperation when all mittens have been lost/left at school at least their hands will be covered by something.. and that is better than nothing!). Boots go on the shoerack in the entrance way too (hopefully after they have stamped all the snow off them!)

For DH and I we have 3-in-1 jackets we bought from Canadian Tire.. not the most stylish but they are warm and practical. and we have the usual hats, gloves, scarves thing too.... no snow pants for us but we don't tend to spend too much time outside beyond going sledding with the kids - we have waterproof trousers we wear then - and I tend to wear 2 pairs of tracksuit bottoms to keep warm and get some insulation.. it works for me! DH has a decent pair of boots he wears in the snow, I wear my good-old Hawkins walking boots I have had for donkeys years with 2 pairs of hand-knitted wool socks... funnily enough I have not had a single chilblain since coming to Canada but suffered really badly when I lived in the UK!

I am now at peace.

Thank you.

Hi. I've been wondering about this too.
I take on board all the good advice re buying appropriately in Canada but what about stocking up on bargain ski wear here in the U.K. I was looking this week at ski jackets in TK Maxx. Now I've never actually been skiing so couldn't judge on that point, but I did wonder if it was worth picking up something if I particularly liked it and put it away (A sort of Canada 'bottom drawer') for our arrival in Canada next year. They seem to have high quality brand name ski clothing, with reductions such as; £200 down to £60, and £150 down to £40. If you do need a good compliment of coats do you think it’s worth slowly accumulating it in this way? Are ski type jackets just kept for the time in the mountains and not really for day to day activities at -30?
Cheers.

TK Maxx ski clothing has a good reputation and I would consider buying it.

We arrived in Clagary to -18 ish and it was great our kids already had something to wear.

I went for a job interview on one of calgary's coldest days last year, in the downtown. It was something like -35ish witha wind chill to -50. This is severely cold and exposed skin gets frostbite in 5-10mins. The planned heated car park was full as the C train wasn't working that day due to the cold. I wore dress boots, skirt, down jacket, hat, mittens, face mask. I only had to walk 50m to the plus 15 and boy it was cold.

Gryphea

hmmm .. hot in the canadian sense??? So what does that mean?

1) Get my kit off, sleep with the interviewer, be it male or female or

2) Im always hot so underdress so not to sweat buckets

Lmao ..

Sas-Lou, in Canada we compromise: we don't go to extremes, maybe something in between option 1 and 2

1. Hot = fit

R.

Lots of people wear their ski jackets in the city.

The only thing I would say is that, being short, a ski jacket is not adequate at colder temperatures. When does a ski jacket start becoming inadequate for city use? Oh, I don't know. Maybe -20 deg C and below that.

When you ski, you're also wearing insulated ski trousers, but you generally don't do that in the city. So you want your city coat or jacket to be longer. At a minimum it should be thigh length. You need it to cover your butt when you sit down somewhere cold (e.g., a car that has been parked outside). You also need it to be long enough so that the cold wind cannot easily make contact with your body core. A waist-length ski jacket just does not accomplish that task. At -30 deg C, the difference between a waist-length jacket and a thigh-length jacket is HUGE.

In very cold weather, it's also useful to have a parka with an insulated hood. That helps a lot.

Having a ski jacket when you arrived in Canada certainly would help, as gyphea indicated. But, if you live in the prairie provinces at least, that will not remain your only winter jacket.
x
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Definitely need your bum covered, definitely.

Get heated seats!

I would definitely say to get a coat with a hood; hat and scarf are OK at -40C in still air, but if the wind gets up at low temperatures you really want a hood to keep it off your head.

Watch the film 'Cool runnings' that should give you an idea