[Andy6]

Here are a (very) few shots from Winnipeg during my recent visit. It was cold the whole time and the only day I was downtown it was -30C. This should at least convey how bright and beautiful it can be when it's really cold. Not like the dismal damp overcast winter days of the East:

Lane:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3202/3153408859_9395ed5fac_b.jpg

Holy Trinity:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3238/3153794847_c8d081f106_b.jpg

Winnipeg Clinic I:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3081/3154318058_e31929bb83_b.jpg

Winnipeg Clinic II:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3250/3154313692_50e8e6b859_b.jpg

Cityplace:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3264/3154201234_7138ece2a7_b.jpg

Millennium Library staircase I:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3238/3153352811_7e8cacc960_b.jpg

Millennium Library staircase II:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3254/3154221988_5f3b81bf70_b.jpg

Woodsworth Building (Government of Manitoba) flanked by the domes of the Legislature and the Law Courts Building:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3217/3154211288_5772d90c34_b.jpg

The nearly complete Manitoba Hydro head office building:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3110/3154176930_766bbabf32_b.jpg

The Free Press Building:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3077/3153422815_0c5527762c_b.jpg

The Boyd Building:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3083/3153430577_6ba913b02e_b.jpg

Edmonton Street, looking south toward the Winnipeg Convention Centre:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3131/3154284466_bd82665701_b.jpg

Memorial Boulevard, looking south toward the Manitoba Legislature, surmounted by the famous Golden Boy:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3118/3153454543_8a9ddc07bb_b.jpg

Looking down Osborne Street North toward the two Great-West Life Assurance Co. buildings:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3112/3154299238_e9583cef89_b.jpg

In the library, a display about the history of housing developments in Winnipeg:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3212/3158486596_aff012c8a8_b.jpg

Graham Avenue downtown, with one of Winnipeg's orange buses:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3130/3157643545_749ed358e6_b.jpg

Portage Place shopping centre, a 1980s attempt at urban renewal that has not quite failed badly enough to be a textbook case of what not to do, although it's touch-and-go:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3263/3158456542_bb90947baa_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3283/3157600719_0d186f7a4d_b.jpg

Taking a walk down Portage Avenue when it's at least -30C should be a requirement of Canadian citizenship:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3196/3157585319_2579c4a4b5_b.jpg

Outside my (parents') house on New Year's Day. A lot of snow this year:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3244/3156972732_b812beca80_b.jpg

St. Mary's Cathedral, the most ancient building in the central business district. Behind it is the Eaton's Mail Order Building, now turned into offices and an unsuccessful mall under the dumb name of Cityplace. The adjacent Eaton's Department Store was similarly massive but was demolished a few years ago:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3225/3155753706_7db0dd5675_b.jpg

The south entrance of the new Hydro building and Cityplace again. The dramatic light and long shadows are something I miss about Winnipeg:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3210/3154449741_10f9f3770f_b.jpg

The Royal Winnipeg Ballet building at Edmonton and Graham:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3116/3155295338_4feed7161a_b.jpg

Vaughan Street:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3283/3154427701_7b51851c94_b.jpg

The Manitoba Hydro building's southern exposure lets sunlight into vast internal atriums, known to classically educated forumers as "atria":

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3284/3154432433_b05df71c91_b.jpg

The shopping mall portion of Cityplace. After Eaton's mail order operation shut down in the mid-70s, the building was redeveloped into offices on the upper storeys and a two-level mall called Eaton Place at the bottom. The mall has struggled on without the department store to support it:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3257/3154909646_c49a66c2a2_b.jpg

The Hudson's Bay Co. department store, main floor (of six):

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3184/3154054827_b625f914b3_b.jpg

Winnipeg Art Gallery, Memorial Boulevard:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3220/3154033885_5467936ba7_b.jpg

Some of what one could theoretically do there:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3196/3154863618_21b2769dbd_b.jpg

Anyway, it was cold enough by that time so I boarded a bus and headed home.

[Kris22]

Great photos. I don't know how your fingers functioned well enough to work a camera in -30 degrees! I was trying to put coins in a parking meter today and almost died (it didn't help that I couldn't figure out how to work it at first!)

The sunshine is beautiful in the winter and makes for great photos.

[1ajs]

nice andy
i take it u shot the auto focus off in the cold? good idea canbe hard on the lens motors and such and drains them batteries a little fast...

anyhow even in our deep freeze we still get out and injoy the city and do our stuff even if sometimes we don't want to...

[Top Of The Park]

warm looking city, although I'm sure its cold outside

[someone123]

Nice pictures. The Manitoba Hydro building turned out fairly well as far as I can tell. Materials make a big difference... it seems hard to go wrong with glass curtain walls and stone cladding, while anything cheaper is a huge uphill battle (architecturally) that is usually lost.

Some of the people are kind of red looking. Those returning to Vancouver from holidays on the Prairies keep going on about how "tropical" it feels here. A 30 degree difference in temperatures is pretty extreme (add it again and you go from winter to a heat wave, although I don't think the linear numerical progression totally matches up with human perception).

[drew]

great pics on a classic sunny and cold Winnipeg winter day!

[harls]

A nice tour.. I can feel the cold.

Still amazes me that some yahoos chose not to wear any toques or mitts when it's -30.

[Andy6]

nice andy
i take it u shot the auto focus off in the cold? good idea canbe hard on the lens motors and such and drains them batteries a little fast...

No, ajs. For my three grand Nikon threw in a free block heater for the d300.

Anyway, for the sake of completeness here are a few more pictures from my abbreviated walk around the part of downtown that no one ever bothers taking pictures of...

The Library, main entrance:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3448/3183286925_c9e2c1a89b_b.jpg

The front lobby of the Library:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3347/3183287613_71c22325ab_b.jpg

Rear entrance of the MTS Centre sports arena:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3448/3183288799_abbf70b812_b.jpg

Also on Graham Avenue, the studios of CTV television (CKY-TV):
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3419/3183283891_1b16270d0b_b.jpg

Street corner discussion between typically underdressed locals (-30 C as noted above):

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3264/3183290291_bd35573a46_b.jpg

Art Gallery as art:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3112/3183291179_72cb8c08a7_b.jpg

Graham Avenue looking west:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3511/3183285787_3bb76de0ac_b.jpg

Eaton's Mail Order Building (Cityplace):
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3485/3183284673_716d5cfe64_b.jpg

Concrete buildings of Lakeview Square (BDC Building, Delta Hotel, etc.), a vast monument to the 70s:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3113/3183282409_8d83837467_b.jpg

The Abbott Clinic Building now that the Abbott Clinic has closed up:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3389/3184117286_47dbd96c03_b.jpg

The Provincial Archives (right) in the old Winnipeg Auditorium, including the Hudson's Bay Company archives, make Winnipeg one of the great centres for the study of the history of the interior of the North American continent:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3501/3183268465_4825032686_b.jpg

The steeple of St. Mary's Cathedral:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3451/3183289457_b366eea48b_b.jpg

[Doady]

Great photos.

Does anyone agree that Winnipeg looks like a much larger city than it actually is?

[drew]

Great photos.

Does anyone agree that Winnipeg looks like a much larger city than it actually is?

Maybe, but that is because it is a relatively isolated "major" centre, whose region of influence includes all of Manitoba, Northwest Ontario, and maybe parts of Saskatchewan, and Nunavut (an argument could be made for including North Dakota and Northern Minnesota, but I don't really think so)

Winnipeg needs to provide all the "big city" services and amenities that you might not expect if a similar sized city was located closer to say, Toronto.

Also it helps (hurts?) that Winnipeg boomed during the first half of the 1900's, and as a result has a relatively oversized downtown business area designed to handle a much larger population base than has not yet been realized.