Quote:
Originally Posted by Ando
This is the dumbest thread ever. Mid-west is an American term.
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It is, and I think a lot of the discussion on this thread is that it doesn't make sense in Canada given our geography and fairly thin east-west population distribution.
Discussion about American and Canadian cities with a similar look and feel as Winnipeg is very interesting. And I think there is a stronger relationship between Winnipeg and the U.S. than we like to imagine: for much of the 19th century, most people and trade travelling between Red River and rest of the world went through St. Paul, and we were very much part of that city's hinterland. Our first steamboat and railway connections were through the United States. Until the Macdonald government urgently punched a railway through the Canadian Shield in the 1880s, there was no reliable connection to (Eastern) Canada that wasn't through the U.S., and there was a significant movement in Winnipeg for annexation with the U.S.
Interestingly, though, St. Paul (and Minneapolis) look and feel quite different from Winnipeg.