|
Kritzkrieg Kop posted:OK everyone likes to say their city/town has the worst drivers.....OBJECTIVELY who really has the worst drivers? And where is it actually the worst place to drive in? I haven't been to every province, but Quebec drivers were the only ones where I was actually scared to be in the car. It was a combo of bad, dangerous driving, and Quebecs really lovely roads.
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2017 20:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 19:03 |
|
|
Bloody Hedgehog posted:I haven't been to every province, but Quebec drivers were the only ones where I was actually scared to be in the car. It was a combo of bad, dangerous driving, and Quebecs really lovely roads. On the other hand, Quebec is the one province where it's law to stay the gently caress out of the left hand lane of a highway if you're not passing, so they are doing God's work.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2017 20:35
|
|
|
Toronto resident chiming in here to say that Quebec is pretty bad for driving. There's a reason you can't turn right on a red light in Montreal.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2017 23:42
|
|
|
PT6A posted:On the other hand, Quebec is the one province where it's law to stay the gently caress out of the left hand lane of a highway if you're not passing, so they are doing God's work. The dual lanes here in BC have signage saying keep right unless passing. And by "here" I mean 400km away. Single lane with occasional dotted passing line woohoo. There's been times I'm driving up the highway for work stuck behind a convoy of RVs riding each other like 2 feet apart and they never let you in so you have to pass like 10 at a time doing 160 and hope there's no cops nearby.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2017 04:09
|
|
|
tuyop posted:I don't know, everything's so far apart that I don't see much of a difference between moving from one coast to the other and moving from any other large city to another unless you're in Southern Ontario. What are the other options? Nearly everything in this country is a day away from everything else and the only difference is whether you're flying or driving Kritzkrieg Kop posted:OK everyone likes to say their city/town has the worst drivers.....OBJECTIVELY who really has the worst drivers? And where is it actually the worst place to drive in? The worst city I've driven in is Montreal, because of the island factor and that there are many one way roads. However, nearly every time I've been to Toronto I've seen people run reds. Bad drivers are everywhere, which is why Canada's Worst Driver is thoroughly entertaining. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngXHtCsfdqY- contestant drives 140 during a challenge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NovNO3BgnGw&t=375s - just another contestant. DeadMansSuspenders fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Jun 6, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2017 15:36
|
|
|
tuyop posted:I wonder why more Vancouverites don't hop over to Halifax. It's just like Vancouver but with 10% of the costs, natural beauty, and hope! In the late 2000s I was making around 35k with parttime work and my rent was $650/month for a mid scale downtown high rise apartment that would cost three times as much in Edmonton. You can live in Dartmouth and buy a beautiful house near like six lakes and the ferry for <200k. It's ridiculous. I wouldn't say its like Vancouver at all, for one thing you don't have an IKEA. I grew up in Vancouver but went to school in Halifax for *reasons*. Things I noticed while studying there; Asian food is sparse, the weather is really horrid compared to the mild Vancouver weather, and nearly everything is closed on Sunday. Admittedly you are right about the rent, and wages but I'm just not entirely convinced and I don't think I would ever move out there. I greatly prefer living in the west, and I don't really plan on moving further east then Saskatchewan unless my job advancement prospects don't pan out. Working in Calgary right now though.
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2017 04:05
|
|
|
Chillyrabbit posted:I wouldn't say its like Vancouver at all, for one thing you don't have an IKEA. I grew up in Vancouver but went to school in Halifax for *reasons*. Things I noticed while studying there; Asian food is sparse, the weather is really horrid compared to the mild Vancouver weather, and nearly everything is closed on Sunday. Admittedly you are right about the rent, and wages but I'm just not entirely convinced and I don't think I would ever move out there. I greatly prefer living in the west, and I don't really plan on moving further east then Saskatchewan unless my job advancement prospects don't pan out. Working in Calgary right now though. Not trying to be defensive but the IKEA is opening soon and Sunday shopping is pretty much universal now! I also don't know how many hundreds of thousands of dollars having an extra five or six sushi or Thai places is worth to you, in housing costs, but that's a strange metric. Especially when Saskatchewan is preferable. I would totally believe ~culture~ as a reason, though. The whole region is hopelessly conservative and fatalistic about progress and that really fucks with lots of hard to quantify quality of life stuff.
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2017 04:49
|
|
|
I've lived in Vancouver, Victoria, Quesnel, Fort St John and Edmonton and I'm pretty convinced that west of the Rockies is the One True Place and the rest of the country is pretty much a write-off. Totally different feel both culturally and geographically. West of the Rockies has texture.
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2017 07:20
|
|
|
It's true that west of the rockies is just different, but really I think it boils down to being the least "Canadian" part of the country. People here aren't all that "rah rah Canada" to begin with, and most of the Canadian stereotypes and mannerisms don't really have a foothold here, at least compared to east of the Rockies. I swear, the US could annex BC, and there would be an uproar for about a week, and then everyone would be fine with it once they got their hands on some decent currency for once. There's very little that ties the hearts and minds of the average British Columbian to the rest of Canada.
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2017 08:13
|
|
|
Canada is highly regional. I feel more in common with people from the Northeastern US (Vermont, Massachusetts, parts of Maine, New Hampshire, etc) than with anyone West of New Brunswick. That being said, there's a whole lot of country to go past Edmonton and it's a bit silly to write it off based on Alberta. Personally, I think Quebec is incredible and I'd follow an opportunity there in an instant, but I'd have to really consider Western BC if something came up.
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2017 13:18
|
|
|
There's a reason people talk about cascadia as a thing, but that leads into discussions on north american regional politics and that's fun for no one.
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2017 13:23
|
|
|
Bloody Hedgehog posted:It's true that west of the rockies is just different, but really I think it boils down to being the least "Canadian" part of the country. People here aren't all that "rah rah Canada" to begin with, and most of the Canadian stereotypes and mannerisms don't really have a foothold here, at least compared to east of the Rockies. as an American our east coast/west coast dynamic is not too different from this. I grew up in California but I've lived on the east coast off and on for over a decade, and it's the same thing where the east coast is the source of most of the well known American stereotypes whether they are "yankees" or "southerners" etc., people here are substantially more patriotic (you would never see a Californian town covered in American flags like you see in New England or the Mid Atlantic), and it's basically the land of the typical "white picket fence" ideal American suburb life depicted in Rockwell paintings and that sort of thing I would say that to some extent BC and states like Washington, Oregon and parts of northern California have more in common with each other than they all do with the rest of the US or Canada. Earwicker fucked around with this message at 13:34 on Jun 7, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2017 13:31
|
|
|
tuyop posted:Not trying to be defensive but the IKEA is opening soon and Sunday shopping is pretty much universal now! I also don't know how many hundreds of thousands of dollars having an extra five or six sushi or Thai places is worth to you, in housing costs, but that's a strange metric. Especially when Saskatchewan is preferable. Yeah I guess you hit the nail on the head. It's the culture that is hard to get used to coming from vancouver to the Maritimes. Not everyone can do it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2017 15:58
|
|
|
Earwicker posted:people here are substantially more patriotic (you would never see a Californian town covered in American flags like you see in New England or the Mid Atlantic) I live in San Diego, and I dispute this claim.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2017 07:44
|
|
|
Calgary here, and I travelled to Toronto last December for the first time as an adult. When people say Calgary has no soul as a city, they are 100% correct. Our city center is so stale and lifeless compared to a place like Toronto. It's just office drones going out for lunch during the day and crazies going out for drugs at night. I used to pass through downtown after evening courses at MRU and I never felt so isolated and alone and unsafe which is ridiculous for a city of over 1 million people. I was really jealous of all the amazing hole in the wall restaurants literally everywhere. We've got a few fast food chain places, and some scattered Tim's, Starbucks, and Good Earth's. In Toronto I felt like I was in a real city, not like Calgary which tries so hard but will always just be a giant small prairie town. That being said, I'll probably always live here because I love Kananaskis Country so much I couldn't stand to leave it. It really is a gem of a place in Canada.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2017 09:29
|
|
|
Vincent Van Goatse posted:I live in San Diego, and I dispute this claim. San Diego is a bit different compared to the rest of CA because it's such a military town but even so, it's still nowhere near as covered in Patriotic Americana as a typical Connecticut small town
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2017 12:10
|
|
|
Picnic Princess posted:When people say Calgary has no soul as a city, they are 100% correct. Our city center is so stale and lifeless compared to a place like Toronto. It's just office drones going out for lunch during the day and crazies going out for drugs at night. I used to pass through downtown after evening courses at MRU and I never felt so isolated and alone and unsafe which is ridiculous for a city of over 1 million people. Calgary has a gorgeous downtown, just stunning, but when we went there for a festival and wanted to wander the beautiful downtown afterward, everything was shut down. It's like the city center area just died once the office folks went home for the day.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2017 13:52
|
|
|
It's not just evenings -- weekends downtown will also provide you a wonderful opportunity to see what the post-apocalypse would look like if just crackheads and drunks were left alive. We've had a few stabbings in the middle of downtown recently, too -- one was completely random and took place on a C-Train platform.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2017 14:35
|
|
|
Earwicker posted:San Diego is a bit different compared to the rest of CA because it's such a military town but even so, it's still nowhere near as covered in Patriotic Americana as a typical Connecticut small town When we went down to California for a trip a few years ago, I was surprised at the number of large American flags everywhere. We stayed in Modesto, but also visited Sacramento and San Francisco. Around here, we've got some regular Canadian flags hanging around at schools, government buildings, or maybe a grocery store. The ones I saw in California were HUGE, 6 foot long flags. I have never seen such massive flags and there was usually one in my field of vision. Is that the norm in America? To me, California seemed super patriotic compared to Canada.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2017 14:37
|
|
|
well yeah anywhere in the US is still going to have more flags than Canada, I was just comparing east vs west within the US the huge 6 foot flags you saw were most likely car dealerships, generally speaking they use substantially larger flags than those used for actual official purposes or for actual patriotic decoration, thats a common thing in suburbs everywhere in the US Earwicker fucked around with this message at 14:44 on Jun 8, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2017 14:41
|
|
|
PT6A posted:It's not just evenings -- weekends downtown will also provide you a wonderful opportunity to see what the post-apocalypse would look like if just crackheads and drunks were left alive. LOL YEAH- no one has to work on weekends in Canada except the druggies, what a paradise!! Us normals don't do drugs or drink, and definitely don't pay to get even more drugs!! FWIW I was born in the american south but I've seen more confederate flags in Ontario and in BC, individually, than in any southern state. Also anyone willfully living west of the canadian rockies is either a rich yuppie or a wannabe rich yuppie 
Edgar Allen Ho fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Jun 8, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2017 17:53
|
|
|
Edgar Allen Ho posted:LOL YEAH- no one has to work on weekends in Canada except the druggies, what a paradise!! Us normals don't do drugs or drink, and definitely don't pay to get even more drugs!! I have the feeling you don't really want to discuss this in good faith, but I'll try anyway. I live in downtown Calgary, 7 days a week obviously, and if you don't think there's a massive change in the number of people around, and their likelihood to be very intoxicated at any given time, on weekends, I can tell you you are wrong. Most of the business downtown is Monday to Friday, 9-5 sort of stuff, and many other businesses (restaurants, retail, etc.) downtown either close or operate on very limited hours on weekends because the customer base is so much smaller. Perhaps I was just the tiniest bit hyperbolic in my earlier statement, but it can get pretty weird on a Sunday morning. There are people wandering into traffic, having yelling matches and the occasional fight with things only they can see, people passed out in bus shelters with Listerine bottles around them, and all sorts of other stuff -- these are things I saw while walking from my apartment to the grocery store just last weekend, not some kind of conjecture on my part. While these things are always around, to some degree, there are way fewer normal people around to balance things out. The rest of Calgary is fine, even significantly more active on the weekends, but downtown, being heavily office-focused, is comparatively dead and weird on weekends, even more than late at night. Sorry, that's just the way it is.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2017 18:41
|
|
|
Edgar Allen Ho posted:Also anyone willfully living west of the canadian rockies is either a rich yuppie or a wannabe rich yuppie Or a literal lumberjack like my uncle Stewart. I lived and worked in downtown Edmonton and it doesn't get near as dead as Calgary. The downtown mall would close at 6 most days, but even then, there are plenty of bars and restaurants, so you'd still see people wandering around. Rarely having to work evenings or weekends was one of the best parts of working retail downtown. Working in City Centre Mall was an experience though. Many weirdos. I wasn't working when it happened, but a kid stabbed another kid over heroine right in front of our store once. A guy who tried to steal from us was seen passed out in the middle of the mall in front of the store. Alarms would go off randomly and we just stopped paying attention to them. Power outages were not uncommon. One time, some random guy got access to a restricted area of the mall and cut a bunch of wires, leaving our store and several others without power or phones. Once the power came back on, we were without internet for a whole weekend and thus could only take cash. People were super mad that we couldn't look stuff up for them. It took several more days for the phones to come back. It was real nice not having to answer phones for a few days, but customers got real mad that we were refusing to pick up the phone. After all that, the mall tried to charge the store for the cost of the repairs, even though it was their own failed security that caused it in the first place. Our clientele at HMV downtown comprised mainly of wealthy business people who would pick up the latest releases and people who didn't want to or were unable to spend more than $10. Due to the homeless shelter not far away, we had both the extremely wealthy and the extremely poor. Many folks were mentally ill or unwell. There was one old man who would come in wearing the same stained clothes nearly every day. He would pick up the first things he saw in the store and buy them. He would never give you enough money to pay for them, so you always had to ask him for money. He'd just stare at you in response, so some cashiers let him get away with it. He once came up and showed me an empty wallet. I told him he couldn't buy the CDs then and he left. He stopped coming around shortly after that. I wonder how many other stores he would go to. It was sad because he really needed someone with him to make sure he didn't waste $80 on a season of Doctor Who and a Shania Twain CD every day. He was always alone and he never talked. There was also David. He was a mentally delayed regular who called us all the time and ordered stuff in. We always tried to be nice to him. He'd call us in advance of every holiday to wish everyone in the store a happy holiday. Like he would call us in May to wish us all a Happy Father's Day. I think we were his best friends. On a lighter note, there was also Tranformers Tammy. She was a 40-something woman who was in love with Optimus Prime. I know this because she told me this. She told everyone this. She would hang around the children's section and make moms uncomfortable by talking to them about various robot shows and which ones had the best character development. Tammy also writes Transformers fan fiction. I have never read any of her work, but I can imagine what it's about. Nessa fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Jun 8, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2017 20:13
|
|
|
Edgar Allen Ho posted:LOL YEAH- no one has to work on weekends in Canada except the druggies, what a paradise!! Us normals don't do drugs or drink, and definitely don't pay to get even more drugs!! We were discussing downtown Calgary, not the entire country. Have you been there much on evenings and weekends? It's exactly like a small town only bigger. Hardly anything is open and the streets are mostly deserted. It's really bizarre for a so-called big city.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2017 02:12
|
|
|
Kritzkrieg Kop posted:OK everyone likes to say their city/town has the worst drivers.....OBJECTIVELY who really has the worst drivers? And where is it actually the worst place to drive in? I grew up in rural Newfoundland and when I moved to Calgary I thought "Jesus the drivers are the loving worst here" Then I moved to the Vancouver region so I take it back. I take it all back. That coupled with the insane amount of jaywalkers I see here is just a nightmare. I don't know how the streets aren't covered in human paste. Picnic Princess posted:We were discussing downtown Calgary, not the entire country. Have you been there much on evenings and weekends? It's exactly like a small town only bigger. Hardly anything is open and the streets are mostly deserted. It's really bizarre for a so-called big city. Yeah even around the university things just kind of die. It's really strange. edit: also I spent 22 years of my life in the sticks of Newfoundland ama I guess Mak0rz fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Jun 10, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2017 21:29
|
|
|
I moved from Calgary to (metro) Vancouver and its really, really weird going downtown after 6pm. I usually forget what day/time it is, because there's.... people? Walking around? The Shoppers is open and the sun has set????? I think part of the reason, aside from there being nothing there in downtown Calgary, is just that its such a pain to get around the city after 6. Taxis are stupid expensive, the train runs less frequently and its last run is fairly early even on weekends. The whole city's so spread out it takes forever to do anything and its just... a big town.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2017 21:46
|
|
|
Mak0rz posted:also I spent 22 years of my life in the sticks of Newfoundland ama I guess What's a common vacation spot for people who want to get away for like a week? It seems like there are huge barriers to seeing other places that are unique to Newfoundland. Are you talking Labrador sticks or Island sticks? I know nothing about Labrador. There could be dragons there for all I've learned. What did your parents and grandparents do for money? Were people hilariously upset about the closing of the fishery?
|
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2017 15:36
|
|
|
tuyop posted:What's a common vacation spot for people who want to get away for like a week? It seems like there are huge barriers to seeing other places that are unique to Newfoundland. Spending "like a week" in a single place is a bad idea because you'll run out of poo poo to do sooner than that unless you go to St. John's. If Newfoundlanders are spending a week's vacation on the island they're either just visiting family or taking a road trip of sorts. If the latter, then chances are they're going through Gros Morne and surrounding areas for hiking, sightseeing, or camping. That area draws a lot of tourists so the local communities will have stuff to see and do like dinner theaters and such. If you keep going north from there through hamlets surrounded by wind-blasted tuckamore you'll eventually wind up in Lans aux Meadows where the restored Viking settlement can be found. Travelling through a few historic places on the east side of the island is always an option too, such as Trinity and nearby areas. Or if you're into skiing you can always just rent a hostel/B&B in Steady Brook in the west and enjoy the slopes! tuyop posted:Are you talking Labrador sticks or Island sticks? I know nothing about Labrador. There could be dragons there for all I've learned. Island. Nobody refers to Labrador as just "Newfoundland." Though, I lived less than a five hours' drive from a major center so it really wasn't "the sticks" by Newfie standards. I've actually never been to Labrador. Dragons are a possibility. tuyop posted:What did your parents and grandparents do for money? My mom works in healthcare and has been at the same place for decades. My dad works at offices for primary industry and usually jumps from contract to contract. Because of this he spent a lot of time away from home when I was a child. He's been all over the country and only ever had a job near home when I was in high school. I'm not sure what my maternal grandfather did before the resettlement program uprooted his family and sent them to my hometown in the 60's. Then he became a heavy machinery operator. My paternal grandfather was a businessman. He owned a general store, a bar and parlor, and even a small cinema. He was one of the first people in town to own a vehicle and was first to make Coca Cola and ice cream available in our little network of port towns. Both my grandmothers were stay at home wives, though my paternal grandma was kind of a public figure in town because of her involvement with the church. tuyop posted:Were people hilariously upset about the closing of the fishery? "Hilarious" is very far from the word I would use. I didn't come from a fishing family, so we were fine, but a lot of people were financially devastated. Some places had the fishery as its only industry so people had to either live on a welfare pittance or move abroad to make a living which separated people from their families and the homes they lived in for decades. The collapse and moratorium ruined lives! I remember watching an episode of the Newfie documentary series Land & Sea about it. They talked to an old man and he started to cry during the interview. It was heartbreaking. Mak0rz fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Jun 11, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2017 16:41
|
|
|
That's interesting and I feel bad now, I was imagining more of an Albertan response to the national energy program, which is hilarious to me because Alberta was - and is - absurdly rich in oil. Since they weren't really hurt that badly by the NEP, I'm pretty unsympathetic to the bellyaching. I didn't expect despair from the fisheries closure, I guess.
|
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2017 19:21
|
|
|
tuyop posted:That's interesting and I feel bad now, I was imagining more of an Albertan response to the national energy program, which is hilarious to me because Alberta was - and is - absurdly rich in oil. Since they weren't really hurt that badly by the NEP, I'm pretty unsympathetic to the bellyaching. I didn't expect despair from the fisheries closure, I guess. Yeah, apples and oranges. The Alberta collapse is exactly the kind of blowup you'd expect if you put all your eggs in one very lucrative but volatile basket without preparing for contingencies. Hubris played a big role. Unlike oil, the food fishery wasn't exactly an industry that controlled most of the world's economy. A of Newfoundlanders working in the industry weren't exactly rich or anything, but they made a living. Those working on the boats and in the plants could only be paid if fish were being brought in, and that was getting hard and harder to do in the 80's when the cod stocks finally hit their breaking point. Wikipedia posted:The moratorium in 1992 marked the largest industrial closure in Canadian history, and it was expressed most acutely in Newfoundland, whose continental shelf lay under the region most heavily fished. Over 35,000 fishers and plant workers from over 400 coastal communities became unemployed. Mind, hubris played a role here too. Unlike oil, it can be sustainable, but overfishing and habitat destruction caused things to get out of hand almost as soon as it began. Government mismanagement and poor understanding of cod ecology was a big part of it. We've known for a very long time that oil is kind of an unstable market, but cod? Do you know how big the ocean is? How many fish a single person can get in six hours? There's no way we can possibly fish them all are you crazy!? The image a lot of people get of Alberta when it went belly-up a few years ago is of upper middle-class people struggling to pay off their third truck or the balsawood mansion they bought on the outskirts of Calgary. Not sure how widespread that is but I'm sure it does describe a lot of the people affected and, as you said, the province still isn't really in as bad of shape as people say. In Newfoundland it became people struggling to stay home and feed their children. Another story I think about when someone mentions the collapse is one of a woman from Fogo witnessing her father coming home from sea after a whole day of fishing and throwing a single codfish onto land. He then dragged his boat to shore, doused it with gasoline, and torched it. Edit: Note that those 35,000 people that became unemployed were 7% of the province's population and it happened literally overnight on July 2, 1992. That doesn't count the probable thousands that jumped ship and switched careers in the years before the moratorium dropped. The northwest Atlantic cod fishery was a lucrative and stable industry for five hundred years before then. Mak0rz fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Jun 11, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2017 20:02
|
|
|
Mak0rz posted:Yeah, apples and oranges. The Alberta collapse is exactly the kind of blowup you'd expect if you put all your eggs in one very lucrative but volatile basket without preparing for contingencies. Hubris played a big role. Yeah that's exactly it. The latest drama about oil has produced stories in my workplace that go like, "Oh man, that family was doing so well! They had a boat, two trucks, a jet ski and snowmobile in their driveway. Then the jet ski went away, then the snowmobile, and now they've sold their house after just two months!" And people will be nearly in tears recounting these stories. I just can't understand the sympathy or feel bad for these people.
|
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2017 20:44
|
|
|
tuyop posted:What's a common vacation spot for people who want to get away for like a week? It seems like there are huge barriers to seeing other places that are unique to Newfoundland. Mak0rz did a good job answering stuff, I'm just throwing my 2 cents in to add to his account. I grew up in Labrador (Labrador West, 20 minutes from the border with Quebec) and it looks like where the giants hang out in Skyrim. There are no dragons per se but the blackflies will combine into a giant single entity in the summer about the size and shape of a dragon sooooooooooo.... My whole family is from the island of Newfoundland though, I ended up being born in Labrador due to my father working for the mine. Mak0rz mentioned resettlement (when whole outport towns were abandoned and moved to central locations to try and provide better services, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resettlement_(Newfoundland)) and gave a good background on the fisheries issue, which is good because my family was also not employed in the fisheries. My grandfather on my father's side was a heavy equipment mechanic and worked putting in the highway across NL, no mean feat in a rocky, mountainous land. He met my grandmother at her step-father's boarding house, where she worked. My father grew up in a town that mimics most other North American towns in the 50s, with roads and cars and black and white tvs and even indoor plumbing (this is important). My grandfather on my mother's side primarily worked as a woodsman (first) and camp cook (later) at a woods camp, while also being a barber and a blacksmith (responsible for shoeing the company horses). My grandmother did a lot of volunteer work while my grandfather was alive, sold dresses from catalogues (sort of an early version of Avon but for clothing only) and later did housecleaning after my grandfather passed away. The town they lived in was a company town ('owned' by the woods company) and you couldn't get into it without a pass from the company. The only transportation in for a long time was the train. The general store was a company store, so you got what you needed and each pay you'd see deductions for what you 'purchased' from the store. There was no road into the town until '57, no one had a car until after that, tvs didn't appear until slightly after that point as well, and most of the town had outhouses and no indoor plumbing until the 60s. My grandfather used to buy a barrel of apples and a barrel of oranges in December and that would be the family's fruit for the rest of the winter. My mom's early childhood was weirdly reminiscent of pioneer life in some ways, and its like her and my father grew up in different eras, even though they were only a couple of hours (via road) apart. The idea of 'company' towns was prevalent in Newfoundland even into the 60s, with the fisheries being the worst offenders. Outport communities (communities on the water, only access was by boats) were often subject to the whims of fishery companies, who would control access to groceries and supplies (charged in advance of that season's fishing) and then take a community's fishing haul at whatever rate they determined, usually deducting all grocery/supply costs from the tally of the fishing total, leaving folks with little to no actual 'money' (sometimes they were paid in 'credit' towards the next year.) The woods companies were just as bad, limited access to towns and supplies, and the conditions at the woods camps were terrible. My grandfather passed away before I was born, but I know the stories well, your only bed was the birch boughs you cut yourself and lined your wooden pallet with, the food was beans and salt pork fat (every meal) and the hours were long and cold or long and buggy. Given these conditions the fight to unionize in the 50s turned violent at times, where companies tried to starve out families who had no other source of income while the father/husband was striking. If you ever wonder why Newfoundland is so pro-union, you need to know their history with the fisheries and the forestry sectors. As a fun fact, the isolation of outport communities resulted in the preservation of spoken SHAKESPEAREAN ERA ENGLISH into the early parts of the 20th century. Turns out when you take a group of people who speak a certain way and isolate them in a community for hundreds of years, their accent and word usage remains fairly unchanged 
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2017 19:54
|
|
|
I was talking with my mom earlier and the farmhouse she grew up in in rural Alberta didn't get electricity until 1960. And they didn't have indoor plumbing until 1976. It was only a few years ago that the 2 outhouses 30 feet from the house were torn down. My grandpa essentially lived in a mud hut when he was a child and became terrified of snakes, since garter snakes would crawl through the walls and ceiling while he slept.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2017 01:31
|
|
|
Spadoink posted:As a fun fact, the isolation of outport communities resulted in the preservation of spoken SHAKESPEAREAN ERA ENGLISH into the early parts of the 20th century. Turns out when you take a group of people who speak a certain way and isolate them in a community for hundreds of years, their accent and word usage remains fairly unchanged Yeah, the same is true for speakers of Canadian Ukrainian and Icelandic dialects. Not nearly as old, but still frozen in time. I think Icelandic is kind of unique because the speakers were/are detached from the language purity laws of the national language, though I'm not sure how that effected how the language was spoken. Newfoundland English, French, and Irish are officially recognized as distinct dialects of their respective languages. Newfoundland Irish is long extinct and Newfie French is getting very close because there's no real reason for the youth to speak it, not that many spoke it to begin with. Newfoundland English is still around, but is quickly losing a lot its regionalisms because of more widespread global media access and more educated youth to name a few factors. There was a time where you could pinpoint a person's region or even hometown based on their accent, grammar, or use of certain vocabulary. Not so much anymore. Thankfully, unlike French (?) and Irish, the English dialect has at least been heavily documented. Thinkpiece idea: "Millennials are Ruining Newfienese" Nessa posted:I was talking with my mom earlier and the farmhouse she grew up in in rural Alberta didn't get electricity until 1960. And they didn't have indoor plumbing until 1976. It was only a few years ago that the 2 outhouses 30 feet from the house were torn down. Yikes, that's pretty late! I assume that was in the north half? Mak0rz fucked around with this message at 01:57 on Jun 13, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2017 01:51
|
|
|
I really enjoyed this a lot, thanks! My mother's side emigrated from Newfoundland before my grandmother was born, and my great aunt on my father's side is from there as well, so it's nice to learn more about it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2017 02:37
|
|
|
Mak0rz posted:Yikes, that's pretty late! I assume that was in the north half? Only about an hour's drive east of Edmonton!
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2017 03:44
|
|
|
Nessa posted:Only about an hour's drive east of Edmonton!  What the gently caress Alberta?
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2017 04:01
|
|
|
Mak0rz posted:
I think it was more to do with my grandparents not wanting to spend money on things. They had to build a whole addition onto the farmhouse to add an indoor toilet and they only did so because my mom was getting married that year and they were going to have a lot of guests. I'm sure the nearby village had electricity and plumbing before then, but it's also a town where one of the major businesses is a saddlery and I recently saw a picture of 2 horses hitched up in front of my hometown's main bar. Because I was curious, the village of Ryley has a total of 56 businesses, which include: Buzzard Gulch Fisheries (I just have no idea what's up with that name. We have neither buzzards, nor gulches here.) Dales Quality Woodwork Georges Harness & Saddlery (Old timey looking storefront on main street.) Goethe's Kitchen Hartland Stables John's Wheel & Buggy Restoration Juneberry Acres Skyway No. 29 Specializing in Chinese & Western Cuisine Both my grandfather's and great uncle's funerals in the village involved a horse drawn hearse because that's what the old cowboys would have wanted.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2017 05:21
|
|
|
Mak0rz posted:
This is still pretty common on reserves here too! That's a bit of a different story though. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2017 12:19
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 19:03 |
|
|
1) How do you feel about the 150th? 2) How do you feel about the "we shouldn't celebrate 150 years of canada because of how poorly the natives were treated" sentiment?
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2017 20:53
|
|